When they got off of the plane, Jake and Delilah instantly started looking for his parents and their daughter. As Delilah spotted the bald head of her father in law Jake spotted the exotic eyes of his daughter and his mother’s smile. They didn’t speak; they just kept walking in the direction of his parents.
When Miri spotted her parents she starting squirming and trying to get out of her Gramma’s arms. It was everything that Brie could do to hang on to her. When Jake and Delilah were close enough, Brie set Miriam on the floor and let her toddle over to her parents. Jake squatted down and picked her up with a huge smile on his face. “Hey baby girl! OH, WE MISSED YOU!” he said when he picked her up and hugged her. “Look at you, walking all by yourself. You’re getting to be such a big girl.” He looked at his wife. “Isn’t she, Mama?”
“She is. It’s scary.” She stretched up and kissed her daughter on the cheek, then took the baby from her husband.
Jake greeted his parents with hugs. David dropped a set of keys in his hand. “You two can head on home without us. You’re mother and I wanted to try to have a date while we’re here”, he told his son.
“Actually, Dad, I kinda figured that one out when we landed and I spotted both the SUV and the your classic Chevy sitting in the parking lot closest to the terminal, and I was actually going to suggest that Delilah and I stay here if your two weren’t going straight home. We can get a hotel and get some real sleep rather than fighting to stay wake long enough to drive home. We have been flying for nearly 36 hours”, Jake responded.
“Really?” Brie said. “Then you really shouldn’t be driving.” She looked at her husband. “Maybe we could call Malachai and Mandy to come up and get the Chevy and we’ll keep the SUV here so that these two can get some sleep before we take them home. I don’t feel right about them driving.”
David took a deep breath and sighed. “That makes two of us, love.” He thought for a moment, considering what his wife and son had just said. “Ok, instead of calling Malachai because of the kids, I’ll call Jordan and have her and Davina come up and get the car. I’ll wait here for them while you take these two to the nearest hotel and get two rooms: one for them- one for us. Jake and Delilah, we’re done baby- sitting. It your turn to take your munchkin. If you’re hungry, there is such a thing as room service. I’m taking your mother out tonight for dinner.”
“You two need a vacation from the house?” Delilah asked
“Yeah”, Brie said with a smile. “Maddie said she’d take care of everything tonight.”
“That’s a frightening prospect”, Jake said with a roll of his eyes.
“Jacob, give your younger sister a little bit of credit. She’s grown up quite a bit over the years.”
“Sorry, Mom. I’m just really tired and a touch jet lagged. I’m ready to go the hell to sleep after spending a little bit of time with my daughter.”
“Then why don’t we get your tired asses to a hotel so that the two of you can get a little bit of rest after reacquainting with your daughter?” David suggested to the group.
“Sounds good to me”, Delilah said, adjusting the way she was carrying.
David chuckled. “Ok, ready… BREAK!”
Brie laughed. “What is this, football? Are we at one of Jay’s games or something?” She wrapped an arm around his waist and started leading everyone out toward the exit. “Oh, I didn’t pack anything for Miri. Maybe we could stop and get her something to wear if need be.”
“Nah, Mom, that won’t be necessary. We have a brand new outfit for her in one of our suitcases that we got for her in Ireland”, Jake said as they followed.
“Ok, good. I was worried about that baby having clothes to wear tomorrow.”
“No need to worry, Mom. We’ve got it under control.”
---------------
After his mother had gotten the hotel rooms and gone to go pick up his father for their date, Jake and Delilah took turns getting a shower. Delilah went first, and Jake fed Miri and got her ready for bed. After Delilah got out of the shower, Jake took his turn and got cleaned up while Delilah put Miri down for the night. When he came out of the bathroom, he saw both of his green eyed girls passed out on the bed. He couldn’t help but smile. How sweet, he thought as he dried his hair. My girls all curled up on the bed and sleeping. Too precious. He took a picture of the scene with his phone and set it as his wall paper for his touch screen. The picture was far too precious not to be his background. He couldn’t wait until Ira was born. Scenes like this would become normal.
He put the towel back in the bathroom and shut everything in the room off before lying down with his girls. He knew that sleep wouldn’t be far behind once he lay down and got comfortable, though he had to admit that he was afraid to close his eyes to get some sleep because he had a weird feeling that he’d see something or someone in his unconscious mind that he wasn’t prepared to see. First, he saw Miri and Delilah. He knew that the woman by his side would be his wife, but he wasn’t ready for that revelation quite yet. Then, he started seeing his daughter more regularly in his dreams and he wasn’t ready for that. Then, the wreck that caused his little angel to come early. Then, the dreams of his son who had yet to arrive. Finally, the impressions that he had to name his child after someone his mother hadn’t even known existed and the subsequent visit from his deceased grandfather. Who was going to be next?
But, exhaustion and jet lag had taken hold of him. He wasn’t worried about that excess of weird shit that seemed to be a regular occurrence in his everyday life. What he couldn’t understand was that if he could see things like he did, then could any of his siblings or was this like the diabetes and he was the only one that was talented like he was.
Fuck it, he thought as his eyes drooped shut. I need to sleep. I’ll deal with whatever I dream tonight in the morning when I have the chance to talk to Mom. There isn’t much else I can do about it, unfortunately. Whatever happens; happens. I’ll just have to deal with it later.
---------------
No strange dreams plagued Jake that night, much to his surprise. With all the crazy shit he’d been dreaming recently, he was on his guard. They all went home in the late morning and Jake finally decided to check his email. When his inbox loaded his jaw hit the table. “You have GOT to be kidding me”, he said. He wasn’t shocked. He was exasperated.
Delilah sat at the table with him feeding their daughter her lunch as he took care of his business. “What the matter, baby?” she asked.
“Just fucking lovely”, he sighed as he read the first of the emails. “The last thing I want to have to do… but if I have to do it, I will.”
“JACOB MICAH!” his mother said. She was standing at the stove cooking lunch.
His head snapped up. “Yes ma’am?”
“Your wife asked you a question. You would do well to answer her before I smack you upside the head”, she scolded.
He looked at his wife. “I’m sorry, Lilah, honey. I’m just trying to sort through the interview requests.”
“So, that’s what’s wrong? You have a bunch of interview requests that you need to go through so that you can decide which ones you’re going to do?”
“Yeah”, he sighed. “I knew this was going to happen. This is what I get for being a revolutionary.”
While Jake was answering his wife, Brie went to the Kitchen door to call for David to come eat lunch. When David walked in he heard the tail end of Jake’s comment. “Getting requests for interviews, son?” he asked.
Jake nodded. “I have 125 requests total in my inbox right this moment.”
David took his usual seat that the head of the table and nodded. “You want your Dad’s advice?”
“As long as you’re willing to give it, Dad, I’ll happily take it.”
“How many of them are for television?”
“About 20; three or four are national.”
“The rest of the television requests are local?” Jake nodded. “And the rest are written?”
“Medical journals”, he said with a shrug.
“Ok, you ready for my advice?”
“Whenever you’re ready to spit it out, Dad”, he laughed.
“You know that you can’t avoid it, so why not do two of the national shows, one local, and a handful of the journals. The journals can be done over the phone with a phone call. What national shows want to interview you?”
“The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Show, and 48 hours.”
“Good Morning America is always a good one to do and you can eeney, meeny, miney, mo The Today Show and The Early Show. I’d stay away from 48 hours if I were you.”
Jake nodded as he weeded through the other requests. “Ooh, new one and I’m doing this one.”
“What is it?” Delilah asked.
“You know that talk show type thing I watch all the time when I’m off work?”
“The Doctors?”
“Yeah. They want me to come talk to them about my research.”
She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. “That’s wonderful, baby. Congrats. You DO realize that you’re taking Miri and me on these trips, right?”
He laughed. “I figured as much, seeing as they want to do this pretty quickly.”
“How quickly?” Brie asked Jake as she set a plate in front of David.
“Over the next couple of months”, he said as he continued to empty out the requests he wasn’t going to respond to. Then he paused. “OH MY HOLY GOD!” he shouted.
“What? What’s going on?” Delilah asked. She was worried.
“I don’t know if you’re going to believe it or not… and I’m scared that if I say anything more, I might jinx it.”
The truth was he’d seen it coming; he just hadn’t thought it would be so soon.
---------------
“Jacob Micah Draiman, spill it NOW”, his mother ordered.
He took a deep breath. “I have an email from the Nobel Prize Committee. I’ve been nominated for the Prize in Medicine.” Everyone applauded, including Miri. Jake smiled at his baby girl. “Are you happy for Daddy, baby?” he said as he pulled her messy little self out of her high chair. She squealed and clapped. When he brought her close, she bit the tip of his nose. He laughed and pulled away. “OW! That hurt, Miriam Rebekah.”
“Did she just bite you, Jake?” Brie asked her son.
“Yeah, she got the tip of my nose and now I’m covered in spaghetti sauce.”
“Oh, you’ll live, Jacob”, David laughed. “I seem to recall a certain little boy doing the exact same thing to me when he was her age.”
Jake laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dad. I’m sure it’s not me. Maybe, Jay or Miah… possibly Marc, but you’re NOT talking about me.”
“Ok, keep thinking that, Jacob.” David said as the brought up a bite of his lunch so that he could eat it. After his mouth was empty, David changed the subject. “So, when are you going to regale us with tales of your honeymoon?”
“There’s really not much to tell other than when we visited the camps and the Holocaust museum, I nearly killed people.”
“Why is that?” Brie asked.
“Stupid, ignorant mother fuckers opening their mouths about stupid, ignorant bull shit”, Jake said simply as he stood to get himself some of what his mother made for lunch with Miri in his arms.
“Elaborate, Jacob”, David said.
“Ok. Example: At Auschwitz, we had just come out of the gas chamber and I was looking at the ground thinking about how your mother’s mother crawled on the ground to escape from that horrible fate when this ignorant redneck comes out and starts saying that Hitler had the right idea. He called me an Uppity Jew, and said that the Holocaust never happened. All that happened was Hitler eradicating a bunch of useless people. Delilah must have seen that I was about to snap because she laced her arm through mine and started pulling me away.”
“And something similar happened at every camp?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a brave, soul, Delilah”, Brie said with a nervous laugh.
“A lot like my mother in law”, she said with a smile.
All Brie could do was laugh.
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