Despite the odd dreams he was having, the time away from the hospital and home was refreshing for Jacob. They toured London and Scotland in one day, visiting all of the major palaces of the Royal Family, the tower of London, Scotland Yard, Westminster Abbey and the London Bridge. Delilah had even made it her personal mission to make one of the guards at Scotland Yard smile. It didn’t work, but she still tried and Jake was sure to get pictures of her acting an ass.
They spent a week in Germany, and that was the week he got the good news. They were getting ready to head to the camp at Auschwitz to take a tour of the camps there when his phone rang. “Jake, you might wanna sit down”, his mother said when he answered the call.
“Mom, we’re on the way out to Auschwitz for a tour of the camp. Can’t this wait?”
“NO. It’s about your research. We just got something from the Department of Health and Human Services with YOUR name on it.”
He froze as he put their room key in his coat pocket. “Ok, open it and hit me with it.” He looked at Delilah and motioned her toward the door. “We’re going to head out to the rental car while you talk.”
“I’d ask you how you like driving on the wrong side of the road, but you’d yell at me and so would your father. I don’t want to prolong the agony.” She took a deep breath. “Ok, Jacob, the letter says, ‘Dear Dr. J. Micah Draiman, we are pleased to inform you that your treatment has been evaluated and approved for usage by the medical community at large. We thank you for your dedication to treating those with traumatic brain injury. We hope that everything you work for in the future is just as monumental. Sincerely, Jeffery K. Longmont, DHHS’.”
Jake laughed. “I knew they’d approve it once they got the reports and tests.”
“Congrats, son”, David said. “You busted your ass for this and you deserve it.”
“Thanks, Dad.” He had a thought. He really didn’t want to mess with it until he got home, but he figured he’d ask his mother about it anyway. “Hey Mom. I need to talk to you about something”, he said as he got in the drivers’ side of the rental car.
“What’s up, son?”
“Did you have another brother besides Uncle Matt? Perhaps one that may have died as a child or in infancy?”
“Not that I know of. Why do you ask?” she responded.
“Something’s been bothering me. I’ve been having these strange dreams.” He cranked the car over and put the phone on speaker so that he could drive and continue his conversation. He set the phone in a cradle that came with the car so that he had both hands on the wheel.
“What about them is strange?” David asked. He sounded like he was standing over his wife’s shoulder.
“Everything, to be perfectly blunt. The weirdest thing is that I keep getting this weird impression that there’s a family member that Mom doesn’t know about that I’m supposed to name this child that Delilah and I are supposed to conceive on this trip away after. I’m supposed to name this little boy that we’re going to have after this unknown relative and Uncle Ben.” Delilah was sitting quietly in the passenger seat as Jake drove and spoke with his parents. She’d laid a hand on his thigh and rubbed gently. He took her hand and squeezed it gently, then place a kiss against her palm.
Brie sighed. “Well, it’s going to take some digging, Jacob, but I’ll see what I can find. There aren’t a lot of avenues for me to look through because my parents are not longer living and neither is your uncle. To be perfectly honest with you, son, besides you kids; I’m the last surviving member of the Cartwright family. The Utopian Occupation wiped out a good portion of my family and the following years weren’t too kind to those of us that remained besides me.”
“And that’s only because you made them kind to you, honey”, Jake heard his father whisper to his mother.
“Mom, find what you can, please. This has been driving me crazy since we were in Dublin”, Jake said with a sigh.
“I think I have all of the important family records in the attic. Jenn sent them to me after she moved out to Arlington to be near Matt’s grave. He had them up until that point because he was the only person that knew where our parents were in hiding until they died. I’ll have one of your brothers go up and get the boxes out of the attic so that I can go through all of the papers.”
“Don’t all those boxes contain both sides of the family genealogy?” Jake asked.
“Your mother and I have it organized to whose family is located where”, David said. “Don’t worry, Jake. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Thanks Mom and Dad. I knew I could count on the two of you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pull over to the side of the road to see if my wife still wants to visit Auschwitz or to go celebrate my triumph with DHHS.”
“You two keep having fun and we’ll talk to the two of you later.”
“How is Miri doing?” Delilah asked.
“Good. She’s walking all by herself now and she’s trying to talk. Jessi’s working with her on the whole talking thing”, Brie laughed. “Now, listen to your father and go have fun you two. Be young and don’t worry so much.”
---------------
“James Matthew and Jeremiah Alexander!” Brie shouted so that her twin sons would hear her.
They walked into the living room and looked a question at their mother. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Meet me at the ladder to the attic. Your mother and I need you two to get some boxes out of the attic for us", David said.
“Yes, sir. We’ll wait for you there, Dad”, James said and he and his twin brother went for the stairs to wait for their father at their end of the hall way.
David looked at his wife’s face. She looked like she was spooked for some reason. “Honey, is everything ok?”
“To think I was LIED to my entire life…” she said like she wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular. “I might have actually had another brother that I was never told about, David.” She looked up at him.
“That would explain the age gap between you and Matt.” His kissed her hair and pulled her into his chest. “No matter what we find in those boxes, I’m here for you and I love you. That will never change.”
She nodded. “I know, love. I’m nervous as hell to find out what Jacob is talking about. It’s not like I can call my parents and ask ‘WHY?’ I’m at a total loss, David.”
“I’m here for you, Brie. You know that you can lean on me for strength.”
“I know, honey. I’m just… I’m scared to be perfectly honest with you.”
“Then let me help you with this so that you’re not alone when you find out.”
She pressed her lips to his throat. “Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me.”
“It’s my job, Brie. I’m your husband.” He kissed her hair once more then released her. “Let me go make Jay and ‘Miah climb up in the attic to get these boxes with your family tree in them.” He kissed her once more; this time on the lips, then went up the stairs to make James and Jeremiah climb up in the attic to get what they needed to solve Jacob’s mystery.
---------------
Instead of the concentration camp where his father’s maternal grandmother had been imprisoned during World War II, Jake and Delilah went to a nice restaurant in Berlin. They went to see the wall, which was amazingly still partially standing. As they sat in the rather elegant restaurant, they talked about the conversation he’d had with his parents. “What do you think they’re going to find?” Delilah asked.
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s not going to be good.”
“Do you think that Mom was lied to her whole life?”
“It’s very possible, baby. I might not have MET my maternal grandparents, but from what Mom says about them they seem like the kind of people that would keep a death like that to themselves; especially Grandfather Cartwright. The way she describes him is as a proud Irishman. He wouldn’t speak of the death of a child- if that’s what it is.”
“Too proud?”
“Exactly. He wouldn’t want to relive the horror of having to bury a child by talking about the fact that the child is no longer amongst the living. Too big of an ego bruiser and the fact that losing a child, I would imagine is painful. When I thought I was going to lose you and Miri, I was a wreck. Ask Mom and Dad… I cried that day on several occasions.”
“I believe you. I just can’t imagine being Mom right now. That’s got to suck.”
“I’m sure it does. I’m also sure that Dad’s right there beside her to comfort her. I know that were it you in Mom’s shoes, I’d leave you long enough to get the boxes then sit there with you and help you go through them because that’s what my father would do and that’s what he’s taught us boys to do. I know that Malachai and Mandy used to fight a lot, but Malachai does love her and he would do the same thing for her should she require it.”
“Really. It’s a good thing that Dad’s raised you boys to be gentlemen. There are a lot of us women out there that are starting to believe that chivalry is dead.”
“It’s not completely dead. Not so long as there are Draiman men walking this planet.”
---------------
David and Brie sat in the floor in the living room around the coffee table flipping through her family records to see find what Jake had asked about earlier that day. All of the kids were gone, so it was just the two of them. Jordan was watching Miri for a couple of hours so that they could search for what they were looking for in peace.
Brie happened upon a newspaper article that resembled an obituary. She read and tears started to well up in her eyes. “Are you kidding me?” she asked; her voice full of unshed tears.
David was around the table in second to hold his wife as she read the piece of paper. His eyes looked over the small piece of paper in his wife’s hand from behind his glasses. “Ira Shane Cartwright, age three, passed away on October 10th, 1976 from complications of pneumonia. Services for little Ira will be held at…” David pulled her into his arms as she started to sob wordlessly.
When she finally spoke, she sounded like her heart was broken. “I had a brother my parents never told me about. Why, God damn it?! Why was I lied to my entire life?”
“I don’t know, baby, and there’s nothing that can be done about it now.”
“I just want to know, WHY, damn it. Why would my parents keep this from me? Why would MATTHEW, my BIG BROTHER have kept this from me? I was supposed to have two brothers. I understand that he died when I was a baby and that’s why I don’t remember him, but I was supposed to have a big brother named Ira. Instead of telling me about him, I was told nothing. Matt never said anything; Mom and Dad never said anything.”
He rubbed her back and let her cry out her bitterness with her parents for the lies she’d been told her entire life. He could understand why she was upset. She’s had a right to know about those lies. He wished he could ask him brother in law or his mother and father in law why, but he couldn’t no matter how much he wanted to.
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