104 - Harvard

*Don’t ever be silent. Don’t sit by and let others suffer. If you are silent and do not stand when others suffer, there may be no one to speak for you. No one to stand for you. – Oma Uittenbroek*

Four years ago, they buried Oma Ilse Uittenbroek at the age of eighty-five. She had lived a full life that had started out wonderfully and as she said, was interrupted by hell on earth. There are memories from your life that are so powerful that they become so much a part of you, define your personality and influence the direction of your life.

The royal family fleeing from the Netherlands to England rather than submitting to the Nazi regime did that for an entire generation. So much so that their descendants were influenced by this action and everything that followed. Which is why Camille removed her watch so that she could see the small tattoo of OZO to remind her of where she came from.

*Oranje zal overwinnen*

Orange shall conquer.

The slogan of the Dutch Resistance that her ancestors fought with. “The first mistake they made,” Camille could still hear Oma’s voice with her accent that never quite faded, “they pissed us off. And then they took my brother.”

So often when she said brother, it came out as *broeder, the Dutch word for brother. And said with reverence. Adrianus Uittenbroek was loved by his family and community. The oldest of seven children and the first to be forcefully taken and later die at the hands of the Nazi forces.

Darkness watched as Camille moved her smart watch from one wrist to the other and cocked an eyebrow at her. She shrugged her shoulders in answer to his unasked question.

“It’s a reminder of where I come from *Who I come from.”

“So why hide it?” he asked from where he stood leaning against the dresser.

“Because they hid,” she grinned at him. “Today is not the day for stories. Today is for our kids. But when it’s time, you probably won’t believe me.”

“Our kids,” he mused. “I like the way that sounds.”

“Me too,” she agreed as she pulled on the light-weight jacket against the cool breeze.

“Kind of makes you think about having some of our own,” he said as he pulled her closer to him with his hands on her hips.

She smiled up at him as she slid her arms around his neck. “Yes, but not yet. We need to focus on the three that we now have.”

Leaning in, he pressed his lips to hers. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“I love the fact that you are claiming my niece and nephews as yours.”

Tipping her head back, she laughed. “Be glad that whatever is going on back home is keeping my mother there. If she was here, we would not get within ten feet of them, and they would be begging for rescue.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he promised as he gave her another light kiss.

Stepping out of his light embrace, Camille declared that she was ready, and they headed down the stairs to the main room. The kids and the Saints were waiting for them and they all moved out to the Jeeps in the driveway. Camille had gone with Celt earlier in the day on Saturday to pick up the new Jeep for Darkness from a dealership in Texarkana.

She could only chuckle as they climbed into the four Jeeps in the driveway. Nicki got into the same Jeep with Chowder while Vin chose the one with Duke. Mitch climbed into Camille’s Jeep sitting in the back seat so that he could pet Tink over the back of the seat.

Camille’s mother was the ultimate Jeep Girl with her Grand Cherokee that she drove on a regular basis. And her old school Vietnam era government issue that was maintained and street legal which was a staple in the Veteran’s Day and Fourth of July Parades. Then she had her modified CJ7, and Wrangler that were set up for off road trails.

The temptation to call Sid and let her mother know that she was nervous was very tempting. But with Mitch in the back seat, that would not be advisable.

Instead, they talked about the upcoming school year and what it would be like to live in Louisiana. Celt sat in the back seat with him and Chris sat in the front with his sister.

Following the directions from the GPS, it took just under an hour for them to reach the park that they had agreed on. As they drew closer, Mitch became quieter and more drawn into himself.

“Mitch,” Chris said as he turned around in the front passenger seat. “I’m going to give you your first lesson in Dutch. *Tot ziens*.”

“What?” the young teen asked with a nervous laugh.

“*Tot zeins*. Tot it’s like tote, think of it like you’re going to tote your bags, but it’s spelt like tot, like a tater tot.”

“Tot,” Mitch said experimentally.

“That’s it, tot. and the other is ziens. And that, you’ve seen so much shit that you have to say seen with a Z at the beginning and it’s plural. You’ve seens it all.”

“*Ziens*,” he tried.

“Now, put them together, *tot ziens*,” his new uncle encouraged.

“*Tot ziens*,” Mitch said the two words completely separate from each other.

“What Chris forgot to tell you is that the Dutch speak in the back of their throat, and they speak in cursive, the words roll together,” Camille said as she pulled into the parking lot of the park.

“*Tot ziens*,” he tried again, and this time said the words together.

“*Perfect*!” the two siblings declared with the Dutch pronunciation with the soft E.

He smiled at them. “*Tot ziens*!”

“Now, what that means is goodbye,” Chris told him. “If at any point and time you feel as though we need to leave and you don’t feel comfortable saying it, you just say *tot ziens* and we’ll leave.”

Mitch gave a nervous smile, but even Camille could see the relief in the boy’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” they both told him.

“Don’t worry kid,” Celt said as Camille parked between Chowder and Darkness. “I don’t speak it either. Well, no, I do speak some, but nothing that I should be teaching you.”

“Yeah, no,” Camille shook her head before opening the door. “You know what I will do.”

“Yup,” Celt carefully got out of the Jeep. With the vehicle between them, he still protected his groin. Watching Critter getting out of the front seat, he saw that even her brother was protecting himself. “Your sister scares me.”

“Dude, I have five more of them. And our mother is turning all my nieces into little *demonen*.”

“Day mo what?” Celt asked as the group moved together.

“*Demonen*. Day moe nin. *Demonen*. Demons”

“We are not demons, Chris,” Camille rolled her eyes.

“Of course not,” all the Saints agreed as they guarded their groins.

“I don’t even have a gun on me.”

With that declaration, she stepped into the grass and pulled her cloth face mask on. She moved towards the picnic table where Dominique and the other family members sat. There was no reason for her to look back to see if they were following, they would all follow her.

“Dominique,” Camille said as she stopped at the table and made a hand signal for the others to hang back for a moment.

“Camille,” the woman said with a barely contained sneer.

“I don’t know the laws here, so, let me go ahead and tell you that this,” she pointed to the decorative broach on the jacket, “right here, is a camera. And it’s recording.”

The woman at the table that Camille did not recognize scoffed. “You want us to believe that?”

She flipped open her jacket and showed them the wires running from the broach to the recording device. “I can pull up the app and play this conversation for you.”

“I don’t know why you find that acceptable,” Dominique objected.

“Because the kids spent several hours debating if they even wanted to come here. And if what Vin said is true, this is the minimum that should be done around you.”

The whole table scoffed this time.

“Were you going to send Mitch to a conversion camp?” Camille demanded.

“I don’t think what we do to our grandkids is any of your business,” the older man said with a sneer.

“I am the primary guardian,” Camille told them. “It is very much my business what happens with those kids.”

“You? You’re barely old enough to take care of yourself, you should just sign the kids over to their grandparents and go on about your life,” Destiny said. “How did you even find a lawyer to do that?”

Celt stepped up next to Camille, handing over a two-inch black binder, “Harvard.”