Amari’s birthday is today. They are legally an adult now and their number one wish is to just know where they came from. Maybe now their mom, Cierra, could tell them who they are. Amari takes a deep breath and shoots up to do their morning stretches. After quickly getting energized, they grab their clothes and get dressed. 

Amari checks themself out in the mirror. Jeans? Check. Favorite purple hoodie? Check. They comb through their curly dark brown hair.

Amari hears a quick pitter-patter of feet running to their door, followed by giggling. A quiet knock followed by another giggle. Amari already knows who it is and for what. They laugh and quickly “woo-sah” to get the giggling out. They open the door to find their little sister and mom holding a cake filled with sprinkles on the sides with a handwritten “Happy Birthday Amari” with candles lit up.

“Happy Birthdaaaaaayyyy!” screamed their little sister.

“Thanks, Emily. Love you, kid.” Amari said, blowing out the candles.

“I made the cake just for you.” Emily literally jumping with excitement at this point.

“I can tell, I absolutely love it.”

Cierra gave Amari a hug, “Love you kiddo, happy birthday. I made your favorite breakfast, waffles with some cut-up fruit. Emily woke up early to make you this cake.”

Amari and their family headed downstairs to eat breakfast. While eating, Cierra asks, “So Amari, what did you want to do today? You’re the big 1-8 so it’s a big milestone to celebrate. You haven’t told me what you wanted to do and I am dying to spend this money on you.” as she throws down a wallet, indicating that she wants to spend the day together. 

“Well, I don’t know still. It is just a birthday, all of my friends ditched me.” Amari said frankly, “It won’t matter what we do, I guess.” 

Cierra worryingly says “I know, I’m sorry sweetie, those guys are jerks anyway for excluding and ditching you. If you don’t care, maybe we can just buy you something you really want. I have been saving for an entire year so I have…” She counts her money. “$1.685.00, so really, if you want anything at all, I am pretty sure we can afford it.”

Amari smiles sheepishly. “Thank you, Mom. I really appreciate it. Frankly, I do have something I want to ask you but I want to wait until after breakfast.”

Emily jumps up with syrup on her face, “MOM! IF AMARI DOESN’T WANT THE MONEY CAN I HAVE IT?!”

Cierra replies “No Emily, you’re turning 9 soon but that’s not a milestone. But when you graduate 5th grade next year you will get money, or stuff, or whatever you want.”

“Awe, no fair.”

“Well, life isn’t fair Emily. You don’t just get money whenever you want”

As Emily and Cierra go back and forth, Amari starts to clean up the leftover food and take the plates and silverware to the dishwasher. She starts to head upstairs when Cierra pulls her aside.

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“Hey babe, c’mon, get ready, let’s go out. Let me take you somewhere at least.”

“Ok Mom, thanks.” Amari goes upstairs and puts on socks, and shoes and does their makeup some. Today feels more of a masc kind of day so they fluff up their eyebrows, contour their jawline sharper, and get rid of the bags under their eyes with highlights. 

Amari comes back downstairs and asks Cierra if they can go to the tech store nearby and get a new computer. Amari dreams of being a video game streamer. They already use social media to start a following on their phone. Now to just get a computer to play games while streaming.

Cierra, happily, says “We sure can. I am glad you finally made your mind up about something.”

The 3 of them leave, and on the way there, Amari asks, “Mom, where did I come from?” 

Thankfully Cierra was already stopped otherwise she would have slammed on the breaks.

“Honey, can we talk about this later?” Cierra said frantically.

“Well, I mean this is all I want to know. I am 18, I know I am adopted, but I want to know who my birth parents are.”

“Well, I don’t know in honesty. You know how I am a firefighter? Well, one day you showed up at the fire station. I mean it was like you came out of a movie, you were in a wicker basket, with some handmade blanket in blues and greens, with the name Amari stitched into the blanket. I assumed that was your name and I took the liberty to take you to the hospital, check you out, and well… I fell in love with you. Your father and I, at the time, were thinking about children anyways, but at the time, black women like me were scared to go through pregnancy because doctors treat us like animals… shoot they still do… Anyways, when you showed up, it was like a sign. The night before we decided that we might become foster parents. Kids without the pregnancy. Then CPS showed up at the hospital and I asked what it would take to adopt you. It was a process, but it became official eventually. But, there was no birth certificate, no note, no nothing in that basket. Just you and that blanket.” Cierra sighed. 

Well, Amari was set on learning more. They felt this answer wasn’t good enough. “Did you keep it?”

“Keep what?” 

“The basket and blanket.”

“We might still have it. The times we had to move around after the recession we didn’t keep everything. But I will look for sure. All of our stuff is in the basement.” We can look when we get back.

“Ok, thanks.” Amari was upset that it wasn’t enough for them. They wanted more, but maybe seeing the blanket and basket would have more to it than just the simplicity of what their mother is saying. 

They went to the tech store, Amari got one of those computers that are “out of the box” mark down so it is cheaper, two monitors, a light-up keyboard, a mouse, headphones, and got a small webcam. They think that should be everything to start up their gaming streamer career. Of course, though Amari needed one of those fancy gaming chairs, and had enough to get one of those too. 

On the way back Emily asked to get ice cream and they went to a local ice cream shop. Amari got their favorite, Salted Caramel in a waffle cone dipped in a caramel shell. Emily the birthday cake ice cream cone and Cierra a butter pecan waffle cone.

They got back, and Amari right away put together the computer.

“Thank god this is a pre-built computer. I would have gone insane trying to figure out how to put this together.” Amari sighed.

After getting the computer together Amari asked their mom if they could start looking for the basket together. After about 3 hours of looking, they found it. 

“Hey Ari, look what I got,” Cierra said holding the basket out.

Amari jumped up and grabbed the blanket and basket. The basket looked hand woven. Definitely not cheap, it looks like it took a lot of work. The blanket was made of possibly wool. It was a thick blanket that looked handmade. It wasn’t knitting but it was definitely sewn together of different patches of colors of green and blue. And, in one of the corners, was “Amari” in a bright red, and looked like it was embroidered on. Simple blanket, simple basket, but unlike what Amari was thinking, there really was nothing more. Not a note, a bracelet, necklace, shirt, anything. Amari started sobbing. Cierra held Amari in her arms, rubbing their back and rocking side to side. Amari wiped their tears and took a deep breath. 

“I just wanted more… I know what you said earlier, but I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to know more about my birth family.” 

Cierra kissed Amari on the forehead. “I know hun, but hey at least it is still here with us. You can bring this to your room if you want to.”

Amari shook their head and went upstairs. They put this basket next to their desk and turned on the computer. Amari took the time to announce on social media that they will be going live streaming later that night. Went to eat dinner, just some Chinese takeout, and after dinner went live. It was a huge success, dozens of people flocked to the live stream and Amari even had a donation total of $127 since it was their birthday.

Amari had a good birthday. A successful one, they shared with their mom and dad about the streaming success and they were so happy for Amari. Amari felt tired even though it was only 8 p.m. so they went to bed. Emily, Cierra, and their dad Arlo, all repeated Happy Birthday and have a goodnight.