When all of the school aged kids were at school, Marc arrived with his family. “Jake, what the hell is going on?” he asked jovially.
“Shit’s hitting the fan, baby brother. How do you think things are going?” Jake asked.
Marc shrugged. “True. Anything from Mom and Dad?”
“Nope, but no news is good news as far as I’m concerned. The moment the show up at the door and say they’re here for the duration is the moment I’ll start to panic.”
“Who all’s here?” Mercedes asked.
“So far Malachai, Jordan, Maddie, James, ‘Miah, and Makayla and their families. Now you guys. The last person to arrive will be Meagan. She had to find a house sitter for some reason.”
“She works for NASA, Jake. There are all kinds of secrets in her apartment that she has to keep under lock and key. Shit that’s top secret. You have to have someone you can trust to watch shit like that”, Marc said. “We just did a NASA piece, JJ and me, and I have to say if it weren’t Mae being a NASA employee, I would have been lost for special effects”, Marc said.
Jake shrugged. “True enough, I guess. All I know is that things are going rather strangely and I have no idea what to do. I’m fucking winging it right now. Other than that…” he chuckled.
“Call Dad”, Jordan said when she walked from the Kitchen so that she could greet her baby brother and niece and nephew.
“No Jordan. Dad doesn’t need to be bothered with this. He and Mom have enough going on in their lives that they don’t need to worry about what’s going o here. And, to be perfectly honest, I feel like I have something to prove here. Other than the fact that Malachai didn’t want the title, Dad taught me what it meant to be the head of the family for a reason. I need to show him that his faith in me was warranted.”
“The sign of a good leader is to know when to stand his ground and when to call a retreat.”
“You’ve been listening to Jeremiah’s lecture on Little Big Horn again, have you?”
“What can I say? Custer’s Last Stand is a fascinating subject to me. Custer should have fallen back when those Sioux warriors came out of the hills and went crazy. Hell, their Chief’s name was Crazy Horse. That alone should have caused him pause.”
Jake laughed. “If you say so, sis. What does it have to do with me calling Dad?”
“I’m just cautioning you not to be like Custer. Know how to pick your battles.”
“Jord, there’s picking your battles and there’s being over cautious. I’m trying to do the former and not the latter. Calling Dad would mean I’m being a coward and telling him that I can’t handle the responsibility he’s given me. I won’t be that. I’d rather call Dad when it’s a lost cause. Call surrender when I know I’m beaten like Cornwallis at Yorktown.”
She looked at him with an appreciative smile. “Touché, twin brother. Touché.”
---------------
Right before she was being picked up by her older cousin Miranda, Miriam Draiman was called to the office at her school. She took her hall pass and went to the office to see what was going on. She thought she was getting an award for her science project. She had been the only member of her class to do something involved. With her father’s help, she made a 3D model of the human brain and labeled it. She knew it would win her first place.
When she walked into the office she approached the secretary’s desk. “Mrs. Henderson, I was called to the office”, she said politely.
“Oh, Miriam. Yes, dear. You were called here for a couple of reasons. First, your science project was marvelous. There are some here that think it was unfair that you had help from your father who’s a Nobel prize winning doctor.”
“All he helped me do was label the different parts. The different kinds of tissue. Making it was actually my Mom and my Aunt. They helped me.”
The older woman smiled at the little girl. “I believe you and so did the judges. You won first place in the 3rd grade division.” She handed Miri a ribbon.
“Sweet! I can’t wait to show my Dad this. He’s going to be so proud of me.” She took the ribbon and folded it in half to stick it in the pocket of her skirt. “What else was there?”
The woman pivoted in her chair and grabbed a box. “It looks like you have a secret admirer. Someone left you this pretty little box. And there’s a little card here for you.”
Miri looked at the box cautiously. “Are you sure about that?”
“It’s addressed to you.”
Miri took the card and read it to herself. “Miriam, take this box to your father. Do not open it. Believe me, you don’t want to know what’s inside. –A friend” She picked the box up and thanked Mrs. Henderson before going back to class for the rest of the day. When she walked back into the class room, she looked at the clock. She had two minutes before Miranda would be there to pick her and Ira up from school. Isaiah would be getting Levi and Matt, and Elijah would get Asher and Daliah. That was the system, even though they were all going to the same place. She quietly picked up all of her things and made sure that she had her homework in her homework folder before sitting quietly at her desk until the bell rang.
All of her classmates were eager to get out of the room, but Miri sat still her classmates were all out of the room. Her teacher looked at her. “Miri, is everything ok?”
She smiled. “My Uncle James is coming down for a visit and he left me a present in the office. He left one for my cousins and brothers and sister too. I just wanted to be sure that I didn’t get run over between here and the car.”
“Is Miranda here to pick you up?”
“She should be. I’m heading out now. Thank you for checking on me, Ms. Johnson.”
“You’re very welcome, Miriam. Be careful, ok?”
She smiled brightly. “Yes, ma’am”, she said and left.
The trip down the hall was slow and deliberate. She wasn’t sure what was in the box, but she knew one thing: the message on the card with the box was scary. When she got in Miranda’s car, she looked at her older cousin. “Miranda, can you call my Dad for me, please? I need to tell him something.”
“What’s that, Miri?” Miranda asked sweetly.
Miri took a deep breath and handed her cousin the card that came with the box. “It says not to open it. I’m curious, but Dad will kill me if I do.”
Miranda pulled out her phone and called her Uncle Jake after reading the card over. “Uncle Jake, Miri got a delivery at the school today for you.”
-----------------
Jake sat in his office at home and stared at the box that his oldest daughter had brought home to him. He hadn’t opened it. He knew it wasn’t rigged to explode because no idiot in the world would leave a box like this at an elementary school for a child to transport home, be they in their right mind or not. He was waiting on his brothers to join him in the office.
There was a knock. “Who’s there?” he called.
“Jake, it’s us”, Jeremiah said.
“Come on in, guys.” He looked at his brothers as they came in the door. He couldn’t help but think about how he couldn’t enjoy the fact that his daughter had won first place in her division in the science fair. He had to deal with the package she brought home before he could talk to her about the good job she did on her science project and how he was proud of her. “Guys, I wanted to wait until you were all in her before I opened this box.”
“It’s been checked for explosives, right?” James asked.
“Yeah, I checked it”, Malachai said. “It was one of the things Uncle Matt taught us older boys when he taught us all how to shoot.”
“Well, open it”, Marc said. “Let’s see what it is and who sent it.”
Jake took a deep breath as he opened the small wooden box. Inside there was a small green velvet bag and a note. His brothers all stood with bated breath as he read over the note.
“Dr. Draiman,
I hope that this message finds you and your family in good health and happiness. The contents of this box are a warning. Keep your children close. The man I work for wants to do very wicked things to your oldest niece and nephew in order to get to your elder brother. Your twin sister is in danger as well. Stay close to each other. You have no idea who or what you’re up against, but your father and his former band mates do. The people who are after you and your family are no joke. Be careful, and were I you I’d turn the contents of this box over to the police.
A friend”
Jake looked up at his brothers. “Marc, do you think you can have the woman that home schools Josh and Pilar come out here?”
“Yeah.”
“James, what about Hunter and the twin’s tutor? Would she come out to home school the kids?”
“Yeah. Why?”
He looked up at all of his brothers. “Tell our sisters that we’re having a family meeting in a few minutes. I’m going to call the police about this package that was given to Miri. After the police leave is when we’ll have the meeting. It will be adults first, then we’ll involve the kids if need be. And James, tell Justin that when I call a meeting of the men that I’d like him to join us. ‘Miah tell your father in law the same, please.”
The boys all nodded and left to follow the orders of the acting patriarch of the family. Jacob picked up his phone and called the police at the suggestion of the friend that sent the warning. Dear God, please give me some news about who and what this shit is soon because I don’t know how much longer I can do this.
---------------
Brie spent the night tossing and turning again. Her wild sleeping kept David up all night. When she came awake she gasped and he asked, “Baby, what’s the matter?”
“I don’t know, David”, she said as she sat up and took a deep breath. “I keep seeing these random images in my dreams. Rifle muzzles, images of the kids and grandkids… a wooden box. There’s a constant repetition of Psalms 23 in my head. ‘The Lord is my Sheppard, I shall not want, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures’ then it jumps to, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me; thy rod and staff, they comfort me’.”
He blinked at her. “For the love of God, what do you think it all means?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I wish I did. Something’s not right. I have a feeling that Jake’s going to be calling soon.”
“How soon is soon?”
“Within the next hour, hour and a half. Two hours at the outside.”
He nodded. “Then we’ll deal with that when it happens. For now, I think we need to get up so that you can get some fresh air.”
She nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
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