Chapter 2-Life

Vietnam War 1991

There was still a lot of gunfire happening. My husband was one of the refugees revolutionists, helping the American win the war. At a young age of 12, he was forced to become a child soldier. He fought for our country; his freedom, and freedom for our family. We moved to Richmond California; 3 months after the birth of our daughter. At that time, my family was very small. Just two children, my father, my husband and me. We didn't have much money at the time, so we stayed with relatives for a little bit, before we moved to our own apartment. There was a lot of gangsters in our area, and we tried to stay away from them, but when the gangsters is a brother in law, it's hard to run away. Most of the females in our tribe became prostitutes. I refused and was beaten into submission and rapped by the men. This was the hardest thing I had went threw. I even got pregnant but I lost the baby from the raps and beatings. I hope the new world will support my beautiful baby girls. I would tell them this is the last time I am going to do this. God help me.

San Francisco, California 

King shows up latter than usual. I ask him why and he says; "My wife." I understand admittedly. Ms. LaLa Ho the never forgettable District Attorney Lawyer. The 5'2 of white beauty, that's also an artist that teaches private lessons for $200 an hour. What a peace of work.

I have five brothers and three sisters. The girls are the oldest and the boys are the youngest. They are nothing like this woman LaLa. I can honestly can say she's tougher then King Kong.

"What happened this time?"

"She wants a divorce.";

Divorce was always her answer for everything. King was her fifth husband.

"Sign the paperwork, it's not like you have any kids;"

"It's not that, she wants half of everything."

King not that, but he does own a huge estate from his family with a trust fund that is over a billion dollars, and we also make a quite a lot of money from the $1,500 retainer accounts that we personally work with. At $1,500 a retainer were making big money.

"I'm sorry to hear that, what do you need me to do?"

"Nothing for now, just keeping you updated. How are you doing in your relationship?"

This is something he never asks. I wonder what he heard. I respond with "Nothing, what did you hear?"

"He said that your looking for a divorce too."

This is the first I've heard of this and I state that to him. Not knowing is the worst thing. We may just work things out in the end, we normally do. (makeup sex)

We head over to our table and sit down. The server knows our order and gets us our drinks. We simply just drink and talk. We both know what the other is thinking and I ask; "what's next?"

"I don't know, I just want to get through this and move on to the next case."

We start talking after we drink our fill and we talk about my family and our history, the war stories.

I live a good life with my family and friends, but as a child, I would get sick a lot. Twice a week I would be in the hospital, for seizures or asthma attacks. I wouldn't be able to walk, talk or even breathe. I had to use my inhaler every few minutes and if I ran out, I had to go to the hospital for more medication. It was tough for me to live this way. I can remember waking up in the hospital, not sure which one, I'm at. Smelling the old hospital smell. Seeing nurses walk by and checking up on me and my mom. She was always there for me, waiting for me to get better. That made it harder for my dad to keep up with the bills and my medical expenses. So we didn't have a whole lot of money, when I was growing up. We still lived very happily.

For King, he's the youngest out of five kids, so he had to work extra hard and got what he wanted. It also helps that your dad is a highly renowned contracting agent. That owns millions of estates, around the world. Knowing all this I simply say,

"Sue her, then she can't do that."

(Next thing; I have to do is find him a good lawyer for his divorce.)

"Let's ask a lawyer first, what to do then and move on from there."

"Okay."

Then, I say next, "Let's get to work."

we both order tea and some soup. I like to keep ordering tea, though out my day, so I keep track of the refills I get, but they started to give me the tea for free. Out of habit, I still keep track of the tea.

"How much tea have you had so far?"

"Six cups this time."

After we eat. I tell him about our assignments and we planning for the next week. We still have two days of assignments that haven't been completed, but that's what we planned for last week on personal stuff like appointments, medical care, and personal vacation time. We both have personal therapy once a week, so most of our week concerns on going to our meeting and working around a planned schedule.

 I want to go backpacking on my next days off, so I let him know and we decided to take three weeks off for a vacation for the first time in the years. I have never had since finishing Med school, over ten years ago. I've been training, since I could remember and all I have to do is wait two more days for a quick trip for three weeks in the Pacific Crest Trail. A planned trip, I've been meaning to do for the last ten years.

"I'll let Jackie know about our trip and have her foreword all my emails and phone calls to my personal line."

We spend our vacation time together as a work vacation training. That's the plan. Jackie is a bonded personal assistant. She's been working for us for the last ten years and knows our habits and course of action. We hired her right out of college and trained her for the position. She's strong, caring, and just warmhearted. Jackie even knows about our past.

I went to per-school at Perez Elementary School. I stayed there from August 1995 until November 1998. I was 9 years old, when my dad got arrested for physically abusing us with a screwdriver. He heated the tip of a really long screwdriver and burned us. In Thailand and Laos, it was normal to beat your children. My baby brother Sai got the worst of the beating. His teacher saw the abuse and reported him. We were placed in foster care with an African American woman. The caregiver was an older lady, she did not take good care of us. She let us get lice. A few months later, we got placed in a better foster home. We stayed in there care for two years. This impacted my life. The way I think about my father, the way I behave around him. I had a really hard time forgiving him for the abuse he caused us. Because of being in foster care my family got bigger. My sisters and brothers made a really good impression on the foster family we were with, so we decided to keep it touch. Even now, we stay in contact with them.

When I sleep some nights I can still hear him screaming at us. "Why did you go outside!"

"Stop getting in to trouble with those black kids. You know they're up to no good!"

"Stay away from them!" It's hard to explain sometimes but I still have dreams about being that little kid. He's holding that long screwdriver and the tip red hot, ready to burn us. I can still hear my little self- screaming,

"No! Stop it, Daddy! Don't do it!"

but nothing happens. Dad still burns us. I wish this dream would stop. But every time I think about it, it keeps repeating in my head. I don't even know if that exactly what happened. I need to find a way to forgive my father for what happened, because he did not know any better. He was only doing what his parents did to him. When I told Jackie about my past and why I wanted to hire her she cried with me and said yes of course.

Jackie is a 5'1 Asian beauty and 125 lbs very small. Her mother passed away at age 29 from PTSD and she was left with herself. She was also malussted at a young age of 12 to 18 by her father. She's been running away from it for 10 years now. Her father died, when she was 18, in a car accident. She was in the passenger seat with her father. When he was driving drunk to a hotel to rap her. He drove into a tree on the way and got killed. No one knows about this but me. I looked her up and did a full background search on her. Most people thought she killed him. But the truth is he killed him self. After all that she still loved her father. Jackie is one of the strongest, woman I have ever known. She is an account by trade, but works for me as a personal assistant. She is worth all the money in the world.