Flowers Legacy Saga

Anna didn’t get much time to worry about Felicia’s words, because the baby announced it’s coming three weeks before the due date. Anna was a bit worried about the baby being so early, but she tried to concentrate on the contractions and on trying to relax between them. Both Remington and Beau stood by her side and tried to encourage her saying she was doing very well.

When she felt that the baby was ready for it, she started to push. The midwife had already come by then and had said that everything was going fine. Anna, still exhausted from the birthday party, had a very hard time pushing the baby out. Finally the midwife said she saw the head coming and with one more push, Anna’s fourth child was born, a boy. While the midwife took care of Anna, washing her and checking her up, Remington and Beau looked after the little boy. He was very healthy and had a good size. Remington couldn’t stop looking at his child, his son.

Finally Anna was ready to see her son too. When Remington laid him in her arms, she pronounced for the first time the name she and Remington had chosen: Brendan. She looked at the little boy and immediately fell in love with him.

Remington and Beau were still with her and they were very excited, especially Beau. Not only he had attended the birth of his baby brother, he had also helped out, side by side with his stepfather. Remington had really included him in everything there was to be done and Beau felt very lucky to have him as a stepfather. Also he couldn’t wait to spend time with his halfbrother and become his friend.

With little Brendan in the house, Anna didn’t get much time to think about Neil and the news Felicia got about him apparently. Brendan was a very nice baby, but he asked a lot of Anna’s attention. He cried quite often and would only calm down when Anna walked him around the nursery, singing a lullaby for him. This happened day and night so after three months Anna was pretty exhausted.

Then one day Brendan stopped crying so much and started to sleep through the night. The first night Brendan didn’t wake up, Anna was afraid something had happened to him. When she entered the nursery however, Brendan welcomed her with a smile and he just seemed content with his life. Anna was very relieved that this difficult period was over. She was hoping she would soon feel like her old self again.

That didn’t appear to be the case though, because Anna remained extremely tired. Besides that she started to hate the smell of some food. Without telling Remington she started to think she was pregnant again. She hadn’t restarted taking birth control again and had been intimate with Remington a couple of times. It was possible.

While thinking about this, she suddenly had to rush into the bathroom to throw up. Before even cleaning the toilet, she went to the phone and made an appointment with the doctor. Luckily she could see him the same day and it was confirmed she was pregnant again.

Anna wasn’t sure she was too happy about this pregnancy. She wasn’t getting any younger and Brendan was only just a baby. She knew Remington wanted to have a lot of kids, but from her point of view Brendan could well have been the last. Moreover they had planned to renovate the house and redecorate some rooms. Constructors were in their house all day.

That night Anna told Remington about her pregnancy and her concerns. Remington didn’t hide his joy about having another baby, but he also wanted to help Anna and think about a way of dealing with the situation. He offered to be more at home and to deal with the constructors. That way, Anna could concentrate on herself and on little Brendan. Barbara was already a big girl who could take care of herself a little. She was a peaceful nice girl, who enjoyed playing with her dollhouse.

Beau was big enough to take care of himself and help out Anna and Remington. Normally he wanted to do so but recently he had gotten to know some college friends of Felicia and Houston. He started talking about college more and more often and sometimes spend the whole evening hanging out in the frontyard.

On top of this, Felicia decided to call and tell Anna what she had discovered about Neil. Although Anna hardly couldn’t handle her life as it was now, she wanted to know what Felicia had to tell.

Felicia told Anna she had discovered Neil had worked for the biggest crime organisation of Flower Valley. Not only he had been involved in drug smuggling and blackmail, he had also made it to become the criminal mastermind. Just before he died he spend a lot of his time planning heists and plotting new ways to blackmail his former collegues from the showbusiness and the artist scene.

Anna was shocked to hear all this and told her friend she had to sit down. Then she wanted to know if Felicia was really sure about this, how she had found out about this. Anna had been completely unaware of everything Felicia told and she had a hard time believing her best friend.

Felicia told Anna that recently they had arrested a criminal from the same gang Neil had worked for. While her team was searching the house, they took the computer of this man and examined it at the station. The experts had found some traces of e-mails from and to Neil explaining that his position could have been nothing else but criminal mastermind. The e-mails seemed to prove that Neil had been involved in criminal activities and suggested that it was that which had forced him one way or the other to confront with the cow plant.

While Felicia continued adding to this incredible, terrible news, Anna had a hard time concentrating. She was shocked to find out that apparently she hadn’t been the only one in that marriage with secrets. She didn’t know what to feel really, anger, betrayal, fear, sadness. The only thing she was sure of was that she wanted to shout at her friend to stop telling her these horrible facts. Instead she continued to listen to what Felicia had to add.

Felicia told her that her team was very much puzzled by one thing. In the e-mails a drug with the name of Florazepam was mentioned. Since Anna had worked in a scientific lab, maybe she knew that drug. Anna repeated loudly “Florazepam!” and then added that she knew the drug very well. In fact she had discovered that Florazepam was a more powerful medicine than other benzodiazepines. If that would help Felicia she could try to find the results she had about Florazepam and give it to her for the investigation. What Anna wanted to know however what Neil had been doing with Florazepam.

Felicia answered that they hadn’t found out yet how Neil had got the Florazepam, but the e-mails showed he had probably sold it to drugaddicts in combination with cocaine or heroine. In some mails there was the mention of combined use of Florazepam and quinine holding sodawater, because that seemed to induce hallucinations. The team had no clue yet how this fitted into Neil’s criminal activities and what the man they had arrested, had had to do with it.

Anna told Felicia she hadn’t known about the quinine-Florazepam combination either. She asked Felicia if she could inform her of every new bit of information concerning Neil. Felicia promissed that to do that provided her investigation or Anna wouldn’t be endangered.

Felicia hung up. Anna continued to sit down with the handset in her hand, unable to stand up, unaware of the world around her. Emotions were confusing her, overwhelming her. She felt guilt towards Neil ever since his death, but now she started to be angry with him too. Apparently he had been betraying her too, although he hadn’t had a mistress or something. The man she had loved, who had fathered her children, who only seemed to love paintings, had led a secret life as drugdealer, as a criminal. Maybe through his hands, people had got killed even. Maybe these criminal activities had led to his own death, planned by someone who had wanted him out of the way. Who could have wanted Neil out of the way Anna didn’t want to think about that, but still the thoughts came to her mind.

But if Neil, who had been a nice person, had turned into a criminal with a secret life, who could be trusted anyway? Could she really trust Remington, for example, or would he also have some dark secret hiding from her? And suddenly it struck her: Could he have wanted Neil out of the way in order to be able to marry her?