The below bonus takes place 2.5 years after the end of Mother Parker and a 1.5 years after the bonus epilogue.
2.5 years later
Felicity opened the courtroom door and waited until all three of us were through before she followed us out into the bright Mayberrian sun.
“So? How do we all feel?” she asked with an elevated cheery disposition as she often did for his benefit.
I turned to Hwan.
His smile was as infectious as I imagined mine was. It hurt my fucking cheeks.
He was wearing his more modest hair today, the silver wig. Felicity had advised on an even more modest color, but I’d refused to let him hide who he was and who I’d fallen in love with.
And who Levi had fallen in love with.
After all, he was the most important person in our lives now.
“I feel heavenlicious!” Hwan said, waving his hands in the air in front of him as if he was reading a sign in the sky. “What about you Levi?”
I looked down at the little doe-eyed dude between us, barely three and a half feet staring up at Hwan as if he was his everything.
I guess now he was.
Well, he had been for a long time.
We both had.
“I feel…” he put his little fingers under his chin and hummed for a second. “Splendidity”
Hwan gasped, bent down, picked Levi up and the little man filled my eardrums with laughter that filled my soul with more happiness than I could have ever imagined.
“Splendidity? I love feeling splendidity,” Hwan repeated over and over and I stood there admiring my…
My family.
That was what we were.
It was what we’d been for a long time, only now it was official.
Who would have told me two years ago that when we decided to go on this crazy adoption journey that the little black kid, broken by life before he’d even lived it, would become part of us. Part of our life.
Little Levi whose mother was sick and whose father was a monster. Who’d been so traumatized by the abuse and the neglect he couldn’t even talk for the first week he’d stayed with us and when he finally did his words were jumbled and quiet.
That was how this little game had started. Of taking words and making new ones. It was for Levi’s benefit. To make him feel more confident and less self-conscious when he screwed up.
And now that little five-year-old kid from the “wrong part of town” as people liked to remind us as if race, wealth or the family you were born into determined who you were and the kind of life you could live, was a smiley, wonderful seven-year-old kid who laughed too much and sang too loud.
“How do you feel, Pukah?” Levi asked me and both he and Hwan were staring at me, hanging on my lips.
They looked so adorable together I didn’t know if my heart could take so much beauty.
Some days I still couldn’t believe this was all happening to me, dickhead Officer Grumpy-pants who turned everything he touched to shit.
“I feel happy-randy,” I said.
Both opened their hands and welcomed me into their embrace and I could just about burst.
“Are you okay, Pukah?” Levi pointed at the tears running down my cheek.
I hadn’t even realized I was crying.
Pukah.
It might be a silly mispronunciation of my name, but now it had more meaning than anything else I’d ever been called.
It meant guardian, memories, laughter, sleepless nights, endless worry, uncertainty, frustration, fulfillment, happiness.
There hadn’t been a single emotion since we started fostering him that it wasn’t associated with.
But most of all, to Levi, it meant dad. And that was the only thing I wanted to be in my life.
“I’m more than okay, Levi. I love you.”
Levi smiled and hugged me again.
“I love you too, daddy Pukah.”
Fuck!
Just when I thought I was done crying…
“What did you call me?” I asked.
Levi glanced from me to Hwan and lowered his eyes.
“Apa said you’d like it. I’m sorry,” he said.
Hwan sulked along with Levi and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Apa was right.” I glanced at Hwan. “I love it, Levi.”
He looked at me once more and his eyes went wide as did his smile.
I hugged the little man. I hugged my son.
“Oh god, you three are going to make me melt you’re so cute,” Felicity said, waving a hand in front of her face as she tried to compose herself.
“You, missy, are my favorite person on this planet!” I told her.
Hwan coughed. Levi did too, mimicking his apa.
“Fine. You have a point. Third favorite person.”
Felicity brought her hand down to my shoulder and winced at the impact. “I’ll take it! Damn, do you ever miss a day at the gym?”
I laughed.
“Sometimes, but I make up for it with Hwan.”
Hwan gasped and slapped my arm.
“Hey!”
He pretended to be shocked for Levi, but he couldn’t hide the amusement in his face.
“What do you mean, daddy?” Levi asked.
My eyes went wide and I stopped breathing for a second.
“He just means I chase him around the house so he exercises that way,” Hwan said.
“Okay, enough. Should we make our way? Halmeoni will be expecting us,” I said.
It wasn’t just Halmeoni actually. It was the whole gang. Our entire extended family. Ash and Maddox, Joey and Santi, Slade and King, and all the rest of my brothers in arms.
But Hwan didn’t know that. And neither did Levi.
“Yeah, let’s go. Let’s go. Can we get bubble tea on the way?”
I rolled my eyes, laughing.
“You truly are your apa’s son,” I mumbled.
“Oh shush. As if you’re not a tea addict. What would you like today Levi?”
“I don’t know. Maybe taro and melon?”
“Ooh, I like the way you think, little one.” They walked ahead of me, toward the car and I admired them for a moment.
It was hard to believe this was real. That all the torment, stress and pain was over and this was real. That Levi was our son. That we were officially his fathers.
“Daddy? Are you coming?” Levi turned and watched me.
Daddy.
Pukah.
Whatever he wanted to call me, I’d always come to his aid. I’d follow him to the end of the world to protect him.
Always.
Because that’s what dads do!