Six years later...

“Come here, little squirrel!” I get on my knees to crawl after my chubby runaway baby when I see an arm scoop her up.

“I got her!” exclaims my brother, Gunner, as my daughter, Destiny, laughs in delight and is hoisted into the air by Gunner’s long arms. “Oh God, no! No, I don’t!” Gunner exclaims making a face like he’s going to barf. “Take her! Take her! She stinks. She wreaks of poop.”

“Daddy, don’t say that,” scolds Gunner’s petite teenage daughter. She takes Destiny from him and snatches the clean diaper out of my hand. “You’re going to hurt her feelings.”

“Yeah, bro,” smirks our oldest brother, Bastion, who waves his hand with obvious exaggeration back and forth across his nose. “You can’t tell a baby she wreaks of poop. It’s rude! Isn’t that right, little squirrel?” Bastion tugs on Destiny’s little toes and makes fishy lips to her as he talks. “You’re a cutesy little squirrel, but you stink, don’t you?”

Destiny coos at her uncle as she makes fishy lips back, but those fish lips can’t hide her two huge buck teeth protruding over her bottom lip.

My cheeks flush warm. My little squirrel.

“Do you want Uncle Gunner to change your diaper? I bet he’d love to change your stinky diaper,” asks Bastion.

“No way,” remarks Gunner with a look of disgust. “I’ve never changed a diaper in my life. My kids came grown.”

“If I’m so grown, then why can’t I date?” huffs Gunner’s daughter.

“Not this again!” Gunner shouts as his kid walks away with my baby. “You are allowed to date. It’s not my fault your potential suitors are intimidated by my big guns.”

“Bro, you show her dates your gun collection?” asks Bastion, who seems to be taking notes; he has a daughter as well.

“Of course not,” snaps Gunner. “I don’t keep guns in the house. They’re all in storage. I’m talking about my biceps.”

Bastion and I roll our eyes as I hear my name being called.

“Jet!” calls Keiko’s voice, except it’s not Keiko; it’s her mother, Akiko, who lives with us.

After my father-in-law passed away about the same time as my mother, Akiko came to live with Keiko and me. She does more than just help with the kids, and I appreciate her just as much I would my own mother. Akiko helps to fill the void of my loss, except she’s still trying to understand boys—my brothers, my son, and me.

“Jet!” I hear my mother-in-law call again and I also hear my son, Kila, arguing with his grandmother, which is unfortunate. No one likes arguing with Kila, whom I named after my adoptive father, the greatest man I believe to have ever lived.

Kila, likewise, seems destined for greatness, especially because he is somewhat of a genius. His intellect not only exceeds his mother’s, but he can get hotter than me and the last thing anyone ever wants to do is get into a heated debate with him. He also has an unparalleled self-awareness (he’s a handsome and irresistible little troublemaker because he looks like me) that makes him exceptionally confident, like he’s already been through boot camp; so at six-years-old, he’s too cocky.

But that is one of the many reasons I love Kila. The kid has absolutely no genetic link to my adoptive father, but when I look at him, all I see is what I saw when I met my father for the first time—proof.

Kila is proof of potential—for unity, edification, and opportunity. But even more than that, when I look at him, he is proof of life and lives worth protecting because your own life isn’t always about you.  

“Family,” I remind Kila. “We don’t talk to our family, and especially your grandmother, like that.”

Kila stomps his foot. “But, Dad, grandma says my friends can’t come in.”

Keiko’s mother mumbles in Japanese, which I’m sure is cussing in her native tongue. “Because they too dirty and too many of them,” Akiko grumbles. “And I do not slave over hot stove for neighborhood gang. This a family gathering—honor my daughter in space. Not for group of rascal.”

My eyes skim over to the dozen or so mudslingers surrounding the back-kitchen door armed with either a water gun pistol or a football. They have gathered once again in our backyard, ready and eager to get a glimpse of live feed from the cosmos.

“Mom, it’s fine,” I tell Akiko. “The boys can come in.”

Akiko looks terror-stricken as she realizes our house is about to be overrun yet again by boys—school-aged, dirty desperados ready to do damage until Kila puts his hand up.

“Wait!” he yells at the boys now jammed together, pushing one another in the doorway and eager to come crashing through the door to see outer space in real time on a big screen while filling their bellies with exotic, almost alien, Asian homemade goods as if they were in an episode of Star Trek.

Akiko will be upset with me for a few days; she doesn’t like distractions when it comes to her daughter. But I’ve shown Akiko her daughter is extremely capable when faced with distraction. Keiko has me after all. Plus, I feel proud to be filling the minds of future engineers, teachers, and possibly soldiers with what they will remember as the best show on earth. It’s just unfortunate Kila has become so smart that he’s learned to exploit the opportunity.

I watch my son walk to the back door, allowing one kid to enter at a time after they’ve paid for their admission.

“I think she’s dialing in now,” my brother, Bastion, calls out and everyone gathers into the living room to surround the large screen mounted on the wall.

I scurry to grab my little squirrel so her mother can get a good look at her and I do a quick search for my son. I catch a glimpse of Kila at the back door. He has already let everyone in except one little girl, a redhead. Kila’s cheeks flush as he flashes her a winning smile. I notice he’s waived her admission fee as he lets her in.

My attention is brought back to the big screen when I hear Keiko.

“Hi guys!” she cheers and my heart skips a beat when I see long black hair floating about in the cramped space of the International Space Station. We all cheer back with hellos and Destiny is clapping in my lap at the sight of her mother.

Everyone takes a quick turn to ask how Keiko is doing, but I already know. She’s perfectly fine, perfectly happy, and I know this because, despite the distance, our lives are perfect together.

“So, I see Kila is charging admission, again,” Keiko says to me as everyone laughs.

“Yep,” I say, “having an astronaut for a mother must make you pretty popular.”

Keiko laughs and I notice Gunner’s wife, Camilla, is laughing along with Bastion’s wife, Gemma.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“Jet, honey,” Keiko snorts, “our son does not charge admission because the kids want to get a good look at the space station. They can do that in their own homes online.”

I turn to Kila, who hobbles over to hide between the group of stink and dirty misfits hanging around behind the couch and I turn back to the screen to ask my wife, “Then, what the hell is Kila charging admission for?”

 My wife laughs, as do the other wives, but I know I’m not the only one who’s clueless. Bastion and Gunner are also making questionable faces.

“Baby,” says Keiko as she floats about on screen wearing her blue NASA polo shirt, “Kila is charging admission for a look at all the hot chicks in our family.”

My head automatically darts in the direction of the boys who have all turned red-in-the-face.

Wait a second. “Kila!” I roar. “Is that true? Are you charging your friends admission into our house so they can check out the women here?”

“Not my whole family, Dad. Just the sexy chicks—the grown-ups.”

My wife laughs like it’s no big deal. “I have to go; the line is about to disconnect. It’s a short call today. I love you guys,” she says.

Everyone says goodbye as the call ends, but I’m still fuming. I think I’m upset because my son has been lying to me.

Oh God! I don’t’ even want to think it. My son lied. Whenever I lied, my life turned to shit. I need to get to the bottom of this and teach him a lesson.

“Kila, you can’t sell admission for a glimpse of—”

“Why not?” Kila cuts me off like he thinks he’s in charge. “Uncle Gunner did it. He helped kids climb trees to spy on Mrs. Martinez when he was young and you helped him do it, Dad.”

I shake my head as I look back to my brother and I’m thrilled to see his wife smack him in the back of the head. My brothers and I had all agreed we would not tell the younger kids about the naughty things we did when we were little, but Gunner has once again told on me.

“Kila, it’s just not appropriate,” I tell him.

 “But Uncle Bastion says we should use every opportunity to help the little guy. That’s what leadership is all about.”

I’m so frustrated. “You’re not helping the little guys.”

Gunner interjects. “Maybe he is. How many of you boys want to join the military knowing you might get the chance to serve a sexy chick?”

Kila, Gunner, and Bastion look pleased with themselves as all the boys, including Gunner’s son, slowly but surely all raise their hands.

Kila laughs, pulls out his cash, and starts counting it as if my kid has to show off to his own father he’s made a point.

“How about you, Kila?” asks Bastion. “You’re not raising your hand. Do you think you’re going to join the military one day? Follow in the footsteps of your father, uncles, and grandfather.”

Kila rolls the cash into a wad and pushes it deep into his front jeans pocket. “I’ll do my duty, but only for a little while. I’ll sign a short-term contract and by the time it’s over, I’ll have at least one college degree like my mom.”

“Oh!” I blurt. My mood changes. I’m pleased. “So, are you planning to be an astronaut, too?” I’m rather excited at the prospect, although I don’t ever recall Kila having shown any real interest in spaceships or astronomy.

“Definitely not, Dad. Being an astronaut and flying into outer space is a little too-small-potatoes for me. And Uncle Bastion says I can be anything I want to be. I will be all I can be when I grow up.”

Kila again seems overly confident, but I notice the boys, all of them, standing behind my son are nodding their heads like they know something about him that I don’t.

Fear creeps in. It’s the same fear I have when I get notice I have to deploy. I’m not afraid of deployment; I’m just fearful for my family and hate to leave them, except I know it’s necessary. In my heart, I know Kila will do whatever is necessary to fulfill his own destiny. I just wish I knew what it was—Kila and his posse seem to know.

“Okay,” I mumble. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“I’m a Badass,” replies Kila. “I go above and beyond what is expected of me. I already own this neighborhood. Next year, I’ll own this whole town. By the end of high school, I’ll have the respect of the entire state. I don’t know how yet, but when I graduate as a senior from high school, everyone will feel a need to own up to me. And by the time I finish my four-year contract with the military and get my college degree, this whole country will in one way or another belong to me.”

“Our country can’t just belong to one person,” interrupts Gunner.

“Sure, it can,” replies Kila, looking his uncle straight in the eye and it’s almost disturbing.

Bastion has already suggested Kila might need to go to military camp at an earlier age than the rest of us. “You sound awfully sure of yourself, Kila,” Bastion says.

“Yep, I sure do,” my son replies as he reaches out to pat his sister, being held in my arms, on the head. “It’s like my mother says—it’s destiny.”

With that, I figure I should indulge him. We are all in fear of Kila—his cockiness, his determination, his skill, and his smarts, but particularly his scheming. It feels like potentially worse trouble than anything my brothers and I could ever conjure together.

What’s worse is my son doesn’t carry any of the faults of my brothers and me. Kila is not naïve as Gunner once was or eager to please as Bastion still is, and my son does not have the insecurities that once defined my past. It’s as if Kila was born aware he is an unstoppable force. He doesn’t need to endure any of the trials of his forefathers because he was born with these lessons ingrained in his blood.

Despite my fears as a father, I know Kila doesn’t just need my support. My father would say his grandson deserves my support regardless of whatever shit the kid plans to get into. So, I ask Kila with all sincerity, “How son? How do you plan to get a whole country to own up to you? And what makes you believe you deserve to make claim to a country as great as ours?”

Kila glances over and smiles at the little redheaded girl from next door, whom he allowed to enter without admission. With one look from my son, her freckled cheeks blush crimson above a gleaming white smile that floats under twinkling, starry blue eyes.

“Dad,” Kila blurts, swinging his head back to flash me a cocky grin. “You’re always saying America is a sexy chick. Don’t you think she needs a Badass president?”

 

*End of Book 3*