BIRTHRIGHT Book One: The First Key

Chapter 3

The orange setting sun glints off the chrome grill of the General's Humvee as it speeds down an abandoned road. It is a hard-edged black strip of tar that seems ugly and impatient against the rusty desert mountains, elegantly sculpted by eons of nature's fury. And yet, nature has already begun to evict the unnatural element in its midst: red sand blows across the asphalt, obstructing it from view here and there.

But the break-neck speed of the Humvee whipping along the road cuts a path of pure black as it kicks up a cloud of dust, sending it back into the desert from whence it cam. Even the dust glows a warm orange in the sunlight.

Inside, Tia is sitting in the back seat behind a plexiglass shield. She is yelling at her father, who sits distraught in the passenger seat. Locked doors, bulletproof glass. How dare he contain his own daughter like a criminal?

The General hides his deep concern as best he can. Signing documents on his tablet computer, sending them back to the Commander in Chief and ultimately just gazing off into the endless desert. The peaceful desert.

A thud from behind his head finally steals his attention, much to his dismay. He finally looks over his shoulder to see his daughter's animated screams as she pounds on the glass. Not a word can be heard up front; they are all muffled behind the glass. Bulletproof and soundproof.

His eyes meet his daughter's. He can tell that she has been crying, even though she's wiped them away. This has gone on long enough. Why is he making her suffer like this? She's frantic. Is it some malicious act, done specifically to hurt her? No, it's fear, really. Fear of saying the wrong thing. Fear of failing her as a father. But can he really do any worse than he already has? Can he possibly drive any more of a wedge in their relationship than the one that was already there? He certainly might have today.

Reaching for a walkie talkie, the General puts it to his mouth. Tia falls silent, seeing his lips move, but not able to hear him either.

With a resounding crackle, the newfound silence of the backseat is broken by the squawk of a walkie talkie. Tia's eyes dart around looking for the source of the warbling sound. Finally, her gaze settles on the walkie talkie's twin, jammed into a charging dock on the far door. It comes to life carrying the General's voice, low-fi, and distantly tinny.

"You really should keep calm, Tia." it says a split second after the General's lips sound out the words.

Her expression goes from furious to deadpan as she reaches for the walkie talkie. "You're not seriously talking to me through a walkie talkie right now." Tia is exasperated.

The General peers expressionless through the plexiglass at his daughter. As much as it hurts him to be hurting her, he's also delighted that circumstance has brought them together today. He has no idea she had even left the east coast. It's been too long since he talked to her. And yet, with all these emotions swirling around in his heart, the General is still the General. To look at the expression on his face, he is all business.

"I'm sorry, but we can't risk any further exposure to you until you've been de--"

She isn't interested in talking to the General; she wants to talk to her father. Tia presses the TALK button on her device and the two walkie talkies both squeal with feedback until the General releases the TALK button on his. His daughter's furious voice calls out from it.

"I haven't gotten anything but a phone call from you since college," Tia says in a rage "and now that we're actually in a car together, this is how you wanna talk to your daughter?"

A small but genuine smile comes across the General's stern face. "I always remember your birthday, Tia." he asserts proudly. "I call every year."

"A phone call." Tia is nonplussed. "Yep. That's the warm fatherly love I remember growing up."

The General's smile falls away as he sits back in his seat. His eyes close in a pained expression. He can't look her in the eye like this. She is hurting so badly. But he knows why she's really in pain, doesn't he?

"Tia-bear... I know it's been hard since we lost your mother, but that's no excuse to talk to me like--"

The walkie talkies squeal again as Tia interrupts her father. She never was the kind to wait for someone to say 'over' before talking.

"Oh, you know? You know, do you? Just how hard is it for you, General? You were never there when she was alive!"

And now she's brought Jasmine into it. The love of his life. A touchy subject for any widower, but to hear this kind of presumption and contempt from his own daughter crosses a line that sets him off. The General whips back around to look at his daughter through the glass. Try as he might to hide them, his feelings are slipping out. Rage and sadness in equal parts.

"That's not fair." he sputters. "We were always a family, always together!"

"Oh sure, we followed you everywhere; you dragged us to every corner of the globe so you could get those damned stars on your jacket." Tia is matching his anger note for note. "And, oh look, now you've got a fourth one! How nice for you."

The General does indeed have four stars, something he'd been working toward for as long as he could remember. Tia's mother had been there when he graduated officer's training. And as he rose up through the ranks. She had been so proud of him when he earned his first star; when he finally became her General Forrest like they had always talked about. But it had been a hard road, and she knew it was one that came with sacrifices along the way. She knew that when she signed up to be his wife. But his children never signed up for any of this, did they?

"Tia!" The General shouts, trying to subdue his daughter and not succeeding. The driver of the Humvee does his best to avoid the gaze of the General. "This really isn't the time or place."

"Which one of those stars cost you mom? Huh?" despite her best efforts, tears begin welling up in Tia's eyes as her tirade continues to pour out years of pent up emotion. "Which one were you earning when she was dying?"

Not fair. The cancer treatments and remission had lasted years. The chemo, the radiation. The fever-wrought nights, endlessly watching the love of his life waste away. Was he supposed to put his duty to his country entirely on hold for those years? Deep down, he had wanted to, but she hadn't let him. She wanted to see those four stars on his shoulder as much as he did.

But she only got to see the first two.

Tia's words cut her father deep, and it's written all over his face. He turns away from her, staring out the window.

But Tia's not done. "And which one was it when Terry's plane went down?"

At the mention of Tia's brother Terry, the General's emotions finally begin to boils over. Choking back the guilt and the pain he already feels over the death of his son is the easy part. Keeping it together at an Air Force funeral in front of his colleagues and comrades in arms, many of which were at his wife's funeral only weeks before. That was also easy, too, compared to this.

Compared to suppressing the pure rage that wants so desperately to lash out at his own daughter for what she's just said. For dragging their only family through the mud just to suit her own selfish ranting. It takes everything he has to keep his wits about him and answer in the way his training has taught him.

Calm, cool, collected. That's it.

"Until a man takes responsibility for his own life, he's just a boy." the General's tone has taken on a stoic sense of command agin. "Your brother knew what he was getting into when he enlisted. You'd do well to learn that lesson."

The saddest part is that Tia would have much rather been privy to seeing her father's rage than be forced to endure more of his calm training. To know there is something there other than the stoic General would have given her faith that there's a man wearing that uniform. Not a uniform wearing a man.

The General throws his walkie talkie on to the dashboard and the one in Tia's hand shuts off with a muted crackle.

"I can tell you, it's that fourth star that cost you me."

All four stars on the General's shoulders sparkle and shine in the blood red skylight.

The sun has finally set.