Everything Changes

One Month Later

July 18th

2266 Azalea Street

Forest Hills, Queens

Time flew fast after Leon was born.

Of course, Bedelia loved him and mothered him, but when she had any down time, she looked into going to night school so she could get her GED to finish her high school education and look into pursuing a college one, no matter how long it took or how old she was by the end. She'd never graduated high school because Kim was born in her junior year, forcing her to drop out of school and get a job to take care of her children since her parents were no help, and Odis Lee had been off doing his own thing at the time.

As for Maggie Blue, she and Noah were the best of friends now, and she was even being looked after by his nanny, too... although in another month, Bedelia would be replacing Chloe as the kids' nanny because Chloe was going to be going on a trip with Habitat For Humanity to The Philippines before moving out west to California, where she'd be starting school at UCLA in the fall.

Maggie Blue was also quite smitten with her new brother, but she also was a little jealous that she was no longer the center of her mother's world, but to rectify that and to give Bedelia time bond with Leon, Maggie Blue spent a lot of time with Amanda and Nick, both of whom were happy to have her and spoil her, claiming that it was a practice run for when their twins were born.

For once in Amanda's life, everything was normal.

Speaking of Amanda, now that hers and Nick's family was expanding, they had moved from Manhattan out to Queens and were now living in an actual house that would be big enough for their their whole family, and with room to spare. It was in a nice family neighborhood with friendly neighbors and good parks and schools nearby... everything the couple wanted for their family.

"Woah!"

Amanda was woken from her sleep with a start, and she had no idea why.

When she looked at the clock on her bedside table, though, she scrambled to disable it because it was about to go off within the next three minutes, as it was.

That sudden movement caused the twins to wake up and wiggle around; they weren't big enough to kick yet, but if anything, they hated being woken up from sleep.

"Okay, babies." Amanda looked down at her fifteen-week belly and rubbed soothing circles on it. "I'm sorry about waking you up. I am."

The blonde's offspring began to settle at the same time that Nick began to stir.

"Talking to Baby Bear and Ladybug?" he asked sleepily.

"Yeah." Amanda leaned over and rubbed her love's shoulder, hoping to ease him awake because he was not a morning person. "Remind me how they got those names."

"Blueberry." Nick mumbled around a yawn.

'Blueberry' was his pet name for Maggie Blue.

"Huh." Amanda remarked. "So the twins are nicknamed Baby Bear and Ladybug, but you call my sister Blueberry, and to me, she's Bluebell. Mama and Audrey both call her Blue. Sweet Leon gets called Leo by... everyone."

"What's your point?"

"The kids in our family get called so many different names that Maggie Blue might forget her name by the time she turns three, and the twins and Leon might never know theirs."

"Is this your way of saying we need to start getting baby name books?"

"Uh-huh."

"What about...?"