Chapter 3: The Jackson Code
Family dinner at the Jackson house wasn't just tradition—it was infrastructure. Weekly, sacred, and as routine as breathing, it was where lessons passed without lectures and intentions were measured by silence more than speech. You didn't skip it unless you were deployed off-planet, and even then, you'd better have called in first.
Tonight, Cousin Nia brought a guest.
He arrived five minutes before grace—punctual, smiling, and freshly pressed. The moment he stepped through the threshold, the house noticed. Not through alarms or surveillance systems—though those quietly existed—but in the subtler ways. The lighting adjusted slightly warmer. The air filters subtly modulated. The walls did what Jackson walls did: they listened.
Darius was polite, charming even. Too charming. He shook hands with both palms. Complimented the aroma of food before stepping into the kitchen. Iris, standing at the stove, gave him a nod that said welcome and a smile that said watch your step.
He took his seat across from Nia, whose warmth tonight felt more measured than usual. Nia, who had grown into her beauty the way Tennessee ironweed blooms—strong, rooted, and unexpected—watched him like she was waiting to see if he'd answer a question she hadn't asked.
He smiled often, perhaps too much. And his answers came quickly, too rehearsed. He leaned forward when he laughed. He kept his hands folded too neatly. Darius was trying—hard. And everyone could feel it.
Dinner at the Jackson house was a post-scarcity affair, like much of Earth now. Replicators supplemented what didn't grow on the land, but most of the meal was home-grown, home-cooked. Collard greens, sweet potatoes, red quinoa salad with cultured mushrooms, synthetic catfish grilled with a cedar reduction. Cornbread that still came from flour stone-milled in town because Iris said the replicators never got the soul right.
As the plates filled, the tone shifted—light, casual, wrapped in gentle storytelling and questions that seemed harmless on the surface.
"You ever rebuild something you didn't break?" Grandpa William asked suddenly, between bites of cornbread.
Darius blinked. "You mean like a... metaphorically, or—?"
William shrugged. "Either kind. Both kinds."
Darius chuckled nervously. "I guess not. I mean, I've fixed things. Helped some buddies with hoverbike repairs during a storm cycle in Madagascar. But that was more 'patch-and-go.' I don't think I've rebuilt anything major."
Grandpa nodded, and that was that. One brick laid.
Aunt Kara chimed in. "What do you think the purpose of family is, Darius?"
He wiped his mouth before answering. "To love each other. Support one another. Keep each other grounded."
"A good start," Kara said, with a smile that could've sliced glass. "But what do you do when the ground shifts?"
He paused. "Adapt, I guess."
Aleah, one of my little sisters, asked him what legacy meant to him.
"Doing more than you're required," he said. "Being remembered for the right reasons."
It wasn't a bad answer. Just... polished. Like something said on a stage.
He talked about wanting to join the Diplomatic Corps. About eventually getting posted to a starbase—maybe even Earth Station Sierra. Said he liked the idea of helping worlds negotiate peace, of "building consensus." But he said it like it was a marketing line.
"What do you think makes peace last?" Kara asked.
He hesitated. "Shared values?"
Kara just nodded and took another sip of her drink.
He didn't notice that she'd set the trap and he'd walked around it—neither failing nor passing.
The room fell into a rhythm again. Plates passed. Laughter floated. Grandma Iris told a story about the time a replicator misfired and produced four dozen saltwater crabs in the pantry, which somehow led to her and Kara engineering a self-contained biosystem for freshwater shrimp in the basement.
"It's not about the shrimp," Iris said, tapping her spoon on her glass for emphasis. "It's about never being surprised twice by the same problem."
Another brick.
When dinner was done, Darius helped gather dishes. Points for effort. But he lifted the serving trays like they were museum artifacts. Kara noticed. So did Iris.
He offered to dry dishes, but used the wrong towel. Reached across Kara's arm instead of around. Apologized too much.
Post-dinner cleanup was always fast—half automation, half tradition. The table cleared itself with a low hum, but someone always dried by hand. Tonight, that someone was me, standing next to Kara while she observed Darius excusing himself to make a comm call from the porch.
"He's got poise," she murmured. "But poise isn't foundation."
I said nothing.
He wanted to belong. That much was obvious. But he didn't know what belonging cost here. Not in effort, but in presence. In the quiet acknowledgment that this family didn't just exist—it endured.
And Darius still thought he was auditioning for approval, not alignment.
And Darius still thought he was auditioning for approval, not alignment.
Later, the adults—plus me and Nia—gathered in the main sitting room. The lights dimmed to reading level. A soft piano loop played from a wall speaker. No verdicts, no drama. Just gentle assessments passed like weather reports.
"Looks good on the outside," Dad said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Can't tell if it's him, or who he's trying to be."
"Can't cook," Iris added. "Didn't touch the serving tongs the right way either. He doesn't know the balance of shared space."
"He's green," Kara said. "He means well. But I wouldn't drop him in a flood and expect him to hold a rope for anyone else."
"Hasn't lost anything that mattered yet," Grandpa added. "You can see it in how he stands. Still carries himself like nothing's ever gone sideways."
Nia's voice was quiet. "But he wants to learn."
"That counts," William said. "But only if he knows what the test is."
That prompted a silence, the kind that sits heavy but not uncomfortable. We'd all known someone who didn't know they were being measured until it was too late.
"I liked LeVar," Iris said finally.
Nia looked down. "He was good."
"He was more than that," she added after a moment. "He was a Vulcan."
That earned a few glances.
"We met when I was nineteen," Nia continued. "I was tagging along with Aunt Patricia on a cultural diplomacy tour at the Vulcan embassy. LeVar was stationed there, working as a linguistic and cultural attaché. Said he'd never met a human who argued logic the way I did."
"Vulcan curiosity is no small thing," Kara muttered.
Nia smiled faintly. "He said I made him feel like emotion was just a longer equation. But in the end… I think it was too much for him. Or maybe too fast."
"Or too close," Iris said gently.
"Maybe," Nia agreed. "But I don't regret knowing him. He respected me. And I saw how far someone would reach to try and understand us."
"Then it was worth it," Grandpa William said, eyes half-closed. "Every good storm teaches you where your roof leaks."
That night, after everyone had gone to bed, I sat alone on the back porch, staring out at the fields. The wind was calm, but I couldn't shake the tension in my shoulders.
The Jacksons didn't leave anything to chance. Not emotions. Not relationships. Not legacy. You didn't walk into this family—you earned your place in it.
And me? I hadn't earned anything yet. Q had given me an open door, a seat at the table, and a name. But none of that meant I belonged.
If anything, it meant I had more to prove.
And if Darius wasn't ready… I had to ask myself the real question:
Was I?
The screen door creaked behind me.
I turned to see Grandma Iris stepping out with two mismatched ceramic plates, each holding a thick slice of warm apple pie.
"Room for one more out here?" she asked.
I scooted over without saying a word.
She handed me a plate, then sat down beside me, slow and deliberate like the evening itself. We didn't speak for a minute. Just the clink of forks and the hush of crickets.
"We test people like that for a reason," she said at last, not looking at me. "Not to scare them off. Not even really to judge them. We do it so we see who sees us."
I nodded slowly, chewing a bite. "It just felt… harsh."
"Mm-hmm," she said, nodding. "To folks who've never had to choose their family every day, it might be. But we come from a long line of survival—not just in the body, but in the soul. And we carry something that don't get passed easy."
She tapped her fork against the rim of her plate. "Now you're old enough, I want you to know—these talks? These decisions? You're part of them. You carry the name. That means you help shape what it means."
I looked at her, startled. "Me?"
"Yes, you," she said, finally meeting my eyes. "You think we don't see how your mind works? You think your silence don't speak louder than most folks' speeches? Baby, you see everything. It's time you start learning why we do what we do."
We sat quiet for another moment.
Then she added, "If Nia really wanted to be with that boy, we'd find a way. It wouldn't be easy, and it wouldn't be fast—but we'd build around it. Because love deserves room to grow. But she don't know yet if she's building a home with him—or if she just likes the paint on the door."
I smirked. "That's one way to put it."
She smiled, and this time it was warm. Deep. Real.
"It's never about keeping people out," she said. "It's about making sure the people we let in... don't lose themselves trying to keep up."
The pie had cooled, and the night air wrapped around us like a soft shawl.
I didn't know what I was supposed to say. So I just whispered, "Thanks, Grandma."
She bumped my shoulder with hers and stood.
"Don't thank me yet," she said. "You've still got to earn your seat. But for tonight, sit a while longer. Let the stars remind you who's watching."
Then she was gone, and I was alone again—only not really.
Not anymore.