Chapter 2- Never Forget

Oh man! There is nothing better than waking up to the smell of bacon, eggs and waffles. The smell was so intoxicating that I sprinted straight to the kitchen almost forgetting my pants. When I got there, a plate was already sitting there calling to me with a tall glass of cranberry apple juice all just waiting to be scarfed down. But before I could dig in, a stinging pain shot through my hand. I knew right away without even looking up who had struck me, and I already knew but I was not going to let her know that. So it was time to play dumb.

“Ouch! What was that for?” I said as I look up at my wife while rubbing my hand. My wife had a wooden spoon in her hand; her weapon of choice when I did something wrong. She stood there trying to hold a stern look at me but I could see a smile fighting at the corner of her mouth. Man, was she beautiful when she did that, with her curly red hair hanging over her shoulders, her bright hazel eyes, and that cute button nose with freckles along the bridge like the sprinkles on top of the best Ice cream. Even with flour all over her face and apron she could not look more stunning.

“You know full well that you have to wake the kids before you eat.” She leaned in and kissed me then pushed me off with a wooden spoon smack to my rear. “And make sure you tell uncle Enrique breakfast is ready while you're at it”

“Okay okay I'm going Emilia, put the weapon down.” I took off to my kids room before she could get another swing at me. My food would have to wait for now.

When I opened the door to the kid’s room my son was already up, sitting in the middle of the room reading a book with no sign of his twin sister. “What are you reading there Al?” He held up the book for me to read the cover, it was an intro to physics. “Don't you think that's a bit above your level right now?”

“Well it is a bit harder than the geometry and calculus books but I am getting it as I go along.” Sometimes I wonder if this kid really is six. “So dad, when are we leaving?” He asked me with pure excitement in his eyes. Whenever he was this happy I could see the resemblance to his mother clearly, from his small nose and hazel eyes to his fair skin and freckles. The only things he got from me are my ears and my hair, but even though he got his black hair from me he still has a streak of red in there that’s the same shade as his mother's.

“Right after breakfast. Did you pack your bags?”

“Yes dad, we made sure to pack everything before we went to bed, mom even helped us.” Well if she helped them, then I have nothing to worry about. I just need to find Alya now, then I can feast upon my breakfast with no more interruptions.

“Good, now get ready and head down to eat, also do you know where your sister is?” He looked at me puzzled.

“She's not in the kitchen? She got up and left approximately 10 minutes ago.” If that was the case I would have seen her already, maybe she went to see uncle Enrique?

“Alright just get ready and go eat, we’ll be there soon.”

“Okay dad.”

I made my way outside and down the hallway to my uncle's apartment. He always insisted on living close to us no matter what; he’s always been overprotective with me ever since I was young, him and my mom. He even had spare keys to our apartment, well I had one to his as well but that's not the point. So since he lives so close we always have meals together, one big famiglia.

I let myself into his apartment the same way I do every day and went straight to the living room. He was there like always staring at a bunch of computer screens doing his important top secret ‘research’.

“Uncle it’s breakfast time.” I told him, but he just kept going over whatever was on his screens. “Uncle!!” No change, still staring at his screens. “UNCLE ENRIQUE!!!” This time I was sure everyone in the building could hear me. He turned slowly to face me, for his age uncle Enrique looked pretty good, a well chiseled chin, short wavy salt and pepper hair slicked back and sharp dark brown eyes. But today he had huge bags under his eyes, he must have stayed up all night on his ‘research’.

“Oh, Tony. ” He said with a yawn as he stretched out of his chair. “When did you get here and why are you here so early? It's just a little after two in the morning .”

“What do you mean? It's already past ten.” He stared at me with a blank face, then looked at his watch.

“Oh, you’re right. I must've lost track of time while I was working, so do you need my assistance with something ?”

“It’s time for breakfast and don’t forget we are leaving right after we finish. Also have you seen Alya? She wasn’t in her room, neither was she in the kitchen.” As I asked him his eyes quickly glanced at the corner of the room then back at me.

“No, I haven't seen her since dinner last night.”

Ah! I see what's going on here. “OK then I guess I will look around for a bit. I am pretty sure I left my charger here last time.” I walked over to the corner of the room, all that was there was the end of the window curtains, it was dark so I couldn't make out precisely what was there, but I could see that something was behind the curtains. “Oh, I think I forgot it behind here. I hope my charger is the only thing back here.” With that said I pulled the curtain aside letting in the light of day. After a second to adjust to the newly illuminated space all I could see was some shoes and a box. She wasn't here then why did uncle loo--.

“HA I GOT YOU!” As soon as I heard her, she descended from the ceiling onto my back, throwing me to the ground. “YES! Finally I have taken the lead, sixteen to fifteen.” As I looked up to the huge ginning face of my daughter I could not stop smiling from sprouting across my face. She always loved playing this game, the same game Enrique used to play with me when I was younger. The game never really had a name but Alya likes to call it Ninja. The objective of the game was to sneak up on your target and attack without being seen or noticed using any means at your disposal. Enrique always said that we played this game to keep me sharp. I never really knew what he meant by that but the game was fun so I didn't dwelled on it. Well when I say “attack” I really mean to jump on them or surprise them but yeah that's how the game goes and Alya just took the lead.

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“Okay okay, you got me and I have to say that was a good set up. You even got uncle in on it and he almost never wants to play these days”

“Hey, it's not that I don't want to play, it's just I've been too busy to play these days.” He said letting out another yawn as if to emphasize his point.

“Yeah, I know.” I move Alya to the side so I can get up. As I set her down she stands there staring up at me with a smug face of victory. She loved to make that face when she won and it always reminds me how much she takes after me, especially because she resembles me so much. She did have her mother's nose and small ears but other than that she was my spitting image. She had gray eyes just like me, my caramel brown complexion and her hair was just like mine except that where my hair is a mix of black and orange, her’s is fully black with one streak of orange going through it.

“That just shows how good I am at this game papa.” She said with a huge grin.

“Alright, you got this round but watch out, I will take the lead before you know it.”

“No way papa, I am the master of ninja. I'm taking this lead and keeping it.” as she said this she strikes her signature ninja pose. She’s so adorable when she does that.

“We can talk about this later, right now we have to get to breakfast. We don’t want to keep your mother waiting.” Plus my stomach is going crazy, I need food.

I scooped up Alya and made a beeline back to the feast that was calling my name. We made it back just in time to see Alistair wolf down the rest of his food, it's times like this I am convinced he is my son. I put Alya in her seat as Emilia brought her a plate of food. Now that we were all here I could finally partake of my breakfast, as I picked up my fork and knife to cut into my fluffy golden brown waffles the doorbell decided to ring.

“Who could have such great timing?” I said sarcastically as I put my knife and fork down.

“Well whomever it is we can't just ignore them that would be rude. So go answer the door and politely send them away.” Emilia told me with a stern look as to tell me ‘don't even try to say no.’

With a sigh I got up to head and see who dared to interrupt my most important meal of the day and find out if they have a damn good reason. I opened the door to what I can only describe as the poster boy for detectives everywhere. The man was wearing black slacks with a plain white shirt and black tie all under a beige trench coat. He was also leaning on a black cane with a silver handle, yeah a detective right out of a story book. He looked me over and then began writing something down in a notepad. Being a half black half Italian man in New York about to be questioned by the detective in the NYPD I did what anyone else would do. I put my hands up to show I was unarmed and then addressed the officer.

“Good morning detective. What brings you here Today?” I tried to sound as polite as possible trying not to show how annoyed I am.

“Good morning Mr. Parker. My name is Allegro Phantasmo, I am terribly sorry to interrupt your breakfast. I know that you are in a hurry, since you will be leaving soon to the airport for your vacation, so you want to have a good meal before you go. So I won't take much of your time, I would just like to ask you a few questions about a case I am working on, it will only take a few minutes.” As he spoke he simultaneously flipped through his notepad glancing at a few lines nodding then flipped to the next page. But what I really want to know is how he knew we were going on vacation. As much as I would love to know, I did not want this to drag this conversation on too long. I have waffles that are getting cold, so the best course of action would be to just answer his questions. Worst thing that can happen is he gets mad that I have no real answers for him.

“Sure detective, ask away.” I said more than ready to get this over with.

“Thank you. First question, I would like to know if you were born here in America?”

“Yes, born and raised right here in the USA.”

The detective jotted down some notes flipped to a new page then began his next questio-n. “Hm, okay what about your mother and father?”

“My mom was born in Jamaica and I don't know much about my father. He died when I was young, mom never talked about him.” Why did he want to know about them? Well anyway it doesn't matter, I just want this over with.

“Do you know your father's name by chance?” he asked without even looking up from his notes.

“No.” I could hear my stomach growl with hunger. I was on the verge of telling him to leave when he looked up from his notes at last. His brown eyes had taken on a stern seriousness to them. His look alone chilled the air and made it hard to breathe,then he spoke. His tone was now more grim and resolute but still calm.

“Lastly I would like to ask if the word 'Vongola' means anything to you?”

Vongola? The word scratched at something in the back of my mind, something deep in my subconscious, but whatever that was I didn't know. So there was only one answer I could give.

“Sorry but I don't know anything about this Vongola.” I could read the disappointment on his face as I finished answering the questions. He began to write something in his notepad while mumbling for some time. He seemed lost In his own world, I felt kind of bad for him but my food was waiting.

“If that's all Mr. Phantasmo then…”

“Oh, yes sorry. I will be on my way now. Thank you for your time.” With that he made his way back down the hall to the elevator.

I wasted no time, I shut the door and raced back to the kitchen and shoveled as much food and cranberry apple juice into me as I could before anyone could interrupt me again.

“Whoa, slow down hon. At least come up for air. So who was it and what did they want?” Emilia was wiping Alya’s face while waiting for my response.

It took me a second to get my food down before I could answer. I finished off my glass of cran apple to help guide it down.

“It was a detective. He wanted to ask me a few questions. I didn’t seem to have the answers he wanted though.” I could see worry rise on her face as I answered. “It’s okay, I don’t think his case has anything to do with us.” I knew as soon as I said it that it was not the truth. He had asked about me and my family like we were somehow connected to this vongola. But whatever it is, it could wait, I don’t want to put unneeded thoughts and worry into our vacation before it even starts. This is the first vacation we’ve had in the last 5 years and I don't want to ruin it.

“Well I hope nothing bad is going on in the area, we finally got used to living in New York and I would hate to move again.”

“Don’t worry about it Ems, we aren't going anywhere except to Florida for the best vacation destination of them all.”

“Disney World!!” I said together with the kids, huge smiles spreading across their faces, and even though she tried to fight it Emilia could not help but smile too. It was a smile so pure and beautiful that it shook me to my core and still made my heart skip a beat the same way it did the first time I got her to smile so genuinely, god she’s beautiful.

“Okay okay, enough messing around. Finish up your food and go get ready. We need to be on our way in the next half an hour.” With that said Emilia got to washing the last of the dishes while I hurried to get the luggage together and the kids got changed and ready to go.

When everyone was ready to go Enrique brought the van upfront to drop us to the airport. We got there just within two hours before our flight, keeping to Emillia’s vacation schedule. Before we checked in I made sure one last time that Enrique would not forget his flight tomorrow morning like he forgot breakfast today. With that, we made our way to our flight for a vacation we would never forget.