"Link!? Can you get my phone?" Amelia asked as she prepared dinner.
"Uh, it's Nancy calling." Link nervously said as he walked into the kitchen to give his girlfriend her phone. Even months later the woman still scared him. Amelia mirrored his worried expression. She hadn't spoken with her sister since dinner that night.
"Hey, everything okay?" Amelia nervously asked leaving Link to flip the pancakes.
"Mom's doing what?" Link could hear Amelia ask. "Your going to talk her out of it right?...are one of guys going to buy it from her?...we can't just let her sell it nance!...I don't know if I can come..."
"Put it on mute." Link whispered, once Amelia did so he started again. "We can go to New York if we need to." Amelia looked at her boyfriend and then contemplated for a moment, she unmuted her phone.
"Okay, I'll come I guess...okay, okay thanks Nancy. And thanks for telling me." Amelia hung up the phone after that.
"What's going on?" Link asked as he flipped the pancakes his girlfriend had abandoned.
"My mom is selling the convenience store. God they bought that store a little before they had Kathleen. She's the oldest." Amelia sat down at their kitchen island. Link nodded in response, Amelia had told him about the night her fathers died in the store he knew how much it meant to her.
"Do you want to go up to New York?" Link cautiously asked, he never knew what would set her off these days.
"I mean no not really. I'm 34 weeks pregnant, they don't know about my pregnancy. On the other hand I do want to go see the store before my mom sells it, and maybe convince her not to." Amelia stated as she bit her nail.
"We can do whatever you want. I can go with you or I can stay here. And it's perfectly safe to fly until your 36 weeks." Link lightly smiled as he set a plate in front of his girlfriend.
"Okay. I'll go, you don't have to if you don't want to."
"Do you want me there?"
"Do you want to be there?" This caused Link to chuckle.
"Tell me what you need. If you want me to I'd love to be there."
"Only if you want to though. My sisters and mom can be a lot."
"We're family now, and I put up with you." Amelia threw a balled up napkin at him in response.
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"Link this was a bad idea." Amelia said as they were walking through JFK airport.
"I'm sure this will all be fine. Now do you have any idea where we're going?"
"Yeah, we'll take the train just keep following me. But Link, I haven't told them about us or about the baby. This is going to be a mess." Amelia rambled on.
"It's going to be okay. I'll be here." Link comfortingly said wrapping his arm around her shoulder. Once they had gotten to the train and were situated Amelia spoke up again.
"I remember the first time I rode the trains alone, I had just gone to a concert in the garden that I wasn't supposed to go to. And I had gotten a piece of glass in my foot and throughout the night an infection started to grow. And my boyfriend couldn't take me home since he was drunk." Amelia chuckled.
"Teenage Amelia seems like a trip." Her boyfriend giggled whilst taking her hand, to try and calm her nerves.
"What were you like as a teenager?"
"Hmm, well I didn't really know the kids at my high school since I was in and out of the hospital when I was younger. I was a killer baseball player though, and did a little theatre here and there."
"Really? Theatre?"
"Hmm we don't need to talk about that."
"No I'd really like to hear more about your time in theatre."
"That's a story for another day." Amelia dramatically sighed and leaned against her boyfriends shoulder.
"What interests do you think our baby will have?"
"I'm not sure. Whatever he wants to do. I have a feeling he's gonna be a great baseball player though." Link replied placing his hand on her girlfriends bump.
"No, no, no something safer than a sport."
"Hmm well than, maybe he'll play an instrument."
"Maybe, I'm excited to meet him." After three train switches they were finally in Westchester. Once they got off of the train, Amelia took the lead going to the family's store. It was about a 15 minute walk from the train station. It seemed like no time had passed once they stood outside the doors store. "Well, my moms probably working. I'm gonna go in can you wait out here?"
"Of course. I'll be right here." Link said after he kissed his girlfriend and sat on the bench outside the store. Amelia wearily made her way into the store, she looked over to her left where the cash register was. She can vaguely remembered her dad laying on the floor after he was shot. She made her way to the back of the store where the office was, and where her mother was.
"Hey mom." Amelia cautiously said as she peaked through the door.
"Amelia!" Carolyn said surprised standing up to greet her. "What are you doing here?"
"Well Nancy told me about you selling the store." After her daughter had said that she sat back down in the office chair facing away from the door.
"I'm not changing my mind, Amelia."
"Okay, well I just wanted to come see it." Amelia responded back sitting in a chair near the corner of the room.
"Okay then." Carolyn spun around in the chair to face her daughter. "Now why didn't you tell me you are pregnant?"
"I don't know it never came up?"
"Amelia Frances. You'll have to come up with a better excuse than that."
"I was scared, but now I'm a little un-scared. I guess. I brought Link here too."
"Can't wait time see him again." Carolyn kindly smiled at her daughter. "Well you made good timing. It's Sunday so everyone's coming over for dinner. You and Link will be joking us right?"
"Sunday dinner is still a thing?" Amelia chuckled at the old tradition.
"Of course it is. Well I'm about to finish things up here, I'll bring you two home with me. You can help me cook. You'll need the practice before your baby comes because last time I recall you cooking something we near had to call the fire department and I'm sure nothings changed in that regard." Carolyn chuckled at her daughter rolling her eyes.
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After awhile Carolyn realized trying to teach her daughter how to cook was a lost cause. So Amelia took her boyfriend to her childhood room.
"Let me guess you had the bottom bunk." Link chuckled once he walked into the room, noting Amelia's restless sleeping resulting in him being kicked constantly.
"Yep. Lizzie slept up top. I remember I slept up there once when I was little and fell off ,resulting in me have a busted lip and a ton of tears." Amelia said as she lowered herself onto the bottom bunk.
"May I?" Link asked gesturing to the photo album on the desk.
"Yeah bring it over here." Link obliged and sat down next to his girlfriend. As the pair looked through the pictures in silence, Link spoke up again. "Your moms a really good scrapbooker."
"She didn't actually make this one, I did. I needed something to do when I just had gotten out of rehab for the first time, so I scrapbooked."
"It's really nice, you'll have to make our baby one." Link said admiring the details, Amelia must have put a lot of thought behind this scrapbook.
"Well okay then." Amelia blushed. The couple sat in silence flipping through the countless pages when the door bell rang. "Damn it, I guess we should go down there."
"It's gonna be okay." Link reassured his girlfriend as he helped her to stand up.
"We'll see about that. You remember what had happened last time."
