I
Miri knocked on the door of the entryway as she and John made their way inside, saying, “Anyone home?”
Just then Rachel literally came flying out of the kitchen yelling, “Miri! You’re home!”
Miri braced herself knowing that Rachel was going to jump on her, and that’s exactly what her little sister did. “Whoa, Rach! It’s good to see you, too! Say hi to John. You remember him, right?”
Before Rachel could answer, Julia made her way into the foyer and gave her daughter a hug. “It’s about damn time you two got here!” she exclaimed jokingly; “I’ve been holding dinner forever!”
She then saw John standing behind Miri and said, “John, nice to see you again. Thank you for bringing Miri home.”
“It was my pleasure, Julia,” he said; “I hope that I can spend some time with Miri while I’m on leave.”
“Well, then,” Julia said, sighing slightly; “I hope you don’t mind coming to my father’s funeral. That’s where we’re headed tomorrow morning.”
“Mom!” Miri said.
“Now Mirielle,” said Julia; “If he wants to spend time with you, then unfortunately, your grandfather’s funeral will have to be part of the itinerary. Besides, I included him in our reservation.”
Miri and John looked at each other, then at Julia and said, “You did?”
“Yes,” said Julia; “But separate rooms, of course. John, you’ll be sharing a room at my sister’s house in Georgetown with Zach and his cousin Nikolai, and possibly Peter and Dan San Marco as well. I trust that won’t be a problem.”
“No ma’am. I’m okay with those arrangements,” John said; he noticed Julia’s tough as nails attitude and wondered if it was masking her true feelings. After all, the woman just lost her biological father. He knew they had been close. Julia Summers seemed to be the type to mourn in private.
He wasn’t too far off the mark.
He did notice that Miri looked horrified. He made a note to himself to ask her about it later.
“We’ve set you a place at the table, John,” Julia said now, smiling. “We’re doing potluck tonight. Everyone made something different. Take what you like.”
“I love potluck night!” Rachel said. “I made the brownies for dessert! Aaliyah helped me and Mom supervised.”
“I look forward to trying one, then,” John said.
“Jaime made the enchiladas before she and her Uncle Nik went to Belvidere to tend to her horses,” Julia said; “After we return from Washington, we’ll be moving up there, and Kimber, Jamey and their son will move in here.”
“I helped Jamey pack everything in their house,” Zach said to John. “The only things they’ll need to bring are themselves, their clothes, and all the baby’s stuff.”
“Rachel, you said Aaliyah helped you with the brownies,” Miri said; “She didn’t want to stay for dinner?”
“Uncle Jere and Aunt Jas came and got her so they could get ready to fly out for Grandpa Jacob’s funeral,” Rachel said; “They’re leaving tonight.”
“If you want to eat, you better get to the table before all the good stuff is gone,” Julia said. Soon, all her children, save for Jaime, and John Crossley sat around the same table that she sat around with her brothers and Peter and Kiera. Soon, Kimber and Jamey will sit at the same table with their family.
Mom was right, she thought; it’s just the circle of life.
===
Aaliyah looked out the window of the plane as it was in line to take off from O’Hare. She wanted to stay and have dinner with Rachel and her family, but her parents had other plans.
Jeremiah looked over at his youngest and asked, “What’s wrong, Liyah?”
“I’m officially pissed off.”
Uh oh, Jeremiah thought; he then asked, “Why is that?”
“Because Rachel is leaving tomorrow. Why couldn’t we leave tomorrow?” the girl said.
“Because we need to find our own arrangements for lodging, and we are staying the same hotel that Uncle Joe, Aunt Tracy and Kendria are staying in,” Jeremiah explained.
“So?”
“So, the only time we could get is late tonight, since Uncle Joe made the reservations,” said Jeremiah; “I’m sorry if that upsets you, Aaliyah.”
“Where’s Adriana going to stay, Daddy?” asked Aaliyah.
“She’s coming tomorrow and will stay with Sandrina and Alex,” her father said; “She’s flying out of Oklahoma City.”
“Hey Dad,” Adam said; “Is it true that the airport in Oklahoma City is named after a guy who died in a plane crash?”
Jeremiah looked at his son. Adam, of late, had been asking all kinds of questions about Oklahoma. He knew that Adam had made inquiries about going to the University of Oklahoma like his sister, but had not officially applied.
“I’m not really sure, Adam,” Jeremiah said; “We could look it up. I do know that Will Rogers was a humorist and made political commentary of his time. I think he did die in a plane crash, but I don’t want to say yes or no in case I’m wrong.”
“Jere, you’re almost never wrong about that stuff,” Jasmine said; She was sitting across the aisle with Arielle.
“But, Jas, I really am not sure about that. It’s not like we learned it in school or during our lessons as kids.”
Jasmine managed to convince Aaliyah to change seats with her, and she took her daughter’s place in the seat next to the window. Once situated, she whispered to her husband,
“The famous journalist Jere Donovan doesn’t know something? I think I may faint!”
“Stop it, Jas!” Jeremiah whispered in reply, embarrassed; “I’m only human, you know.”
“I know, baby,” Jasmine said; “I like teasing you. It makes being married to you and being the mother of four much more fun.”
“Jasmine...” Jeremiah said as he kissed the woman who had won his heart many summers ago; “Thank you,” he whispered. “I’ve been in the doldrums since hearing that Jacob had passed. You just reminded me that the last person who would want people to mourn his passing is Jacob Ross. You always knew how to ease my mind.”
“That’s in the job description when I agreed to marry you, Jere,” Jasmine said; “Remember, in the airport when Joe, Tracy and Danica were going back to Maine?”
Jeremiah sat back in his seat, remembering.
It still wasn’t going to make the passing of his trainer any easier, but it was a nice memory to take his mind off it for a while.
===
II
Kendria Donovan and her service dog, Boat, were waiting at Reagan National Airport for her parents flight from Boston to get in. She tapped her foot nervously until Boat put his paw on it. He then looked up at her as if to say, Stop that! It won’t get them here any faster.
Kendria scratched the backs of Boat’s ears and sighed. She was not the most patient of people. She had always been that way, even before the accident that caused her traumatic brain injury.
Her doctors were pleased with her progress since she started attending Harvard earlier in the year. She was excelling in her classes, but overdoing it caused her to be tired. It was her service dog’s job to keep her calm and relaxed. He had become a fixture on the vast historic campus. A lot of young men took notice of Kendria because of her dog.
Because of a scheduling problem, Kendria actually was booked on a flight that left Boston’s Logan Airport three hours before her parents. Her dad was pretty cool about it and told his second born daughter that he and her mother would just meet her at the airport in Washington.
Meanwhile, she had called her sister, Danica. She and her boyfriend Bryan would meet her at a predetermined location at the airport and that is where Kendria and Boat were when Danica spotted her.
“Kendree!” Danica said as she hugged her sister; “How did the airlines get your reservations all fucked up?”
Kendria sighed, saying, “I have no idea, sis. One minute, I was waiting for Mom and Dad; the next, they’re telling me to get on a plane due a computer mixup. So, here we are.”
“Mom and Dad know about this?” asked Danica.
“Yeah, I called them while waiting to board the plane,” Kendria replied. “Dad wasn’t happy, but he just went with the flow.”
While the sisters were talking, Boat was growling at Bryan.
“Hey, boy, I’m not here to hurt Kendria,” Bryan was saying to the dog.
Kendria laughed; “Let him sniff you, Bryan. He needs to know your scent. To him, you’re a stranger.”
So Bryan allowed the dog to sniff him, and after determining that Bryan was a friend, laid down at Kendria’s feet without another sound.
Bryan just looked at the dog and asked, “Is he always like that with strangers?”
“Yeah,” Kendria said; “First day of classes, he was sniffing everyone. A lot of people thought it was funny and went along with it. Not even the profs were spared. Boat doesn’t like my Organic Chem prof though.”
“Why’s that?” asked Danica.
“I think it’s because the prof made a joke about using Boat for an experiment,” Kendria said. “I didn’t think it was funny and Boat picked up on that.”
“Smart dog,” Bryan said; “So he can sense your moods and emotions?”
“That’s his main job,” Kendria said; “He’s supposed to keep me out of trouble as far as stress is concerned. Doesn’t help that I’m taking 22 hours this semester. Stress is my companion just as sure as this dog is.”
“You seem to be handling it well, Kendree,” Danica said.
“I kinda have to, Danica,” Kendria said; “So I go to therapy twice a week, too. The docs in Boston are awesome! They’re teaching me stuff that I didn’t learn at home about managing my stress.”
“When do you sleep?” asked Bryan.
“When I’m dead,” Kendria said, echoing an overused quip of her father’s. Danica just rolled her eyes as Bryan laughed.
===
Pike looked at the lengthy obituary printed in the Times-Tribune’s online edition and said to himself, so The Triad are all going to be there. With their families. This is too fucking perfect!
“We won’t get Draiman’s twin daughters, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something to punish them with,” Pike said aloud in his penthouse apartment overlooking Times Square. “Maybe snatch Kimber Draiman’s baby boy; or make Niki Draiman watch as her husband is killed before her eyes.”
That made Richard Pike smile evilly.
He got on the phone and spoke with a man he hired to perform assassinations.
“Yes. Arlington National Cemetery. The Triad. Their families. Draiman, his whore and their sons. The whole lot of them if you can manage it. Leave no one alive to tell the tale. Payment is ten percent now, the balance when you can show me proof they’re all dead. If you don’t succeed, don’t even bother coming back. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
After getting the response he expected, Pike ended the call. He then sat back and thought about what he’d do to the Draiman’s twin daughters if he got the chance. Then he had another image pop into his head.
Redheaded girl about 13. Tall, lithe; gonna be a stunner when she’s grown, he thought. “Ah, Jameson, you’ll be my pet someday. You don’t know it yet, but you will cater to my every sick, demented fantasy. And you’ll do it because to refuse me means punishment, and I don’t care if it hurts you. I’ll never kill you because you’ll be mine forever. But having my way with you is something I can wait for. When you’re just old enough to satisfy me. And no one...not your mother; sisters, brother, cousins or uncles, will get in my way. I take what I want. And what I want in about eight years or so, my dear, is you.”
Pike went to his desk drawer and pulled out a large manila envelope. Inside was a photo of the young woman in question, taken while he was stalking her from her home on the old Disturbed Ones compound, to where her horses were kept in Belvidere, Illinois. “One day, my dear...” he said to himself.
===
III
David, Jordan, and the boys arrived in Washington around three-thirty in the morning. Though they all slept on the private flight from Austin, they were still tired when they arrived.
“Why are we here so fucking early in the morning?” asked Sam grumpily. “We couldn’t do this in the daytime like normal people?” What are we, vampires?”
“I feel like one sometimes,” John added, rubbing his eyes. “All this travelling in the middle of the night got old when we were about five years old. I wanted to go see Kimber and the baby, but noooo... we had to get on the Draiman happy flight as soon as Mom and Dad came back.”
“Good God, you boys complain a lot,” Jordan said testily. “How do your girlfriends put up with your crap?”
“They love us?” John quipped.
David was settling up with the pilot and making arrangements for the return trip.
“We will want to swing by Chicago for a couple of days to see the new grandchild and introduce him to his uncles,” David was saying. “I know Jordan and I were just there, but the boys were in classes, then Mr. Ross died. It’s been a wild week.”
“We’ll be waiting, Mr. Draiman,” the pilot said; “Whenever you want to go, we’ll be ready.”
“That’s great,” said David; “My boys are probably complaining about being yanked out of a sound sleep at this ungodly hour, but when you’re always under a constant death threat, we have to outwit the people who want me gone.”
David then walked over to where Jordan, Sam and John stood just inside the terminal at Reagan National.
“Let’s go find a cab and get to our hotel,” David said, suddenly sounding tired. “I’m beat.”
John and Sam had nothing to say about that, they were so tired; but their mother only raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” she asked.
“It is so, my dear,” David said. “I think I’m starting to feel my age.”
“Really?” Jordan deadpanned. “Maybe it’s this flying in the middle of the night that’s making you ‘feel your age’.”
“Jord, you have me pegged there,” David said, smiling. Even that looked tired to Jordan. “Which kid made the quip about vampires this time?”
“Sam did,” Jordan said as she saw that both their sons had fallen asleep on the chairs in the private terminal. “You want to wake them up, or shall I do it?”
“You do it, Jord,” David said; “They won’t bite your head off.”
Jordan awoke her sons for the second time that evening and they went in search of a cab. Even dog tired, John felt his sixth sense tingling. Someone was following them. And it wasn’t a good thing.
===
“Well, Drew, we get to go home later today,” Kimber said to her son as he drifted off to sleep; “This time tomorrow, you’ll be sleeping in your own little bed, in your own room. We’ll be across the hall at the new house. Auntie Julia is letting us have her house! Isn’t that cool?”
Drew’s eyes popped open for half a second, then he closed them again.
Kimber put the baby back in his isolette and got his little going home outfit ready for the morning. She had a bag loaded up with sample bottles of formula, newborn size diapers, bulb syringes, and a couple of thermometers.
Jamey would be there in the morning to bring his family home. Tonight, he was working the overnight shift at the paper. Kimber knew that he’d soon be going home to sleep so he’d be rested when he came to get her and Drew.
She got back into bed and tried to drift off to sleep herself, but sleep wasn’t coming for her. She thought about Jacob and how it must have been a relief to finally let go. She knew that he had been suffering from various physical maladies for most of her life.
I sure would have liked to have gotten to go to the funeral, she thought; but Drew had other plans.
Soon, Kimber had fallen asleep, but someone was watching who should not have been. They’d never get a chance to do what they came there to do, because before Jamey Duncan arrived to pick up Kimber and their son, they would get caught.
===
John Crossley usually had no trouble falling asleep in strange places. It was part of his training. He wondered if it was the place he found himself currently that was making it hard to sleep.
In the bedroom of the brother of the girl he was crazy about. Miri was just down the hall.
Pretend you’re in some overnight field training exercise, he thought to himself; forget that Miri is at the other end of the hallway from you.
“You not sleepin’either, John?” Zach’s voice came out of the blue, briefly startling John.
“No, I’m not,” John said; “Why are you awake, Zach?”
“There’s something not right going on nearby,” Zach said. “I can feel it.”
“Is this the sixth sense that Miri talks about a lot?” John asked.
“Yes, I think it is, and if I’m not mistaken, my sisters aren’t sleeping either,” Zach said; “Maybe not even my mom is sleeping.”
John just lay back on the spare bed in Zach’s room. He might be right, John thought. In all the letters Miri sent, she always mentioned the sixth sense thing. And she was never wrong. I wonder if having that ability was a blessing or a curse.
He would soon find out the answer to that, and not in a pleasant way.
===
The phone rang and Nik reached over to see who would have the balls to be calling him at... 4:38am. When he saw it was Jeremiah, he knew he had to answer it.
“Talk to me, Jere, what’s goin’ on?” he asked.
“You’re not going to fucking believe this, Nik,” Jeremiah said. He sounded tired.
“Probably not, but tell me anyway.”
“There have been threats made against our lives. All of us. You, me, Julia, Joe, Tash... and all our families and anyone who shows up at Jacob’s funeral on Friday,” Nik said, clearly disgusted. “And guess where it came from. Just take a wild stab in the fucking dark.”
Nik sighed, then said, “A.R.M.?”
“Winner, winner chicken dinner!” Jeremiah said sarcastically. “Whoever’s now in charge has sent an entire fucking army after us. Oh, and not just those of us who will actually be at the funeral, but family members who, for one reason or another, cannot be there.”
“You mean Niki in Austin, and Kimber here,” Nik said. Now he was just as disgusted.
Just then, Peter arrived at the doorway of his parents bedroom. “Dad?” he said.
“Hold on Jere,” Nik said; “Pete’s here for some reason.”
“Okay, brother.”
Nik turned to his son and asked, “What is it, Pete?”
“There’s something very wrong going on here,” the college freshman said. He had come home from Yale for Jacob’s funeral so he could travel with his family.
“What is it?”
“Like we’re being stalked. Just like that time that creep was following Sandy around.”
“I have Uncle Jere on the phone, Pete, hold up a sec, okay?”
The boy nodded, then Nik turned his attention back to the phone call. “You hear that Jere?”
“Yeah, we’re in some deep shit,” Jeremiah said; “We should be packing heat.”
“Tash has plenty of heat at her place,” Nik said; “We’ll talk about this with her and Darren when we get there.”
“I just got here, and I was thinking of doing that after I got a little sleep,” said Jeremiah; “I have a very pissed of nine year old who thinks we could have waited until today to travel.”
“We will be there about 1pm local time,” Nik said; “If it weren’t for the fact that KateLynn was at the hospital tonight, we’d arrive earlier.”
“We’ll talk when you get here, because Julia and her brood will be there about the same time,” Jeremiah said; “And, we’ll get to finally meet that Army Staff Sergeant that Miri is so crazy about. He’s coming, too.”
Great, Nik thought, nothing like having a stranger mixed up in this. Aloud to Jeremiah he said, “I’ve spoken to him a couple of times while Julia was still in hiding, but have never met him in person except that one time when the convoy came to pick up Julia and her family from Austin. This will be interesting.”
“Indeed,” Jeremiah said; “I know I woke you up, so go back to sleep and I’ll see you later on today.”
“Thanks, brother,” Nik said and closed out the call. Peter was still sitting on the edge of the bed, but he didn’t look like himself.
Oh, dear God, Nik thought; Peter’s taken over my boy’s mind again.
===
I
As they got on the road toward Chicago, Miri and John had a lot to catch up on.
“I wanted to come to your graduation, Miri, and I’d even talked to your mom about attending,” John was saying, “but then I ended up having duty that whole week and wasn’t able to make it. When I called your mom back to tell I wouldn’t be there, she totally understood. ‘There will be other chances to see Miri, believe me,’ she said.”
“I had no idea,” Miri said, surprised. “Mom never mentioned to me that you had even been planning to attend.”
“Maybe she didn’t want you to be disappointed if I wasn’t able to come, which turned out to be the case,” John said.
“Yeah,” Miri said; “Mom’s kinda wise like that. I wonder who she gets it from and will I be even half that wise.”
“You’re already pretty wise, even at your age,” said John; “My grandmother would have said you have an ‘old soul’.”
“In what ways do you think I’m wise?” asked Miri; “I’m not even 17 yet!”
“First of all, you’re not like any almost 17 year old girl I’ve ever known,” John said; “I know you’d say that’s because you’re not. That’s not what I mean. What I mean is that you seem to instinctively know the right thing to say, or how to put someone at ease, or do something that totally makes sense if one would just think for a bit.”
“I’m no one special,” she said; “I’m just Miri. I’m not Supergirl, or anything like that. I’m certainly not my mother. I love my mom to pieces, but I hate getting special treatment because she was supposedly the ‘SpineSplitter’ during the Occupation.”
“She’s a hero of the Resistance, as much as she might hate that title,” John said; “But the Occupation wouldn’t have ended without her.”
“Not that you have any real memory of it, of course.”
“I had just finished kindergarten when it ended,” John said; “My parents went nuts celebrating. We had a whole house full of people that night. They even let me stay up late. But no, I have no real memory of the actual Occupation or the hell people like my parents went through.”
“I wasn’t even seven months old yet, so all I know about it is from what my family has told me, my siblings and cousins; and what I learned from the New History lessons I got in my studies,” Miri said. “And, it’s never been proven that Mom was the SpineSplitter. As far as anyone knows, Grandpa Jacob was because he was the only one who knew the technique.”
“Who taught him?” asked John; “Or did he develope the technique?”
“I think he improved upon an already known technique called spine nicking,” Miri said; “It left the person paralyzed for life, if they lived long enough to be treated. SpineSplitting, on the other hand, from what I’ve been able to gather, is very specialized and precise. If a bullet splits your spine, you’re pretty much dead. And my mother is anal enough to have learned the technique. She’s a lot like Grandpa Jacob that way.”
“I wish I had gotten a chance to meet the infamous Morbus the Sickness,” John said as they drove into the city; “But by that time, Morbus was no more and Jacob Ross was married to the Interim President.”
“And I think that’s how he wants to be remembered,” Miri said; “As Jacob Ross. But he lived too many years as Morbus and many people still know him by that name. I know that when he was called by that name, he didn’t respond to it.”
“No use in bringing up the past when a bright future for the country lay ahead,” John replied.
“Exactly,” Miri said; she paused, then continued; “John, let’s stop by Loyola Hospital and see Aunt Kimber and the baby. Would that be okay?”
John looked at Miri and thought, Mirielle, it would be more than okay. Aloud, he said, “Sure. You should go meet your new cousin.”
Miri guided John to the hospital, where they parked and got out.
“I can’t wait to see Drew!” she said excitedly. “I wonder who he looks like?”
“I’d hazard a guess that he looks like Drew, Miri,” John teased.
Miri laughed, and John thought it was the most magical sound he’d ever heard.
I’m going to marry you, Mirielle.
===
Kimber was kind of proud of herself. She had this adorable baby boy, a man who loved both of them with everything he had, and she was getting the hang of this motherhood business.
So when Jamey showed up that afternoon with flowers for Kimber and a new toy for Drew, she wasn’t prepared for what he had in mind.
“Oh, you got me roses and babies breath!” Kimber exclaimed as Jamey leaned down to kiss her.
“Nothing is too good for you, Kimberlin, you know that,” he said. “And we’ve got this good looking little guy sleeping away. Has the doctor told you when you guys would be coming home?”
“Tomorrow afternoon,” Kimber said; “I can’t wait to get Drew settled into his room. It’s such a boy’s room!”
“Oh, I know,” Jamey said; “I had a lot of help getting it that way!”
“So what’s with the flowers?” asked Kimber; “You don’t get me flowers that often.”
“Um, Kimber, you gave birth to our son two days ago, I think that deserves an entire florist full of flowers. Unfortunately, I’d have to own the Times-Tribune in order for that to happen!” Jamey said, laughing. Then he got serious.
“You know we’d been talking about getting married, and I think that we should do that soon. I mean if you still want to.”
Kimber just looked at him, then said, “Of course I still want to, Jamey! What are you trying to tell me?”
Jamey pulled the little ring box out of his pocket, took Kimber’s hand and said, “I want to make it official, then. Kimberlin Michelle Draiman, will you marry me?”
Kimber sat there in the bed, speechless. She knew what she was going to say, but wished that he’d asked this important question somewhere other than a hospital room. I’m being stupid again, she thought; this is as good a place as any.
“Yes, James Joseph Duncan, I’ll marry you... right now if you want,” Kimber said; “There is a priest or rabbi standing outside the door, isn’t there?”
“Um, no,” Jamey said; “I didn’t think of that. What I want is to take you somewhere other than this hospital room to pledge my love and commitment to you. When you’re sufficiently recovered from giving birth. With your parents and siblings in attendance.”
“I’d like that... maybe at my parents place in Austin so Niki doesn’t have to travel,” Kimber said; “She can’t go to Jacob’s funeral either. We’ll probably talk over the net or something.”
“Austin was one of the places I was going to suggest,” Jamey said; “Maybe in the spring when it gets warmer so we can have it outside. Then your dad can walk you down the aisle in that clearing you told me about.”
Drew started fussing and Jamey went over to his little isolette and lifted his son out of it. “You hungry, Drewster? Well, I can’t do anything about that, but Mommy can!”
Kimber laughed; “Gee, Daddy, thanks!” she exclaimed as Drew was laid in her arms. Soon he was nursing contentedly as his parents watched lovingly.
Yessir, Jamey thought, this is everything I dreamed that being a father was about. My son, his mother, and me. I can’t wait to get home!
===
II
With the reservations made for the flight to Washington, Julia sat and started thinking. Remembering her first memory of her father.
She was about three, and Peter and Kiera were having a birthday party for her. Her hair was in pigtails, and she wore a pretty dress. Nik, who was six, wanted to know why Julia was all dressed up.
“Because it’s her birthday, and we’re having a party,” Peter said; “Her little friends from the Disturbed Ones school are going to come over for cake, and gifts and games. And Mr. David will be here, too.”
“Is he bringing Morbus?”
“I suppose he will. Morbus is Mr. David’s bodyguard,” Peter said.
“Oh.”
“I like Morbus, Nikky,” Julia said; “He is nice to us.”
“You don’t think he’s scary looking, Julia?”
Julia looked at Peter as if to say, what’s scary looking mean?
“Julia sees people differently than you do, Nikolai,” Peter said. “Now, Julia, Ms. Kiera wants to put ribbons in your hair.”
“Okay!” and she ran off to find Ms. Kiera. When she found her, Julia said, “Mr. Peter said you want to put ribbons in my hair!”
“Yes, Julia,” Kiera said, looking over the little girl she’d been caring for since she was two weeks old. I can’t believe you’re three already, and your mother is still in prison, she thought. Julia caught Kiera staring and said, “Ms. Kiera! Ribbons!”
“Oh, yes!” Kiera shook her head to clear it. “Sit up here on this stool, Julia, and we’ll put pretty party ribbons in your hair.”
Once the ribbons were in her hair, Kiera let Julia run downstairs to the living room to greet the first visitors.
Julia rounded the corner and practically flew down the stairs and saw Mr. David and Morbus in the living room with Peter and Nik. The grown ups were talking, and Nik tried not to look at Morbus.
“Hi!” Julia said rather loudly. It got the attention of the adults in the room.
“Julia, inside voice,” reminded Peter.
“Hi!” she then whispered, and Morbus laughed.
Morbus hardly ever laughed. To Julia he said, “You look very pretty today, Julia. Is there a special occasion?”
“It’s my birfday, Morbus,” Julia said. “We’re having cake and presents!”
“How fun for you, Julia,” he said. Julia noticed that Morbus looked sad.
“Why are you sad, Morbus?” she asked.
“I was remembering a special girl from a long time ago, before I was Morbus.”
The statement went right over the little girl’s head, as confirmed by her statement, “Someone like Ms. Kiera?”
Changing the subject, Morbus said, “I brought you a gift, Julia. So did Mr. David. I hope you and your friends have fun today.”
“You’re not going to stay and play with me, Morbus?” asked Julia.
“Maybe it’s best that I do not,” he said; “Maybe another day. We’ll play let’s pretend. Is that still your favorite game?”
“Oh yes!” Julia said happily. “I wish you could stay, but Mr. David has important work for you to do.”
“How do you know that, Julia?” asked Morbus.
“Ms. Kiera told me.”
“Oh,” Morbus said; “If Ms. Kiera says it, then it must be true. Ms. Kiera wouldn’t tell a fib.”
Soon, Morbus and Mr. David were gone, and Julia had her party with her three year old friends.
It must have killed you to see me, knowing I was your daughter and not being able to say anything, Julia thought; yet you came back again and again. It must have been torture on you. I can’t imagine being around my own flesh and blood and not be able to tell them I was their mother.
Julia then went upstairs to find any pictures of Jacob from when she was a little girl. She knew she had to have some.
===
Miri and John entered the hospital through the main entrance and went straight for the elevator. Her mother had told her what room her aunt was in.
“You’re really excited about meeting your new cousin, aren’t you?” John asked.
“Aunt Kimber had a hard time being pregnant, having to be on bed rest and being bored out of her mind,” Miri said. “And she’s only 20 years old, so I know that must have been hard for her.”
“She’s not much older than you are, then,” John said.
“She and Aunt Niki were three and a half when I was born, so no, they’re not much older,” Miri said; “Until they all moved back to Austin, where Granpa David had a house, we were like sisters in a way.”
Miri pressed the button for the sixth floor and felt the elevator car rise. Somewhere between the fourth and fifth floor, the elevator came to a sudden stop, causing Miri and John to lose their balance.
“I wonder what happened?” she asked.
John pressed the sixth floor button and nothing happened. “Miri,” he said, “I think we’re stuck.”
“Great. That’s all we need right now,” Miri said.
John reached for the door that held the emergency telephone and waited for someone to answer.
“Thank you for calling Loyola University Hospital. How may I direct your call?” is what he heard.
“I’m in one of your elevators and it’s stuck between floors, I think,” John said. “Could we get some assistance?”
“Certainly, sir,” the disembodied female voice said. “Just one moment.”
The next voice John heard was, “Maintenance.”
“Hello, we’re stuck in one of the elevators,” John said; “Can we get some assistance, please?”
“What car are you in?”
“I don’t know,” said John.
“The car number is on the center of the phone you’re talking on.”
John had Miri look, and seeing the number 4 told the maintenance person, “We’re in car 4.”
“Car 4 should have had a sign on it stating it was out of order,” he was told. “Was there a sign you didn’t see?”
“Not one that was visible, no,” John said. He asked Miri, “Did you see an ‘Out Of Order’ sign for this elevator?”
“No.”
“Neither one of us saw a sign or anything preventing us from boarding the elevator,” John said; “Can we get some help?”
“It’ll take a few minutes, but someone should be there shortly to assist you.”
“Thank you,” John said. To Miri: “They’re sending someone, but it might take a few minutes.”
“As long as it’s a few minutes, I don’t mind,” said Miri.
An hour later, they were still waiting. John had called back twice asking about getting out of the elevator. Each time, he was told “a few minutes”.
Miri was getting restless. “I want to get out of here and see my cousin!” she exclaimed.
She sat back down on the floor and drew her knees up to her chest. John joined her there.
Miri laid her head on John’s shoulder as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “This could only happen to me,” she said, resigned to a longer wait.
“It will be over soon, Miri,” John said softly. “I don’t like being in here either.”
Another hour went by, and Miri called her mom. Jaime answered.
“Mom said you were coming home today, Miri,” said Jaime; “Did you have to take your test?”
“No, James, I didn’t. I’m at the hospital to see Aunt Kimber and the baby and John and I have been stuck in an elevator for going on two hours now. Can I talk to Mom?”
“Yeah, just a sec...” Miri could hear Jaime calling for their mother. Soon Julia was on the line.
“Jaime says you’re stuck in an elevator at Loyola Hospital,” she said.
“Yeah, Mom; John and I are sitting here waiting for someone to let us out.”
“How long have you been waiting?”
“About two hours. It’s like they’ve forgotten about us until John calls asking when someone was coming to help,” Miri said; “He keeps getting told that it will only take a few minutes, but here we still sit.”
“Should I call someone at the hospital?”
“No, Mom,” said Miri, imagining the uproar that having Julia Summers calling would undoubtedly create; “I talked John in to stopping in to see Aunt Kimber, and now we’re in this mess. I feel bad.”
“I’m sure that John understands that it’s not your fault, Miri,” Julia said. “But if you call me back, I will call someone. Two hours is ridiculous!”
“Okay, Mom, I’ll hang in there.”
“Good girl. I’ll see you when you get home, okay sweetie?”
“Okay, Mom,” Miri said; “See you soon. Love you.”
“Love you more,” said Julia.
Miri closed out the call and looked at John. He was looking at her.
“Miri, this isn’t your fault, and I don’t blame you one bit for being upset,” he said; “But it will be all right. We’ll get you up to see your aunt and her baby, then we’ll go to your mom’s.”
“Thanks, John,” she said; “I still feel bad, though.”
“Please don’t,” John said. He then leaned in to kiss Miri before he had a chance to think about what he was doing.
Their lips met and Miri responded. It was a sweet, simple kiss. When it ended, John said, “I didn’t mean to be so forward, Miri...”
“It’s okay, John,” she said; “It was nice. I kinda wanted you to kiss me.”
“You did?” John asked, surprised.
Miri nodded. “I really like you, John. More than a little bit.”
Before John had a chance to reply, the elevator started to move. “Wow, Miri, you have the power to move things right along!” he quipped. He then said, “I really like you too, Miri. More than a little bit. You’re a beautiful, intelligent girl. I hope that we get to spend more time together before I head back to Ft. Hood in three weeks.”
“I’m sure we will, John,” said Miri as the doors to the elevator opened on the sixth floor.
===
III
Closed casket. No Shiva. No flowers. Buried next to your mother at Arlington. No fuss.
Those were the instructions that Jacob had left for his son to follow, and follow them he did.
JT couldn’t help the “no fuss” part of the instructions, however. All the news outlets were running retrospectives on Jacob’s life; people were leaving flowers at Arlington House, from where Christine Collins-Ross ran the country in her role as the Interim President; flags were lowered to half-staff; and in Chicago, where the man born Jacob Rossman grew up, the Jewish community was preparing to sit Shiva for one of their own. He had been called one of the country’s “Most Influential Jews”, a title that Jacob felt he didn’t deserve as he essentially abandoned his faith.
But, in Arlington, JT prepared for the burial of his father. Julia and her family would be in town late Wednesday evening, staying with Natasha Vincent and Darren Dixon in Georgetown.
JT sat down in one of the chairs in the living room of his parents house. He knew that his father’s passing was coming, but still felt unprepared for it.
“Jake, where are you?” he heard Sara call out.
“Living room,” he answered.
Sara sat next to him on the arm of the chair. “You okay, baby?”
“Kinda. And kinda not.”
“I know, Jake,” said Sara; “He was your father and he meant a lot to you. But he’s not suffering anymore. You have to believe that.”
“I do. He and Mom are finally together again after all this time. But still,” JT said trailing off; “I just can’t help but think there’s something more. Something we don’t know about that will jump out and shock us.”
“Like what?”
“That’s just it, Sara,” said JT; “I don’t know what that could possibly be.”
Sara looked at her husband. He’d been through a lot in the time they’d been together. He was still the same Jake she fell in love with in high school. His family had been good to her. He was a good father, a good husband. His line of work concerned her, but he was one of the best at what he did. The only people better were his father and sister.
“Let’s get the kids and close up the house,” she suggested. “The adoring public is turning this place into a freakin’ shrine. Your dad would hate that!”
JT looked at Sara and said, “Yeah. Let’s go home. We can work on the rest of the details tomorrow.”
After getting their children up from their naps in JT’s old bedroom, Jacob’s Secret Service detail made sure that the young family got out undetected.
===
Protocol dictated that Christine wear her uniform to Jacob Ross’ funeral, which was set for Friday in Arlington. She had obtained permission from her superiors to attend.
She couldn’t help but wonder if she could have saved Jacob, but he had been right about one thing; he didn’t make it to his next birthday. He lived much longer than someone who had been through everything he had been should have expected. She knew that Jacob was grateful to have lived long enough to meet his grandchildren.
A padded envelope had arrived at her home the day after she had been told of Jacob’s death. Inside was a letter and a small locket. The letter told Christine that Jacob’s love for her was true, sure, and that if he had been a younger man, he would have fought for her.
The locket was the kind a child would wear. A small heart with a lock of hair enclosed. Jacob’s letter stated that he had intended the lock as a gift to Jordan upon the birth of their daughter, but nearly four decades later, he still had it. The lock of hair was Julia’s that he had received from Julia’s guardians with the intent to give it to Jordan when she was released or escaped from the prison she had been held in. He never got to give it to her.
I wonder if I should give it to Julia after the funeral, Christine mused, since it was intended for her. Jacob’s letter didn’t say what, if anything, she was to do with it.
So she decided to keep it for the time being. Christine slipped it into a small drawer in her desk along with the letter.
Christine would forget all about it until a few months later.
Then, what she was to do with it would become clear.
===
“Oh, aren’t you a cute little thing!” Miri cooed at her newborn cousin when she and John finally got into Kimber’s room and related everything that had happened while waiting to be rescued from the stuck elevator.
Well, almost everything.
John watched as Miri talked to Drew, and imagined what it would be like if they had a child.
He had to make himself stop that line of thinking. You jerk, he chastised himself, she’s not even 17 years old yet! Stop making her into your perfect woman.
Just then, the baby started to fuss. “Now Drew,” Miri was telling him; “you can’t go fussing all the time. There’s no crying in baseball, ya know!” To Kimber she asked,
“Could he be wet or hungry?”
“He last nursed about two hours ago,” Kimber told her; “so he could be hungry. My dad says he’ll be eating steak before too long!”
“That sounds like something Granpa David would say!” Miri said, laughing. “He said the same thing about Zach!”
“Well, given how tall Zach is at only eleven years old, Dad probably wasn’t too far off,” replied Kimber. “Now, unless you all want to watch, I’m going to take care of Drew’s hunger pangs.”
“We probably should go,” Miri said; “Mom’s been expecting us for a while now. I think she’s actually getting impatient.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Kimber said as her son latched on and began to nurse. She discretely covered Drew with his little blanket. Jamey watching was one thing; Miri and John, whom she’d met only one other time, was another.
“We’ll be home tomorrow, where we will be bombarded with offers of ‘help’,” Kimber said. “John, it was nice seeing you again. Make sure Miri gets home safely.”
“I will, ma’am,” he said.
“And knock of the ‘ma’am’ stuff, would ya?” Kimber asked playfully; “I’m just Kimber.”
“Um, yes, Kimber,” John said; “I’ll make sure that Miri gets home safe.”
With that, Miri and John took their leave, taking another elevator down to the main floor. They noticed that the elevator they’d gotten stuck in now had a big sign declaring it “OUT OF ORDER”.
They just looked at each other and entered the elevator car just opposite from the one they came up in.
Once in the car, Miri sighed.
“What’s wrong?” John asked.
“Now I have to deal with Grandpa Jacob’s funeral,” Miri said; “That means a somber plane ride with my overly emotional baby sister.”
“Under the circumstances, maybe you could cut her a little slack,” John said; “You all are going to be emotional for a while. Losing someone close to you is never easy, and people grieve in different ways. Maybe Rachel’s way is to be ‘overly emotional’, and your way is more somber.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Miri said; “Thanks for the reality check, John.”
John looked at her and said, “Just another service brought to you by Staff Sergeant John Aaron Crossley, United States Army.”
Miri laughed, which was John’s intention all along.
===
