If I Have To

The End and The Beginning

New York, New York
October 19th

Xena L.

"Can you say momma? Momma?" I asked while wiping Amaryllis mouth. Her lips pressed together and she hummed. I hummed with her thinking she was going to finally say it for me.

"M...m...momma." I tried helping her out.

"Dada." She said instead, loud and clear. I frowned soon as she smiled in my face. She was always playing with me, embarrassing me the way that she did.

"Dada. Dada." She kept repeating while clapping her hands. Now, she was overdoing it and she knew she was too. I shook my head and took off the tray and rested it on the table while she continued saying it.

Nine months. That's how long it's been. Nine long, peaceful, and happy months of my life has gone by. I didn't think it could get any better than it already was but I damn sure was wrong about that. Extremely. It felt like I was in one of those fairytales that kept getting better and better as you turn the page. Happy endings after happy endings. One ended and another began right afterwards.

It all started after having Amaryllis and days turned into months in the blink of an eye. She grew up healthy, as I prayed for, and she was right on track with her milestones. Actually, she was more advanced than a lot of babies her age. I wasn't working her too much but just enough that she was talking and learning to walk earlier than expected. All she gave me was dada and some other babbling here or there but that was just as enough too.

Not only was Amaryllis doing good, I was doing amazing too. My shop was opened still and had expanded to another greenhouse because of how crowded it got in the other one. My online store was sold out currently and I had thousands of emails and direct messages wondering when I'll be back in stock. My social media followers increased as well in a way that I never thought would happen. I've been featured in a four more magazines. Two were about gardens and the other two about small businesses while one of those two featured black owned business.

Sage helped me out with that one. During one of her photoshoots, she found a photographer that had her own magazine and helped me get in contact with her. She was so polite and supportive that she ended up becoming a new customer of mine. I've been the go-to for occasions as well such as funerals, weddings, graduations. That's why I had to expand to another area so I have more room to grow my flowers. I even had a spot in the local farmers market a couple weeks ago and sold out there too.

The shelter was finally completed and had its grand opening was a couple days ago too. It was fully renovated in the way that I envisioned it to be by being accessible to everyone. The overall mission of the shelter was to get these people back on their feet and I made sure that was possible with the design, volunteers, and sessions I set up for them. I was finally helping my people how I imagined.

God was working marvelously.

"Are you ready to get out baby?" I asked wiping Amaryllis mouth again. Her new talent was spitting and it was the absolute worst. All she did was spit as she tried talking and allowed it to drool down her chin. Oh, she killed me with that.

"Are you ready?" I asked again while holding my arms out.

She did the same, letting me know that she was ready, and I got her out. She was also good at mimicking gestures and did them effortlessly. Like I said, my baby was advanced. I held her on my hip and began cleaning up our mess from breakfast when I heard the dogs barking. We ended up getting two more to multiple our security. Having bodyguards was nice and all but guard dogs did the trick as well. Plus Kasey begged like crazy for more so I had to deliver. We still had Bluey, Minnie, and Poppy. We added a Doberman named Clifford and a Rottweiler named Rosie.