10
Do you, Samantha Manson, take him as your lawful and wedded husband? And do you, Daniel Fenton, take her as your lawful and wedded wife?
I do.
I do.
So it was done, and scant weeks after, he was gone.
He asked me if I could handle being an army wife of sorts, yet not quite. I said yes. I said a thousand times yes, and he smiled and kissed me deep. He warned me he could be gone for long stretches at a time but I told him I would be fine. I would miss him, love him, wait for him, until he came back, and all the while keep house and tell the children stories, and when he returned all would be joy.
Our baby boy would be born nine months later. He has no knowledge of his existence. Sweet Jacob has not ever seen his father but in photographs and stories. Jacob has never asked where his father is now. He's still too young to understand that he's missing a parent.
I hold him close sometimes, kiss his forehead, and wonder. Jacob is the image of his father. The same unruly black hair, and those deep, beautiful blue eyes make me shed bittersweet tears and gaze into space, wishing I could see through dimensions. Because it is very possible he is in the other place, the place we call the ghost zone, filled with spirits and ghosts of all sorts and varying levels of decency. He was a fighter for the human plane, and crossed over back and forth routinely. It was his work. It was all nothing to him.
--
Jake is fourteen today. It's a fateful year in my memory. Jake keeps asking me what's wrong when I pause to stare out the window and my face looks unusually set, like I'm hiding something. And as usual, his intuition is correct. I am. Just this past year Jake had smartened up and started asking questions about Danny that I don't want to answer.
Mom, what was Dad's job?
How did you meet?
Where is he now?
He's so bright. He's as hardworking as Danny was a daydreamer in junior high. I tell him these answers:
He was a trucker. He was on the road a lot. One day he disappeared, his CB radio lost contact, and they never found him.
College, of course.
No one knows. He's reported missing in the national missing persons' foundation.
Only the last answer is true. I couldn't tell him he was a dimension-hopper, a phantasm, a man that was all human and at the same time, all ghost. A story for the tabloids that was, for once, true. We never told anyone. The dead, the ghosts, the crazy ones know, I know, Tucker knows, his sister knows. That is all. It seems unfair to keep it from him. I just don't know how he would take it.
Jake sits at the table, doodling something with broad, graceful wings and a sinewy tail. His dark hair falls over his eyes. He has talent. I haven't picked up a pencil or a paintbrush since Danny left. I won't be able to until he returns. I watch him from the opposite side of the table where I'm pretending to make up a grocery list. One of these days I should get a job, now that Jake's old enough to stay at home...but I just don't think I could leave him.
I find my mind wandering again as I stare at my list without comprehension. I lose myself in memories I desperately keep alive with the pictures in my scrapbook and journals from high school. I overanalyze every quirk of his I mentioned in my journals, every switch and meter reading in the lab photos. Again I wonder if Danny's powers and abilities were genetic – what am I saying? Are! I know he's alive.
Something happened that day, I reason, something happened to his DNA. Something ghostly merged with his body that day, something of the pervasive ectoplasm not of this world. Suddenly it all sounds like a comic book. I keep going, though. My mind doesn't want to stop. Suppose Jake inherits his power? If he had even half of Danny's power it would be enough to protect the city easily. If he had Danny's power he could get into the ghost zone. If he had Danny's power he might be able to find him. If only that boomerang hadn't broken in an explosion in the Fentons' lab... If he had Danny's power he could contact Clockwork. He could send for help. But in the fourteen years since Danny had gone, the ghost zone has become hostile, with no intermediary. But Jake could do something...what if...
I shake my head and the vision dissipates like steam. I grab my pen and frown once again at my list, my train of thought completely off the tracks, distracted by Danny once again. Jake looks up at me curiously, but as he's watching me, I see his pencil fall through his hand.
I have no idea if those wedding vows are accurate. Another thing I wanted to add in was something about Orpheus and his love but I...didn't, oh well.
It's been a while, hasn't it? It just feels like it. I haven't done anything on Missingno for a long time, but I tried rewriting Iceheart for the third time. Well, that turned out okay, I might continue...but not really too soon. Senior year is worse than junior year, I'm discovering...and being part of my school's Madrigal is going to eat up my December and maybe even November. Stay tuned! Maybe I'll manage to get something out. I REALLY want to get work done on Missingno. Love you guys! Thanks for reading. Tell me what you think.