Round 3: Anatole

Amara Anatole is an Adult. Her boyfriend Knox Nye is a Young Adult. Their children Arden Anatole, Elijah Anatole, and Xandra Anatole are Babies.

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Amara had planned on putting more pressure on Knox to get a job after the baby was born, but when the baby turned out to be babies – three of them – it quickly became apparent that Knox was going to need to be a stay-at-home dad. There was no way they could afford daycare for three babies. It wasn’t a life Knox had ever envisioned for himself, but he fell into a routine fairly easily. He didn’t have any time to think, let alone to wonder if this was really what he wanted to be doing. It seemed like one of the triplets always needed something.

It was entirely up to Amara now to earn the money they needed to support their family. She was going to have to push for that next promotion now, whether she wanted to or not. She chafed against the increased responsibility – she missed her old carefree life. It seemed like it had disappeared all at once, the day she had found out she was pregnant.

The thing they worried about the most was space. Amara’s small house had always been enough for her. It had even been enough for her and Knox together. But with three babies, it was becoming painfully apparent that it wouldn’t be enough for much longer. Right now the babies slept in the living room, but soon enough they would be old enough to need bedrooms of their own, and then what? They didn’t have the money to move. They didn’t even have the money to build an addition onto the house. Were the triplets going to start sleeping on the couch once they outgrew their bassinets? Right now it seemed like the most likely option.

While he was at home with the babies, Knox experimented with entering a few video game tournaments. He used to dream of being a professional gamer, and he thought it might be a good way to help bring in a few extra bucks. But all he managed to do was lose money, and he reluctantly gave up on the dream for now.

Although Knox loved the babies, sometimes he had moments where he wondered just how he had let his life get to this point. He was supposed to be young and carefree; instead he was trapped at home with three crying babies and a constantly stressed and overworked wife. He would never have confessed it to anyone, but it was at those times that he wished he had never offered to move in and help out with the baby when Amara had told him she was pregnant. But then he thought about Amara trying to take care of the babies on her own, and imagined what it would be like to have never met his children, and felt guilty for ever having wishes like that.

At last, not long before the triplets’ birthday, Amara got the programming job she had been aiming for. They still didn’t have the money for the addition they needed to build, but with her increased salary, they were a lot closer. But the new job meant a lot of extra time working at home, whether finishing work projects or just trying to improve her own skills. She couldn’t remember ever having been this stressed, and she and Knox rarely got a chance to spend time together these days. They lived in the same house, but it was like they were living parallel lives, passing each other for an exhausted wave every now and then.

But they did occasionally find moments to exchange the occasional hug or kiss – and in those moments, Amara found herself beginning to think about marriage. Her feelings for him hadn’t faded, and they already had a family together – why not make it official?

Knox, meanwhile, just wished he could start taking Amara out on real dates again. But with the cost of babysitting, it didn’t seem like that would be possible anytime soon.

Just before the triplets’ birthday, Amara and Knox were finally able to add two bedrooms onto the house, one for the boys and one for Xandra. They had dreamed of building an entire second floor, with a separate room for each of the triplets, a playroom, and their own separate bathroom, but they knew something like that wouldn’t be possible for the foreseeable future. Right now they couldn’t even afford proper paint and flooring for the bedrooms. The way things were looking, they were going to have to sell Amara’s antique dresser just to get enough money for three new beds.

Amara found herself glad that Knox was doing most of the work taking care of the babies, because she still hadn’t figured them out. She would start lecturing them to start crying, only to have Knox tell her that they were obviously hungry. She hoped they would get easier to understand once they got a bit older.

After the triplets’ birthday, it became obvious just how different their three children were. Arden was awkward and sensitive and had an affinity for all things beautiful. He was attuned to every little thing, from bad food rotting in the fridge to an awkward conversation happening across the room, and all that input made it hard for him to focus. He hated having to compete for his parents’ attention, and often pouted about not being an only child.

Elijah was the fearful one of the bunch. He was always the first to panic, and the last to try something new. When he and Arden thought they saw a monster under his bed, Arden quickly shook it off, while Elijah worried for weeks that the monster would show up again. But he was also a sweetheart who seemed to like everyone. He had a huge imagination, something that bewildered his more straightforward siblings.

And Xandra sometimes seemed like a teenager already, with her love for loud music and black clothing. She hated looking so different from her brothers – her skin, her hair, even her eyes – and most of all, she hated being a girl. But despite her outward attitude, she was more helpful around the house than both her brothers combined, and often did things like taking out the trash without even being asked.

Finally, Amara and Knox found the money to add wallpaper and real floors to the kids’ bedrooms. They let the kids pick their own wallpaper; Arden and Elijah compromised on a dinosaur pattern like the one in the living room, while Xandra flatly rejected the flower pattern they suggested for her and instead chose a design that made everyone else’s eyes bleed.

Despite their different personalities and Arden's initial resentment, the triplets quickly became inseparable, forming a bond that hadn’t really gotten a chance to blossom while they were babies. Before, their opportunities for interaction had been limited to crying in unison. Now it was rare to see one of them without the other two.

While neither of the others showed much interest in making friends outside of the family just yet, Arden got along pretty well with Dzika Fish. They bonded over a shared interest in art.

One day, shortly after the triplets’ birthday, Payton came back. He knocked and then stood patiently at the door, waiting for someone to let him in.

It had been so long that Amara didn’t even recognize him at first. When she did, she warned the kids not to let him in. But it was too late – Xandra had already made it to the door.

“What do you want?” Amara asked him, trying not to let the kids see her tension.

“To be a part of your life. We’re friends. You barely spoke to me after you abandoned me on our date. It’s been years.”

It was true that there was nothing technically wrong with him showing up at her house. But it seemed a strange way to go about rekindling their friendship, especially considering how long it had been. And he had a history of this, she remembered. Although she supposed she should thank him for showing up at her house that first time after their internet conversations, because in a roundabout way, it had led to her meeting Knox.

She asked him to leave, and he seemed hurt by the suggestion. But with three kids to take care of, she couldn’t be too careful. And she couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to his visit than he was letting on.

When she told Knox, it made him wonder if Payton had finally begun to realize what he was missing out on. It was then that he knew there was something he had to do.

Amara said yes, of course – she had been thinking about marriage ever since the twins were babies, although she hadn’t wanted to tell Knox. After three kids, it seemed only natural to make their bond official.