Lily Smith

Birthday: September 3, 2005

Given name: Yuriko Landry

Height: 5’7″

 

Lily Smith was born in Houston, Texas to Emiko Nakamoto, a student from Japan who was displaced from New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina in 2007.  A few months earlier, she had been seduced by a fellow student named Robert Landry.  Knowing no one in Houston, having no job, and being completely unable to take care of a child, she put little Yuriko up for adoption.

What happened from there is something of a tragedy.  She was adopted by an apparent couple named Daniel and Vanessa Rittenhouse, they were research scientists at UT Austin at the JJ Pickle labs working on something top secret.  We know that she went to Japan as a child a couple of times, she had learned martial arts, how to ride a horse, and how to play piano, skills she discovered later. 

When she was fourteen, she was in the room studying while her parents were doing a dangerous experiment, and after things went very wrong, her parents ended up dead and she ended up with all her memories gone.  Shortly afterwards, she was found on the side of the road in Round Rock, Texas in July 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic.

She was found by some police officers, who took her to the hospital.  They ran many tests on her, and found out that she had a form of selective amnesia, but it was complete.  She had no memories whatsoever of anything involving her identity, but she retained most of the stuff she’d learned, even if she didn’t realize she knew it.

One of the doctors at the hospital asked the pastor at his church if they knew of anyone who could take her in, and Dave and Sabby (Sabrina) Smith rose to the challenge.  After she was discharged, she went home with them, after choosing the name “Lily” (not knowing that her given name also means Lily).

She stayed in her room for a week, crying almost constantly.  To hear her tell it, she cried so much and so hard that by the time the week was over, there were no tears left.  But Sabby needed to take her shopping, and that remains one of her most treasured memories, she speaks of it often.  After that she started to adapt to her new family, though Beth, the oldest, hated her guts.  David, being 8, didn’t really care, he just wanted to play his games.  For quite a while, Beth tried to bully her (something which Sabby did not put up with) and they did not get along.

The story here starts about a year after she was found, when her doctors suggested she start a diary – and she decided to put it online.  She enlisted the help of her “tech friend” (a boy who seemed to have a crush on her but the interest was not returned) to start her diary, and wrote in it from then on nearly every day.

Soon after starting her diary, Beth started to warm to her and they became sisters.  Also at about that time, Dave and Sabby proposed adoption, to which Lily tearfully agreed.  Also at about this time, Lily became aware of some people very high up in the government who knew what had happened to her, and seemed very interested in making up for some major debt, which only they knew what it was.  So the adoption went very smoothly.

After running into a karen in the store, she became aware that she was accomplished at martial arts, though it’s only muscle memory.

She got a job at a local convenience store, where she dealt with a few more karens.  Poor Lily seems to be a karen magnet.

Just before Christmas, her best friend Liz confided in her that her parents didn’t treat her very well – not abuse, but expecting a lot out of her and being fairly emotionally cold.  Sabby, being Sabby, didn’t stand for this, and went over to their house and confronted them.  While this was initially not received well, eventually her parents realized that there was some truth to it, and as a token of their appreciation, invited Lily to go to Orlando with them for a family vacation for Thanksgiving.  She went with them, and at that time met Liz’s cousin, Jack.

It was lust at first sight, and even though Lily had no desire for a boyfriend, she had a desire for him, and over the next week she had her first kiss, a couple of other firsts, and at the end her heart broke because she had to leave him.  But then a couple of days later, Beth told her she was being stupid, because he’s Liz’s cousin and of course he’ll come visit sometime.  During that vacation, she also discovered she could play piano, very well, actually.

After Thanksgiving came Christmas, and Jack surprised her by coming over with his parents to visit Liz, and Lily too.  Lily was over the moon, dampened only a little by the fact that she couldn’t spend Christmas with their family.  But she had a very good Christmas anyway.  She also met a new friend, Crystal, when volunteering at a homeless shelter, and Crystal had a very dark secret that came out during an ill-fated game of truth or dare.  This led to someone rightly going to prison.

Somewhere around that time, she also found out when her birthdate was and who her birth parents were.  She met her birth mother, Emiko Johnson nee Nakamoto, and wasn’t sure how she felt about her, but they eventually got along alright.  She accompanied Liz at one of her violin concerts, and then did a recital of her own which everyone attended.  After that, she went to Ohio to visit Jack, and had a great time.  That’s also where she discovered that there are shops that do nothing but make the best chocolate ever.

Also around that time a tornado went through Round Rock, and through that met another friend, Diana, whose house was damaged but not destroyed.  Diana and her mother Maria stayed with the Smiths for a little while before getting a hotel room, and Diana became a really good friend who could make a mean taco.

After that, she went to Japan for a couple of weeks, where she met her family on her birth mother’s side.  She met her cousin Ai and became good friends with her, and went all over the country having fun.  After she got home, school started again, and she had an amazing birthday party that everyone attended.

Unfortunately a little later, Crystal attempted suicide, and this led to a lot of drama, obviously.  Crystal ended up going to inpatient treatment for a little while, and Beth was particularly hard hit.

Ai came to visit for Christmas, and had a good time.  This is also when Lily learned she could ride horses really well.  Sabby and Lily also started a cookie bakery which is very successful, and also comes with a little bit of drama on occasion, mostly regarding a cosplay artist nicknamed cat-girl.

She has been asked to perform a concerto with a high school orchestra, so currently all her time is spent practicing for that, rehearsing with Liz for her concert, and eating as much chocolate as she can get her hands on.  She has also gone to Japan a couple of times, the first with Emiko, and the second with pretty much all of her sisters, and had a great time both times.  Now she is getting ready for another concert, getting ready to graduate, and is getting ready to go to college in Japan.