Fledglings Of The Cruz

Episode 1 -- How we Became a Family: Chapter 3

3 years after Bob Cruz became the child of the young, independent Kayleigh, two new children were given permanent homes. Silvia and Fred Ashford, two young orphaned siblings from the outskirts, moving between foster homes, their father having died serving in the military, their mother having died of a brain aneurysm just months later.

Kayleigh, now a full-time office assistant and a part-time event planner at home, was becoming much more mature and sensible, a more suitable personality for a mother of a now kindergarten-aged Bob. Years ago, when she took Bob in, she never would have guessed she was going to sign the documents to take in two more.

But... things tended to change.

As both she and Bob were growing older and more independent, adopting another struggling child was already on her mind. Kayleigh was checking her email on her beat-up laptop. In her spam section was one email. Mostly just to remove the glaring red circle from the corner of her screen, she opened clicked on the spam tab. The email was from the county's adoption agency. "MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN A CHILD'S LIFE. ADOPT A CHILD," the headline read. Kayleigh assumed the message had been sent to everyone in the area. She opened the email just so it'd be marked as read.

But then, as fate would have it, a picture of two very small children sitting on a couch caught her eye.

On the left was a girl around the age of 3, with black hair that was long for her age and large, round, lonely silver eyes. Her face looked shockingly sullen for a toddler; she almost looked desperate - in an innocent, childish way. And to the right was an infant, no older than 9 months. The baby had little hair, but the little they had was a coppery brown. And, judging by the child's pastel blue onsie decorated with stylized pictures of Santa Clause's head, Kayleigh assumed that "they" were most likely a boy. The infant's looked numb and emotionless, the opposite of how a young baby should look. In the caption below the email was written, Silvia and Alfred Schwartz. Two of the young lives you can change today.

And months later, Kayleigh gave them a home.

(So I tried to draw a cover but I suck really bad at art so I just replaced the cover with a blank white screen lol. If you've read this far thank you for reading and dont be afraid to give feedback! I've never written a fanfic before so this is all new to me lol. Until next time! :))