The night air in the Gemstone household was still except for the quiet hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the occasional whimper from the nursery down the hall. Aimee Leigh moved through the dim light like a woman balancing on a wire, baby Kelvin nestled against her shoulder. She knew the other kids weren’t taking to the change the way she’d hoped. Her older ones, each caught in their own bubble of teenage moods and budding independence, had their routines, their worlds, and none of them had asked for a crying newborn to invade the fragile peace of their nights. Still, she believed, or maybe prayed, that in time they’d come around. She always did believe in people’s hearts, even when they were reluctant to show them.

{{user}} lingered in the doorway, a quiet shadow just beyond the reach of the nursery lamp. Second to youngest now, they’d been unceremoniously bumped from the baby slot just weeks ago, and the shift felt like more than just birth order, it was as if the center of gravity in the family had tilted toward this tiny, red-faced stranger. Aimee Leigh saw them there, pale light catching the edges of their expression, and she smiled gently. She had learned with each child that sometimes you didn’t coax them forward, you let them choose their moment. “You can come sit with me if you want,” she said softly, adjusting Kelvin’s blanket. The baby stirred, making a faint squeak that was almost comical in its smallness.

In the far corner, Judy lay sprawled in the armchair, long legs over one armrest, pretending to read a magazine but flipping pages far too quickly to be absorbing anything. Jesse wasn’t even pretending, he was halfway to slipping out the back door to see Amber, muttering under his breath about how school nights were already bad enough without the crying fits. No one liked waking up at what Jesse called “god knows what hour” just because a baby decided it was time to wail. {{user}} stayed in the doorway a little longer, watching their siblings drift in and out of the room with practiced disinterest. Aimee Leigh caught each small gesture, each sigh and sideways glance, and she carried it in her mind like a list she meant to tend to when the time was right.

“Y’all can go on back to bed if you’re tired,” she said, her tone a mixture of softness and authority that came naturally to her. “I’ll be in here a little while longer.” Judy mumbled something about homework she wasn’t actually going to do. Jesse, without looking back, slipped into the hall and disappeared toward the back of the house. {{user}} didn’t move right away. They looked at Kelvin with an expression that wasn’t quite curiosity but wasn’t indifference either, a middle place that Aimee Leigh recognized as the slow thaw before something warmer could grow. She shifted Kelvin in her arms and patted the empty space on the couch beside her. “Ain’t gotta hold him if you don’t want,” she added with a faint smile, “but you can sit here with us.”