The next morning, the smell of eggs, pancakes, and bacon permeated through the house.

I think it was more of Nana's recipes," Ashton said.
Diana sat four plates in front of their respective chairs. Next, she filled each plate with eggs, bacon, and flapjacks. She placed a steaming cup of Joe in front of Ashton, who thanked her with a peck on the lips.

"Trechial. Devin. Breakfast time," Diana yelled. After pouring four glasses of OJ, Diana took her seat across from Ashton. Trechial and Devin skited through the Huan and landed in their seats.

"Bow your heads," Ashton said, and everyone did. "Lord, thank you for this meal and bless this meal. May it bring nourishment to our bodies. In Jesus' name, amen."

"Amen," they said in unison.

Everyone dug in.

"You know, he offered even more if we would have moved to New York and run the operational part ourselves while he managed marketing, finances, and the behind-the-scenes stuff."

Diana paused, focused on her husband.

"You don't have to give me that look; I told him no,"

She took a bite of fluffy eggs and nodded, wondering if all she did was selfishly make her husband sacrifice for her.

"But Myron said yes." Ashton poured syrup on his flapjacks.

"Really? What about Beverly? I mean, that's his girlfriend." Diana said.

"Beverly is the one who encouraged him to take the offer. She's going to go with him."

Diana cut into her flapjacks, but the next question kept her eyes glued to her meal: "Do you want to go?"

Ashton's eyes fell to his plate, the moment going still. With a dismissive chuckle, he said, "Me in the Big Apple? Everyday? Living the fast-paced city life? Nah, I'd much rather live the quiet family life with my two girls and my best buddy, Devin." He winked at Devin.

Devin grinned, syrup sticking to the corners of his mouth.

"If you really want to go, Ashton—" Diana began.

"I don't. Our life is here in Willow Heights. We have great friends and neighbors. I want Trechial to grow up with a good sense of community and friends. I wouldn't trade our world for a New York minute."

"I love you, baby."

"You better." Ashton winked at Diana, and she blushed, their kindergarten audience sniggering behind their sticky fingers.

There was no way they were millionaires in their thirties floating around in the world. Diana mused, poking at the leftover eggs on her plate. She scanned the table; Ashton held the newspaper with one hand sipping his second cup of Joe. He did not look like a millionaire in his yellow collared shirt and brown corduroy pants. Syrup stuck to the ends of his Burt Reynold's mustache. He hummed a laugh, which Diana deducted he was reading the funnies.

"What's so funny?" Devin asked with a mouthful of his second plate of pancakes.

"The funnies. Want to read?"

"I can't read yet." Devin's cheeks rose, scrunching his eyes together.

"Oh yeah, I forgot." Ashton grinned at Devin then went back to reading the paper.

"Well, I can read," Trechial said with a sassy attitude, rolling her neck.

Devin whipped his mushroom haircut side to side. "Nah-uh."

"I can read. See?" She grabbed the bottle of syrup. "Yellow...red...woman."

Diana held in a laugh; Trechial wasn't reading but describing the pictures on the bottle. "Good job, little lady. Now eat your food."

"Can you teach me how to read, Mr. Ashton?" Devin said with enthusiasm.

Ashton smiled. "I'm going to teach you how to play football!"

Devin raised his fork in the air in excitement. "Yeah! Reading's for girls."

Diana and Ashton sniggered then Ashton said. "Yeah, reading is for girls."

"You can read, Daddy!" Trechial crinkled her little face.

"She has a point, Ashton," Diana chimed in with a soft smile, noticing her daughter's angst.

Ashton folded his paper and sat it next to his empty plate, his warm eyes moving to Trechial. "I can read, sweetheart, so I guess reading is important."

Trechial looked at Devin and turned her nose up at him. It was almost as if she had to one-up Devin no matter the subject, but Devin in his naiveness replied to her attitude the best way he knew how: with the competition. "Then I want to learn how to read, too." Determination lit up his five-year-old countenance.

****

Later that afternoon, Diana put the kids down for a nap, then she went to sit on the porch swing in front of the house. Diana and Ashton talked more about the restaurant before he left for work that morning. According to Ashton, Myron bought his half of the restaurant and plans on partnering with the French chef with a palate for soul food. It all worked out in the end because Ashton had planned on giving up his share to Myron for free, but when Chef Renault showed up and offered them a total of three million dollars for ownership of the recipes. Myron instead took out a loan from Renault promising him a bigger share of the business, bought Ashton's share of the restaurant, and partnered up with Renault. They were taking Daisy's to the Big Apple. It took three months for all the legalities to go through and the check to finally be cut.

Diana kicked her feet up on the white wood. The swing creaked beneath her weight as she relished in the quietness of Forget Me Not Lane. An odd name to say the least, but it was better than the name Slippery Slope, which was one street over.

She glanced at the Liao's house, a two-story Tudor-style home—white on top and settled on gray brick. Two vibrant rose bushes flourished on either side of the porch thanks to Yoon Mi Rae's green thumb. Huan mowed and weed-eat the lawn every Saturday, keeping it organized, trimmed, and in shape. While Ashton mowed the lawn there was no blooming rose bushes to be trimmed or pruned—Diana couldn't keep a cactus alive let alone flowers or rose bushes. She often admired their yard with envy for Yoon Mi Rae's keen sense of color. Maybe one day she would ask Yoon Mi Rae to help her plant a couple of hydrangea bushes in front of their house.

Diana smiled warmly, thinking at one point in time she and Yoon Mi Rae loathed each other. Two different people from two different cultures stuck in their very different ways. They both held onto their own prejudicialness that ranged from their neighbors not being able to speak a lick of English to communicate with about wrongly delivered newspapers right on up to Yoon Mi Rae worrying about her home being broken into by the blacks across the street.

Thankfully, Ashton and Huan were level-minded in their approach and ignored their wives. Huan was ascribed to Bruce Lee's motto that everyone under the sun is a part of a universal family. And Ashton ascribed to the Bible––more specifically––the second greatest commandment Jesus gave: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Both men, to their wives' surprise, started hanging out—golfing, bowling nights with some of the other men in the neighborhood. And eventually, they planned a fishing trip leaving their bickering wives to their lonesome. Then one day Diana saw Yoon Mi Rae checking the mailbox, and conviction gripped her heart, sending her across the street and trapping Yoon Mi Rae at the mailbox. At first, the five-foot four-inch Korean woman wearing a tan visor was startled. Her almond-shaped eyes widened with surprise, then she relaxed and waited for Diana to speak first. Diana had no clue if the woman would understand the majority of what she was about to say given her broken English from before, but she persisted and said, "Do you watch The Young and the Restless?"
Diana crinkled her eyebrows.

Yoon Mi Rae mirrored her expression with an uplifting eyebrow that Diana couldn't decipher between confusion or hopefulness.
Yoon Mi Rae nodded. "I do."

"Do you want to come over and watch it with me? I have bonbons."

"Are you trying to set me up?" she asked, sizing Diana up with a scrutinizing gaze. Her English was much better than before, which pleased Diana, but she didn't let it show.

Diana smacked her teeth. "No." She tilted her head to the side, lowering her lids. "Your English sounds better than before?"

Yoon Mi Rae waved her off. "I can speak English well and can understand it perfectly fine. I went to an international school in Shanghai. I only speak broken English to Americans because they tend to be more empathetic to foreigners when something goes wrong." She looked Diana up and down once more. "Most of them, anyway."

Diana stared at her in disbelief, the scammer, then she burst into laughter.
"Diana Winters." She held out her hand to the woman.

The short woman with long flowing black hair accepted her hand. "Yoon Mi Rae Liao."

Apologies were exchanged and from that day on––February of 1981–– and they worked their way up to becoming the best of friends.

The Liao's came over and enjoyed southern home cooking and played spades at the Winters home. The Winters enjoyed traditional Chinese New Year's and other cultural events with the Liao's, too.

In February 1983, Yoon Mi Rae found out she was pregnant with twins, followed by Diana finding out she was pregnant two months later. They called their children womb buddies.

Tragedy fell upon the Liao's and Milo died at twenty-eight weeks, leaving baby Devin.

Diana and Yoon Mi Rae spent every day talking and doing activities together while their husbands were at work. She learned that Yoon Mi Rae and Huan went to an international school where they met, and learning more about her as a person made her feel like she knew baby Milo, and for a little while, she left like she'd lost her own child.

Yoon Mi Rae's grandfather owned five popular jewelry stores in Busan and Seoul, and two Kimchi vineyards where most of the restaurants in Seoul and Busan frequented to get their supply of Kimchi from.

Huan was from Beijing. His father was Senior Executive of four luxury hotels in Beijing and Shanghai. But Diana often wondered if he had family in the law enforcement department because Huan stared directly at her when he talked. Not normal eye contact but investigative, assessing, as if he was waiting to catch someone in a lie. It took her some time to get used to him, yet he had the most contagious laugh when he did let loose, making everyone laugh in the room. No matter the occasion, though, Diana couldn't get past that analytical side of Huan that she suspected from day one.

Yoon Mi Rae was straight to the point, but her earnest, playful nature was what drew Diana to her even more. She was the coupon lady, never shy to pull several of them out of one smart shopper. Her quick-wit and loving nature was the reason why they all quickly became close friends and bonded over shared experiences, especially being two of six minority families in their middle-class neighborhood.

In the following weeks leading up to the birth of Devin, Shan, Huan's witty, spoiled, intelligent younger brother moved in. Like Huan, he also went to an international school though his English was a bit choppier than his older sibling. Huan always joked it was due to his lack of studying and chasing women around.

Enter:

Devin Tae Liao born on September 8, 1983

Enter:

Trechial Winters born November 19, 1983