She grabbed her keys and sighed. "Please nothing crazy, okay?" she said to her cousin as she collected her things. "I'll be back in three days. You've got this right?"

Ontario shrugged and studied the tattoo across his knuckles. Pain. It was only two weeks after he'd been released and he somehow missed the chaos of jail. His family assured him it would get better, which was why his cousin, Arina, was leaving him to babysit while she went to a convention for her job. He looked up to see she'd gone in the kitchen. Her voice bled into his thoughts.

"Didn't get a chance to go grocery shopping, so I left some money for food. Pizza or something should be fine. I set up the guest bed and there's a TV ans stuff in there. Bedtime is at ten but I mean it's summer so what the hell. Let them stay up until they crash."

"Like you used to?"

She smiled. "Kinda. But you know, I'm an adult or whatever. Can't sleep my life away."

Ontario smiled. She continued to babble about medicine and chores.

"So where's their dad?" he asked.

"Why does that matter? I can assure you he ain't making a surprise visit or nothing."

"So you can tell me where he is."

"You've been gone for fifteen years. Why do you care where their dad is?"

"Just tell me."

Arina rolled her eyes. "Keith went to the military and was shot in the face and kept in China where he slowly died. Happy?"

Ontario's face soured. "I'm sorry."

"It's whatever. People die, right?"

He nodded.

"Well, my plane leaves in two hours, so I'd better get going. They're in the basement watching a movie. Please lock the door for me. And if anything happens call me."

"Of course."

"Wait! Of course, I forget the most important fucking thing!"

She set her suitcase down and raced downstairs. Ontario followed. In the dimly lit basement, her two kids were on the couch. Music from Ice Age resounded off the walls. the oldest one was eating popcorn while the younger one was slumped over, half-asleep.

"Okay, I'm about to leave," Arina told them as she began to kiss them. "Be good. Don't give your uncle a hard time. If you need anything call me."

"Okay Mom," they replied in unison.

"Don't forget your stuff," the younger one chimed.

"Yeah, do you have your keys and your portfolio?" the older one asked.

"Yes."

"Show us!" the younger one asked.

She presented them with her keys and a brown archival binder. Then, she went through to make sure everything was in there. The boys smiled and hugged her again. Ontario watched, rubbing another tattoo on his arm. Michelle, his mother's name. She'd died three months after he was arrested in a car accident. He didn't even get to go to her funeral. The older boy paused the movie and he and his brother went upstairs to help her carry her things to the car. Ontario followed. The boys lugged their mother's bags to the car. She kissed them both and got in the car. Ontario stood waving with the boys. Their mother smiled and pulled off.

"She'll be back," the older one said to his younger brother.

"What makes you say that?" Ontario asked.

Arina's car pulled back into the driveway. She hopped out, ran to grab her phone from her son, and hopped back into her car and sped off. "Nice instincts, um... Which one are you?"

"Xavier. This is Sam."

"Sam? Xavier? Thought she'd name you after food. You know how she likes to eat."

Xavier rolled his eyes. "Come on, Sam. Let's go finish the movie."

"Whoa whoa whoa, where are you two going?"

"To the basement to watch the movie," Sam said.

"No. That's boring. We're going out."

Ontario lit a cigarette as he turned his cousin's car on. It coughed and roared to life. In the back, he heard her kids click their seat belts on. He rolled his eyes and backed out of the driveway.

"Where are we going?" Sam asked.

"To see your grandpa."

"Why are we going this way?" Xavier asked. "They live near Frisch's."

"I've been in jail for fifteen years. Excuse me if I don't know where they live."

He pulled into a nearby driveway and turned around. A car honked at him and he flipped them off. "So, are you guys hungry?"

"We ate chicken at lunch time," Sam answered.

"Your mom made it?"

"Mhm. She always cooks for us. Even pizza!"

"Oh yeah? I remember when your mom nearly burned our grandparents' house down trying to make a grilled cheese."

Sam laughed. "Daddy told me he tried to cook for her once and burned everything so bad the house smelled like burnt steak for a week. She was mad."

Ontario smiled. "So, do you miss your dad?"

"Mhm."

"What about you, Xavier?"

"That's their house right there. The one with the RV in the driveway."

"Why the hell do they have an RV?"

"It's Uncle JJ's."

Ontario parked in front of a brick house with the lights on. He looked at the clock. 8:01. He shrugged, turned the car off, and unlocked the doors. They got out and were greeted by a large black dog. Ontario raised his foot to prepare to kick the vicious dog, but the boys ran towards it, tackling it on the ground. "Pop Tart!"

"What the hell kinda name is Pop Tart?"

"Uncle JJ named him when their dog had puppies," Sam explained.

"Hey Pop Tart, where's Bruce?"

A smaller, stouter dog waddled up behind them. His tongue was sticking out and his butt was wagging. He went over to Xavier and presented his belly to him. Xavier laughed and obliged. The light on the porch came on and a woman hollered, "Who's out there?"

"Hey Granny!" Sam called.

He raced up to the porch with the two dogs in tow. He threw himself into the woman's arms. The two dogs snuck inside. "Why are you here? Did your mother decide not to go?"

"No. Uncle Ontario brought us."

"Uncle-" She looked up and her face soured. "Well come on in, baby. Your grandpa just made some cookies."

The boys went inside. Ontario was stopped at the door. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to talk to Uncle Job."

"About what?"

"I was thinking about something and I want to know what I should do."

"What is this something about? The last brilliant idea you had ended with you locked up."

"It's nothing like that. It's just, well when I first got locked up, Nunu told me some chick had came to her house talking about she was pregnant with my baby. She showed me pictures of it any everything. I want to find her. I wanna be a good dad."

"You just got out of jail. What the hell would you know about raising some kids?"

"Aunt Aminah, I just want to meet him. I'm not going in and demanding for him to come back and live with me."

His aunt sighed. "You gotta go talk to your uncle about all that."

"Great. Where is he?"

"Basement. Through the kitchen to the left. Your cousin is down there too."

Ontario nodded and went through the kitchen. Bruce was lying in front of his food bowl, lazily watching him. He snagged a cookie, burning his hand in the process, and Went down the stairs into the basement. The pungent smell of weed and his uncle talking to someone were the first things to hit him. He coughed, waving smoke from his face and continued downstairs. His uncle's voice got louder.

"See I'm just saying if Drake wasn't such a little bitch he woulda never got stomped by Chris Brown in the first place."

"Yeah," the voice of Ontario's cousin, murmured.

Ontario knocked on the door of the little room where the smoke was coming from. "Unc?"

"What?" the man groaned.

"It's Ontario. I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Come in."

Ontario pushed open the door to the poorly lit room. His uncle and cousin were sitting on two mismatched lawn chairs. The blunt was in his cousin's mouth. His uncle was holding his busted up iPhone Max, scrolling through World Star. He looked up and laughed. "Well, looks like the Birdman made it out."

"Birdman?"

"You got all them dumbass tattoos like him. Why are you here? I thought you were babysitting for Arina."

"They're upstairs. I just need to talk to you."

"About what?"

"Well, this girl told Nunu she was pregnant by me when I first got locked up and I wanted to find them."

"You just got out the joint and you're tryna find some girl?"

"That's my kid."

"How you know that?"

"There's a possibility though. I wanna know my kid."

"Listen, you can't just walk up in some kid's life talking about you their daddy. That's not how the shit works. Ay, Lik, if Amie's baby daddy came back talking about he wanted his kids, what would you do?"

Kaliq took blew out smoke and laughed. "I mean, I raised 'em so why he want 'em back? He ain't care when they was babies and they damn near grown now so what he want 'em for? Plus, they got they sisters and they brother around them so what they want him fo?"

"You had kids with Amie?"

Kaliq rolled up his sleeve to expose a tattoo of a heart. Olivia, Ametria, and Kaliq Jr. were tattooed into the heart. An arrow through it was made up the other two boys' names. "They my kids man. All of 'em."

"Would you let'm see 'em?"

"Man, nah. If they wanna see'm, fine, but if not, he can fuck off, na'mean?"

"See. Man, that girl raised that baby on her own for like three years. We helped hear and there, but she was alone most times."

"I was in jail. I couldn't stop that."

His uncle glared at him. "You chose not to stop it. We were all that table telling yo dumbass not to do nuthin' stupid but there you go. Three days later, you shot someone up at Burger King and got arrested. Now you wanna go find this girl and get in her baby life but you can't even go see your daddy."

"I don't know where he is and it ain't like he wanna see me anyways."

"Man all he do is ask about you. You was calling him and all that time he came to see you and now you ain't even gon go see him. It's been two weeks, O, and you still ain't sent and saw him. It's breaking my brother's heart to know his son out and don't even wanna come see him because he's too much of a punk. Man up and go see him."

"I don't want to see him. I want to see my kid."

"Well that's the only way you'll find out anything about her."

"Her?"

"Yeah. Her. That girl had a daughter and named her Ontaria after yo dumbass. Yo daddy see her every weekend. And it's summer now so she prolly down here."

"Down here?"

"Her momma took her up to New York with her when she finally found a decent job. They make a good living now."

"Do you know where my dad is?"

"Yeah. He's playing up at that ghetto ass bar on West and Third. Gary's or some shit. If you gonna go up there, leave my grandbabies here. I don't want them getting caught up in your shit."

Ontario nodded, took a puff, and went back upstairs. Sam was in the kitchen trying to pour himself some milk. Bruce stood underneath him, catching the drips. Sam turned to Ontario and smiled. "Are we going home now?"

"Nah. Ya'll gonna spend the night and I'll be back in the morning."

Sam smiled and went into the kitchen to tell his brother. Ontario chuckled and went into the living room. His aunt was watching Bone, Thugs, and Home Renovation. "Uncle Job said they could spend the night."

His aunt sighed. "Alright. Well, where you about to go?"

"See my dad."

She mad a face but nodded. "Alright well, hope everything goes how you want it to."

"Me too."