A/N:This story continues the thread started in Ah, Hell. It picks up roughly sixteen years after Daria and Trent get married, and they are raising their family in Boston, in the same loft and building that took shape in the concluding chapters of the last tale. Much has happened in those years; Jake, for one thing, has passed away, finally succumbing to his poor cardiac health. He did live long enough to hold all his grandchildren, which included Jane's son Nicky, since he had long considered her as his other daughter. Quinn has two daughters as well, Saraswati and Mira, the youngest of the grandchildren.
Daria named her second child Jacob, after her father. She and Trent are trying their best to raise thinking and independent children. Her firstborn, Ani, is named after her favorite recording artist, Ani DiFranco.
Usual disclaimer applies. Daria and related characters are the intellectual property of MTV and whomever has legal or has acquired legal title to them. This is Fanfiction, written only for enjoyment and fun; nothing of value has been exchanged in its creation.
You'll Know When You Have Kids Of Your Own
Chapter 1
Busted
The worst part of it was that Mom didn't yell at me.
After she made sure that Ani was okay, she kind of turned away and went into the bedroom and closed the door. I was pretty sure- no, I knew-that she was crying. Mom never cries.
Dad calmly brought the case over and put the pieces into it. "I think you know that that was kind of a stupid thing to do, Jacob." He glanced at the bedroom door. "After Mom has a chance to calm down, I'll talk to her. But you know…" he stopped, shaking his head. "It's a good thing for you that your sister's okay."
I nod, and open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Ani is glaring at me and rubbing the top of her head.
"El Kabong, my ass," she snaps. I know she wants to whomp the tar out of me but Dad being there makes her stay away from me. Part of me is glad, because Ani recently got her black belt and she does have a bit of an anger issue. I mean, I know that I can hold my own when we spar, but this would be different. Sensei says that you should use your opponent's anger against them but Ani is well aware of that, and I know she would control it. She doesn't get sloppy when she's mad, she gets kind of hyperaware and goes all Trinity on your butt.
Another part of me knows I would deserve whatever she'd throw at me.
Dad waits until Ani calms down and then goes to check on Mom. He puts the ukulele case down on a table, where it sits like a little coffin.
Ani's leaning against the wall, arms crossed tightly. "You know why Mom is upset, Genius?" she asks quietly.
I don't say anything. Mom and Dad expect us to understand how to take care of musical instruments, but this was kind of an accident. I was just pretending that I was gonna whack Ani over the head with the eight-string ukulele that Mom had just finished with. I had grabbed it out of its wall holder and had a two-handed grip on it, bringing it down quickly when Ani stands up.
The thing was pretty light, and there was a loud crack when it connected with my sister's head. Mom came out when she heard that. I don't think I'll ever forget that look of horror on her face.
Ani looks at the case on the table and sighs.
"Daddy bought that for her the night he proposed to her," she says quietly, the anger gone.
Walt, the luthier that works on all of Mom and Dad's acoustic instruments, studied the remains under a bright light on his workbench.
"I dunno, Jake," he sighs. "Repairing this would probably cost more than replacing it. The top, neck and headblock are still okay, surprisingly enough; only a couple of badly stressed areas near the base of the neck attachment. But the rest of it is pretty well wasted. I'd have to make a new set of sides, which means making a set of bending patterns, as well as a body mold from scratch. The edge binding would have to be removed without damaging the top, which would take hours, and all of the top lining will have to be cleaned off or replaced in order to attach new sides."
He pulls a rolling cabinet over, holding the oldest computer I've ever seen. He picks away at the keyboard for a long time, so I pick up a broom and start to sweep the floor as I wait. He glances up and grins a little.
"Sheesh, Jake, you sure know how to pick 'em," he sighs. "Custom made, most likely; or it's older than I thought. doesn't look like any of the current Kamaka Taro Patch models. Definitely made before Kamaka moved their shop in Honolulu, probably in the 1960's. I'd bet that the body molds don't exist any more. Besides, this one's made with AAAA grade curly Koa, so I'd guess that at current market you're looking at about three hundred dollars just for the wood to make a new back and sides."
Oh, man. "So how much is a new eight string ukulele?"
"Of this quality? I'd guess at least three thousand. The value of this one, though, probably more. It was signed on the inside by Sam Kamaka himself. They probably don't get many requests for these, so it figures that one of the company owners would take it on."
"I am so screwed," I moan.
Walt pulls down a big round disc of some kind of heavy plastic, and sets it down on his bench. He takes the spine of the ukulele's back and presses it lightly into the disc, and moves the worklight so that it illuminates the backside of the piece of wood. "This radius dish matches the curve of the back. That saves a couple hundred bucks, since I'd have to have a matching one machined." He turns to me. "Your dad tells me you're really good at making stuff."
Walt takes me on as kind of an apprentice and janitor. I spend the next three months- pretty much the whole summer- cleaning his shop and fixing odd machines, and in return he shows me how to rebuild Mom's ukulele. I fork over two hundred bucks for a couple of scuzzy looking Koa boards, which he insists is a bargain. He sent a few scraps of the original wood to a dealer, who sells me the boards at a discount because they were too small to make guitar sides and backs. I had my doubts, but after I ran them through the planer, resawed and then thickness sanded them, I was amazed.
Koa is a Hawaiian wood, really rare and prized for its grain and luster. The new boards yielded pieces that were a really close match to the original for pattern, but they were much lighter in color. Walt tells me that it'll darken over time, but that we'd have to stain it slightly so that it doesn't look weird.
"Don't throw any of the scraps away," he says, bringing a cardboard box over. "You can make jewelry out of the littlest bits, and inlay and bindings from the rest." Looking in the box, I see that he's kept every little fragment of the original instrument in there. Even the sample scraps that he sent for matching were returned.
Under Walt's watchful eye, I make a side bending form and a body mold from blocks of scrap plywood and glue. I use the ukulele's top to get the curves laid out, and get it right on the third try.
A month of painstaking work later, I'm finally buffing out the lacquer. Walt's stain on the new wood sides and back are a really close match to the original. A final setup with new strings, and I put the Taro Patch back into its case and take it home to Mom.
Hi'ilawe. It's the first song she played on it when Dad gave it to her all those years ago, and it's the first song she plays after I gave it back to her after the restoration.
Mom plays it beautifully, and then looks at the instrument in her hands. Standing, she puts it back into it's wall holder and then turns to me. For a long time, she says nothing, eyes distant as she recalls a memory obviously precious to her.
"Thank you, Jake." She smiles at me, and it's all worth it.
"Walt said that Jake did the work himself, except mixing the stain to color match the reconstructed areas."
"If I didn't see it a wreck with my own eyes, I'd swear that it was never damaged at all." Mom looks back at the instrument hanging on the wall. "Granted, it's the original top and neck, but it feels and sounds exactly like it did when I first played it. It must be the Lane touch."
"Guess he does have the same kind of natural talent for making things the way Janey does," Dad muses. "Just didn't think that a fourteen year old kid would have that kind of attention to detail, or for that matter, that kind of persistence."