The Beginning (The Life 1)

Rosa and Anna were daddy’s little princesses, but Gabriel was the prince, my son in everything but blood. Maybe it was for that reason that I went above and beyond for the boy. I never wanted him to question his place in our family.

His mother and I had decided it was better if he learned the truth of his parentage from us when the time was right, rather than hear it from someone else somewhere down the line, though only my immediate family, i.e., mom, dad, and Garrett knew, I wasn’t about to take any chances.

When he was four years old, old enough to understand and yet young enough that it wouldn’t do too much damage, we sat him down and told him. We’d decided on that age as opposed to waiting until he was a teenager because we didn’t want him looking back on his life with recriminations, second-guessing every gesture, every kindness, and wondering.

This way, he knew, but he also knew that it meant nothing, that he was just as much mine as his siblings. My son, that beautiful boy, his only worry was if this faceless man was gonna come and take him away from his home.

Once he was reassured that his daddy would never let such a thing happen, he was back to being my little monkey. We told him when he asked that the man who had got his mother pregnant lived in another country.

Of course, we didn’t tell him the truth about his conception, and I hope he never finds out. I would do anything to see that that never happens. The ugliness of that night is something I try to safeguard him from, even though I can’t wipe the memory from his mother’s heart.

I know she still carries it with her. And sometimes I’d see her watching him, and I know what it is she’s been looking for since he was young. She wanted to make sure her son had nothing of the man who’d harmed her in him. Something else I worked very hard to achieve. Making my son into a man his mother and I could be proud of.

Now he’s a teenager, a young man who, because of his closeness to me, knows way more about the family business than I did at that age. The kids today, they know more about everything than we did back then. The shit they have to deal with, it’s a wonder any of them survive past high school.

But my Gabriel is a son of my heart, a young man I have great pride and admiration for. He’s never given me too much to worry about, though sometimes I wish he wasn’t so serious. And sometimes, he watches his mother in a way that makes me wonder if he’s still wondering about the man who’d fathered him.

Now I looked at him across the room, more man than boy now, and I wondered where the years had gone. His mother and I are very proud of him, he, and his sisters. But they were growing up too fast.

I walked across the room to join him when we were left alone. “You’re turning into a fine young man Gabriel; I’m extremely proud of you.” It was his eighteenth birthday, that time when he passes from child to man.

“Thanks, dad!” So stoic for one so young! He has an innate sense of duty and loyalty that sometimes makes me wonder about what goes on in his head. He’s so much like me it was uncanny. In the past eighteen years, he’d grown into a son that any man would be happy to call his own, and it had been a while now since I even remembered that I wasn’t there when he was conceived.

He and his sisters had been shielded from the worst of life, but things had changed drastically in the last five years. Mom and pop had come around by the time the girls were in their first year. They’d started out on the wrong foot, though, shunning my son when they came to visit while ladling my girls with gifts.

The first time they tried that shit, I chucked every last one of those pretty little gift-wrapped fucks out the door. I didn’t have to say anything for them to get the message, to know that my stance had not and will not change when it comes to my wife and son.

When dad tried to play the tough with me, I’d taken him into the library and told him how shit worked in my house. If I wanted my wife and kid subjected to his shit, I would’ve stayed in his.

Sofia was my wife, and she was due the same respect as his. Gabriel was as much my son and his grandson as the girls were, and if he couldn’t bring himself to see things that way, he could carry his ass next door to Garret’s place.