Christmas had finally come. This was it. This was the day that Ulysses and Whitney were supposed to meet up. He still wasn't sure how it would go down or if either of his grandparents would try to back out at the last second. Regardless, he hoped to have a decent Christmas at the very least. He wanted so badly to spend some time with his surrogate mothers, his girlfriend, his friends, and his father again. He missed them. He missed spending the holidays with them, spending all those moments decorating the tree or helping out in the kitchen. He'd spent this year's Halloween with them, sure, but it'd ended on a pretty awful note.

Anyway, the Christmas celebrations with his loved ones would have to wait... because Steven and the Scheele family were off to New York so Ulysses and Whitney could finally meet in person. Steven hoped that his loved ones would also somehow make it to New York to celebrate with him, but he didn't want to get his hopes up too high. After all, it would usually take his loved ones thirty-eight minutes to fly over to New York from Delaware, but flight delays could make the flight over longer (and that was assuming that the flight wasn't even cancelled). For now, he'd have to focus on spending Christmas with his grandparents.

Steven and his grandparents had decided to take two cars for the trip. He knew that it would take a long while before they would make it to their destination because a drive from West Virginia to New York took seven and a half hours (or seven hours and thirty-six minutes, to be exact). It was such a long drive (even longer than when Steven had first driven to West Virgina from Delaware for six hours and twenty minutes), but it was totally worth it.

"Alright, we're finally in New York," Ulysses announced once he and Steven had both gotten out of their respective cars. "Now where do we go?"

Steven gave Ulysses the exact directions for reaching Whitney's house.

"Ah, I see." Ulysses had to think it over for a second. "Well, how should we do this? Should I follow you or do you want to do it the other way around?"

"Well, I guess you could follow me if you wanted," Steven replied. "I'm a bit more familiar with this place than you guys are."

"Alright, then that's what I'll have to do."

"Awesome." Steven got back into his car. "Alright, just follow my directions and everything will be alright."

By the time Steven and the Scheele family had made it to Whitney's gigantic quasi-mansion, it was already 4 PM. Surely, Whitney wouldn't have decided to back out after waiting a while for her guests to arrive. Steven was the first one to go up to the door. He rang the doorbell and waited patiently. It felt like an eternity had passed by when Whitney finally opened the door and saw Steven right in front of her.

"Ah, Steven," Whitney said upon seeing her grandson's face. "It's so good to see you. So where's your long-lost grandfather you told me about?"

"Oh, he's right behind me," Steven replied while pointing to Ulysses and his family as they ascended the steps.

Whitney craned her neck to get a good look at Ulysses. "So this is him, huh?"

"Yep." Steven turned to face his grandfather. "Hey, Ulysses. This is my grandma I was telling you about... you know, Whitney Diamond?"

Ulysses briefly stopped right behind Steven. "Wait a minute... this is Whitney Diamond?"

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

"Nothing. I guess I expected her to look... different."

Steven instantly caught on to what Ulysses had meant. "Oh, right, I should've told you. She went through early menopause when she was sixteen, so she didn't have her own eggs to use when she had kids. She had to use different eggs to have kids instead, except with Aunt Goldie and Aunt Maya. She adopted them when they were embryos and carried them to term. Apparently, Aunt Goldie and Aunt Maya's original family decided to donate their embryos for other families to use, and Whitney just happened to be one of those people to use them."

Ulysses tried to wrap his head around this new bit of information. "So let me get this straight... Whitney went through menopause when she was only sixteen years old and so had to use other people's eggs to have her own children..."

"Uh huh."

"...so none of her children, including Petunia, are actually related to her by blood..."

"Uh huh."

"...but they're not related to each other by blood, either; but she still gave birth to them. So not only was I responsible in actually making Petunia..."

"Uh huh."

"...but someone else was as well?"

"Yep, that's about the size of it."

"Okay." Ulysses now fixated himself on Whitney. "Whitney, is this all true?"

Whitney slightly nodded her head. "I'm afraid so. Granted, while I may not be genetically related to my own children or the children to each other, we're a family all the same."

"Well, I'm glad you think so," Ulysses said. "But I can't imagine it was easy for other people to understand."

"It wasn't. You have to understand, I was raising the twins during a different time. I couldn't bear to tell them some people were just monsters."

"I see. What about the other two children you had?"

"John and Petunia, you mean? The ones no longer with us?"

"Yes."

"It was slightly different when raising them. John was only three years younger than the twins, so it wasn't as bad. By the time Petunia was born, people were assuming I either merely adopted them or had Black ancestry in somewhere."

"Did you ever correct them at all?"

"I didn't see any reason why I should."

Ulysses wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. "I see... well, can we come in now? I'm anxious to meet the twins and see what they're like."

"Of course, Ulysses." Whitney gestured him and the rest of his family inside. "I wouldn't want to be totally impolite."