When the family next came over for dinner, Jake passed out the souvenirs and showed everyone the pictures. When Malachai and Mandy arrived, Jake had JUST given David his stein and whiskey. David was putting the whiskey in the liquor cabinet and putting the stein up in the kitchen on top of the cabinets when the oldest of the Draiman children and his family had arrived. “I’m going to have to get a nice display case for this”, David said when he walked into the kitchen.
“I wonder what Jake and Lilah got me”, Brie said as she watched her man stretch up to put the stein up out of reach, biting her bottom lip as she did.
David turned around to see the look on her face. “Are you watching my ass?”
“When aren’t I? Your ass is PERFECT! I still bet I could bounce a quarter off of that.”
He laughed and wrapped her in his arms from behind, pressing his lips to her throat. “You’re funny, gorgeous.”
“I can’t help but stare when you flaunt such perfection in front of my face.”
“And now you know how I felt last night when you came down looking like a damn match.”
“A MATCH?”
“Yeah, the one that was going to send the house up in flames. I was almost scared that I was going to have to USE that fire insurance I’ve had for YEARS.”
She laughed. “If you say so, David.” She turned her face to his and pressed her lips to his. “Now, get the hell out of my kitchen unless you’re going to take over here for a moment so that I can go get my gifts from Jake… if he got me anything.”
“He did and you’ll love them”, he said as he released her and took the wooden spoon from her hand. “Go get your gifts from our son and I’ll take care of this until you get back.”
She smiled and pressed her lips to his again, then walked out of the kitchen to the living room. There were two velvet boxes sitting on the coffee table. “Hey Mom”, Jake smiled. “These are for you.”
She walked over and picked up the smaller of the two boxes. When she opened it, it held a gold chain with a large green stone on it that was shaped like a shamrock. She smiled. “Thank you, Jacob. I love this.”
“May I do the honors?” he asked her.
She smiled and let him put the thin gold chain around her neck. “Thank you, Jake. I really do love this. It’s beautiful.”
“Oh, you’re not done, Mom”, Delilah said. “Look in the other box.”
Brie picked up the long box and opened it. There were charms hanging off of a long chain. “A charm bracelet?” she asked.
“Yeah. There was this shop in Paris where we could design a bracelet. I got one for Delilah and one for you”, Jake smiled.
She kissed her son’s cheek. “Thank you, Jake. I love it. I love them both.”
Jake blushed. His cheeks turned bright red. “Mom, it was nothing.”
“Ooh, look at JAKE!” Jordan teased. “A little peck on the cheek from Mom and he turns into a beet.”
“Fuck you, Jordan”, he laughed.
“Ewww, you’re my twin. That’s gross.”
---------------
At dinner, Jake announced the TV appearances and the nomination for the Nobel Prize. No one in the family was surprised. “You knew that was coming though”, Maddie said.
“True, little sister, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon. I expected the nod in six months to a year, yeah, but not a few weeks after I got my treatment approved.”
“So, what are you going to do if you win?” Meagan asked.
“I have NO IDEA, Mae. I have to go somewhere to accept it should I win it. I’m loathe to accept it to be honest.”
“Why?” Marc asked.
“Because, Marc, I didn’t do the research to win the Nobel Prize. I did it to change people’s lives.”
“But, you’re going to go do all of these TV shows to talk about your research?” James asked.
“Yeah. It’s what I get for being a revolutionary in my field.”
“Then why not look at getting the Nobel Prize as the same thing; a consequence of revolutionizing medicine?” Makayla asked.
“I do see it that way, Kayla. It’s an unpleasant consequence of doing what I did.”
“Why doesn’t it have to be unpleasant?” Jordan asked.
“Because I don’t want it, Jordan. I really don’t”, he said with a laugh.
“What do you all say to NOT interrogating Jake about his work and actually eating our meal?” David interrupted.
“Yes, sir”, all of his children, no matter what age, responded. They all knew when their father had had enough of them talking at his table.
He looked to the side to check on the children at the children’s table. “Malachai, handle your children’s squabble, please.”
Malachai and Mandy turned to see their children fighting over the juices on the table. They excused themselves and took their child from the kitchen to straighten out what was going on.
Jordan sat studying her twin brother’s wife. Something was different and she’d seen it before. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She kept looking from Delilah, to Jake, to Miri. Back and forth between the three of them. She knew something was going on that Jake and Delilah hadn’t shared with the family at large.
Delilah noticed her sister in law staring at her. “Is there something on my face, Jordan?” she asked.
“No, Lilah. But, something’s different. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
Jake looked at Jordan. “Sis, mind your own. Everyone will know when we’re ready for you all to know.”
“She’s pregnant again, isn’t she?” Jordan shouted.
“JORDAN HANNAH DRAIMAN!” David barked at his oldest daughter. “Respect your brother’s wishes and mind your own business.”
“I’m sorry, Dad, but we have the right to know.”
“And she and Jake will tell us what’s going on when they’re ready and not a moment before. You need to learn the meaning of patience.”
Jordan nodded and stared at her plate. “Yes, sir.” She wasn’t going to get another chance to ask her sister in law what was going on. Everyone was going to find out after dinner.
---------------
After Brie served everyone dessert and the younger children were put to sleep, David and Brie gathered everyone in the living room. Jake and Delilah had an announcement and their mother had a family project. Jake and Delilah went first. “Jordan’s ever so astute eye has picked up on our little secret. Yes, everyone, Delilah’s pregnant again. I don’t know if any of you know this, but I’ve been having odd dreams of late and even though we’ve just found out that she’s pregnant, we know what she’s having. It was like this with Miri, to be perfectly honest. We’re having a little boy. His name will be Ira Benjamin. The inspiration behind Benjamin is, obviously, Uncle Ben. Ira, however, I’m going to let Mom explain.”
Brie nodded to him in acknowledgment and continued after taking David’s hand and a deep breath. “Your brother mentioned dreams he’s been having. One of these dreams led him to ask me to dig into my family history. He had the inspiration that part of his son’s name was to come from a family member that I didn’t know existed. He asked me to look through the family genealogy. I found that I had a brother that was three years older than me that fell between Uncle Matt and me. His name was Ira Shane Cartwright. I was four months old when he died. He was three. He’d gotten sick with pneumonia and that’s what took him. Now, again, courtesy of Jake’s dreams, and one of my own, I’ve learned that there are a few pictures of him hidden in these two boxes.” She motioned to the boxes on the table.
“So, what are we supposed to do, Mom?” Jessi asked.
“We’re going to go through the boxes as a family to find the pictures”, David answered for his wife. He knew that it had taken every ounce of self control she had to tell the kids about what she’d seen in her dreams and what Jake had told her about what he’d seen as well.
“Why?” Marc asked.
“To give your mother a little bit of closure. She was never told about your Uncle Ira. She just found out a few weeks ago and she’s been trying to come to terms with it. Seeing what the brother she never knew looks like might help a little with that, Marc Christopher. Stop being so hateful, young man, and cooperate.”
“Yes, sir.”
David nodded to Jake who opened the boxes and took a handful of the papers in the first box. “We looking for pictures of Uncle Matt as a boy, Mom as a baby, and a boy that none of us knows. There will likely be a man in the pictures that looks like Uncle Matt did before he died or a woman that looks a lot like Mom does now”, Jake explained as she started sifting through what he hand in his hands. She separated pictures from paperwork. His parents had followed suit. He looked at his siblings. “I don’t think Dad stuttered, you guys.”
They all shrugged and started going through the contents of the boxes. “So, Mom, are we going to see embarrassing pictures of you?”
Brie laughed melodically. “I have no idea, you guys. Just look and we’ll find out.”
---------------
Thankfully the next day wasn’t a school day for any of the younger Draiman children of the picture hunt never would have included them. It didn’t take long to find off of the pictures with everyone, in laws included, chipping in.
The sat and flipped through the pictures for a good portion of the evening. “Hey, Mom, is that Grandfather?” Maddie asked as she handed a picture to her mother.
Brie glanced at the photo and smiled. “Yes, Madison, that’s your Grandfather Cartwright. Why don’t you pass that around so that everyone can see what he looked like?” She handed the photo back to Maddie who started passing the picture around to her brothers and sisters. Brie smiled and continued flipping through the pictures in her hand. She came across a black and white picture of a woman with her hair pinned like the women did in the 1940’s and 50’s and a brilliant smile. Her left hand was up to her chin and displayed a beautiful ring. After looking at the back of the photo to be sure of who it was, she tapped David on the knee. “Hey baby, look at this”, she said softly.
David looked at the picture and grinned. “I see where you really got your smiled from”, he chuckled.
“This is my mom’s mom. I was always told growing up by my mother that I looked a lot like my grandmother”, she said softly. She looked over at Jake. “Jacob?”
“Yeah Mom?”he asked.
She handed him the picture. “Did you see pictures of this woman at Neuengamme?”
He looked at the picture closely. “Yeah, I did, several times. In one of the barracks there were pictures of her stitching different clothes, uniforms and such.”
“That’s your great- grandmother; my mother’s mother. She was a skilled seamstress and would make, tailor, and repair the camp uniforms and Nazi soldiers’ uniforms. That’s how she survived at the camp.”
“Whoa”, was the general consensus of the children as Jake passed the photo around. “That’s insane”, he continued. “I think we even got pictures of the barracks walls from each of the camps.”
“Hey, Mom”, Jessi asked as she stood from her spot, “who are these boys here?”
Brie looked at the picture and laughed. “Well, this one”, she pointed at the taller of the two boys pictured, “is Uncle Matt. The other one, I’m going to assume is Uncle Ira.” She looked at the picture. “May I, Jessykah?” Jessi handed her the picture and returned to her seat. She looked over the picture carefully, studying every feature of the unknown child. He looked like a very delicate balance of her mother and father. Mother’s eyes, father’s nose, mother’s lips and chin, father’s delicate bone structure in the face but father’s stocky build. Unlike Matt- who was tall and willowy- the child in the picture next to her big brother was short and stocky. Had he grown older, he would have been barrel- chested. Matt had the barrel- chest, but it was nothing like this little boy’s would have been. She looked at the back of the picture and tears came to her eyes. She was looking at Ira, the big brother she never knew, when he was two.
David saw his wife tear up and choke. “What’s wrong, honey?” he asked.
“Jessi found him, David. She found Ira.” There wasn’t a trace of the tears in her eyes in her voice. She was controlling them rather well.
He pulled her against his side and held her close. “That’s a good thing, right?” he whispered in her ear.
She nodded. “He would have been such a handsome man had he grown up”, she whispered quietly.
“I bet he would have.”
Jake looked up from the pile of pictures in his hands to see his mother tucked into his father’s side. “What’s wrong, Mom?”
She smiled. “Jessi found your long lost Uncle.”
The only child that didn’t jump for the picture was Jessykah. All she did was smile at herself. “She’s happy with herself”, Meagan said.
“She’s the one that found the picture that gave Mom closure, Mae. You’d be pleased with yourself too”, Jeremiah said. “Why are you being so bitchy, Meagan?”
Meagan sighed. “I don’t know. I was hoping to be the one to find a picture of Uncle Ira first.”
“Sorry that didn’t happen, but you don’t need to worry about being the first one to put a smile on Mom’s face. We all do that by just existing. Don’t sweat it, sis.”
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