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The next day, it was much colder and darker than average, and it started to show. The atmosphere in the house became tense and unforgiving, and it showed more and more as the day wore on.
Donnie seemed to feel this most of all. Not only was the cold leaving her fatigued and utterly exhausted, but she also just generally wasn’t feeling well. She was starting to get sick, and this bout of illness had started to trigger a sickle cell crisis. But despite this harrowing combination of exhaustion, illness, and pain; she had something more important to her on her mind.
“Finals week. If I get started now, it’s less on my plate later.”
The final she had to focus on today was for her Introduction to Computing Using MATLAB course. It wasn’t a hard final for her, as she had become familiar with the software and even enjoyed it over Java. The final in question consisted of a 20 question exam and a moderate demonstration of some coding.
She shrugged to herself and breezed through the exam. It only took her 10 minutes, and she quickly earned her 100% score. The coding demonstration took a bit longer, about an hour and some change. But she did find the demonstration more fulfilling than the exam. In this demonstration, she was able to spot her mistakes and correct them, leading to smooth lines of code that ran almost perfectly.
The demonstration ended in her earning a 98%, a score she could feel proud of due to her effort. But it was only as her scores came in and she started to relax that she started to notice her pain flaring up. She wanted to lay down and relax, but she didn’t want to lose her momentum and sacrifice her results in the rest of her classes. So she settled her laptop back on her lap and started to revise her final essay.
Just as she was starting to find her groove, Mikey slowly opened the bedroom door.
“I’m bored. Can I sit next to you?”
“Sure.”
Mikey sat on the end of the bed, and Donnie continued revising her essay. He seemed to notice how tired she was starting to get, but didn’t want to harass her about it right away.
“What’s up?”
“I already have my Tagalog final done, and I just did my MATLAB one. So I have this one and my Calc final left.”
“I see. Are you up for a family dinner?”
“No.”
Mikey started to get a hunch. Almost on an impulse, he rested the back of his head on her forehead and winced.
“Damn. You’re warm.”
She shook her head and got one last revision in.
“Here, you need to rest. Set that aside for now, if you can.”
“Yeah, I was done anyways.”
Donnie set her laptop on the bedside table, and Mikey plugged it in.
“We can have family dinner here, then. I’ll make you some soup.”
“There’s leftover matzo ball soup in the fridge.”
Mikey nodded and left, making sure to keep the door open. Casey walked in almost immediately after, holding all of the candles in the menorah and tucking his lighter into his bandana.
“Mikey told me you weren’t feeling the best. So I decided to move everything over here so you could still celebrate.”
“No, you didn’t have to do that.”
“But I wanted to.”
Donnie just shook her head, and Casey sat next to her. As he began to set up the candles on the menorah, Mikey slammed the door open with their foot while holding 3 thermoses of matzo ball soup.
“Who wants soup?”
They doled out the thermoses, and Mikey sat next to them as they drank quietly. Casey was able to chug his thermos as he finished up getting the candles ready, and Donnie used that time to steal another blanket. Mikey took the hint and collected the used cups.
“I’ll let you do your thing.”
Mikey closed the door just as the sun set, leaving the perfect time to start lighting the candles.
“
Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tsivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah.
”