Chapter73: Boxing day cookout, Jamaican style

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"I'm so done waiting for that boy to come out of his room, I'm going in." Mr. Jackson said heading towards the stairs but before he could begin climbing he saw Caleb coming down the stairs towards him. "Finally, I was just coming to drag your butt out of there." His dad said with a sigh of relief.

"Sorry to worry you, I just needed to think for a while." Caleb sighs. "Want to talk about it?" His dad asks with concern. "Yeah, are they all out there?" Caleb asks. "Yeah, not as much as at the boxing day party but quite a few are out there." "Okay." Caleb said softly as he heads towards the pool area, his dad behind him.

As Caleb approached the pool he could see his two sets of grandparents, his brothers and their wives, sitting beside them was Aisha. Amazing, with all his faults this girl just keeps showing up. He thought shaking his head. There were also a few of his cousins milling around with drinks and food in their hands.

"Do you want something to eat son?" His mom asks holding a plate in her hand. "No thank you, mom, I'm not hungry right now." "Something is really eating away at you cuz, we're all worried about you." One of his cousins said coming to stand next to him.

"You're right, something is eating away at me." Caleb said loud enough for everyone to hear. Everyone stop what they were doing and turn their attention on him. "The other day Samson pointed something out to me. He said I spend a lot of time protecting my family from imminent danger but who was going to protect them from the most imminent danger of all, me....." "Did he really said that you were a danger to your family?" his aunt Sandra asks cutting his statement short.

"Yeah, he did but....." "That was out of line." His aunt adds. "No, he was right." Caleb said putting his palms up stop the comments. "He was right, what he said made me take a step back and really and I mean really look at my actions, and he isn't the only person to tell me that, Fabian said that to me once, so did Ty." He said looking at his brothers.

"You were all right but I didn't listen and now Maya is dead because of me, because of what I did, yes, she was a pain in my ass but a part of me still wishes she was here giving me hell." He said with a heavy sigh.

"I took my daughter's mother away from her and I had put all of you in danger..." "How?" Eric asks. "At the funeral, Maya's mom was pointing a loaded weapon on me and instead of trying to talk her down, I insulted her, she could've pulled that trigger at any time, you guys would have run in to help me and then what? She would've just kept on shooting, hurting or killing all of you, again because of me.

The thing I noticed about Samson, he isn't afraid to tell you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not, yes this was hard for me to hear but I needed to hear it again, if anything ever happened to any of you because of me, I would never forgive myself.

So a few days from now we'll be going into a new year and I'm making a resolution right now, to take time out to work on a few of my issues." Caleb said, his head down.

"Hey, you're human, you're going to make mistakes but don't you for one minute forget that even though God is our ultimate protector, you cuz, you're the human protector of this family and we love and fear your ass." One of his cousins said slapping his shoulder.

"You best believe that." Another one next to him grumbles. "Thank you guys and thank you, all of you, I love you...." "We'll pray for you." One of his aunt shouts.  "I appreciate that.""Now that you've gotten all that off your chest, do you feel like eating something?" Ty asks handing him a plate of food. "What is that?" Caleb asks frowning at the food. "It's food, eat it," Ty said shoving the plate closer to Caleb. "Well if you insist on feeding me then give a brother a decent plate of food man, damn." He said taking the plate from Tyler, He was about to walk towards Aisha when one of his cousins came up next to him and whispers something in his ear. He nods and turn in the other direction.

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