For your meme: if Jake's parents Cannot Deal with him after the war, what about Rachel's family? Saddler's family? Can Jordan or Sarah look at Jake in the eye? Does Dan want to punch something every time Jake's name is mentioned? Does Naomi flinch every time she hears the name Cassie (or any other Animorph's names)?
I THINK ABOUT POST WAR BERENSONS MORE THAN MOST PEOPLE.—Naomi Berenson had a begrudging affection for the Hork-Bajir, but Toby she would never be truly at ease with Toby. She was too dangerous. It was one thing to be eternally armed with sharp blades, but ultimately be too stupid to really know what to do with them. It was another to be a seven foot alien and also understand California zoning laws You couldn’t really tell the Hork-Bajir apart, not without really knowing them and picking out some inane detail, but you always knew which one was Toby. She walked with a heaviness and a purpose that the others just didn’t have.Naomi knew it was Toby walking toward her, and she tensed.Toby handed her four envelopes, all pink, all smelling of Rachel’s favorite perfume. Naomi recognized the scent. It was what she used to wear, before Rachel made it her signature.Naomi was too empty inside to cry. The loss of a child was a pain far beyond anything with which the body could react.“She gave this to me,” said Toby gently, “To give to you if she died.”Naomi took the envelops, her heart fluttering sickly against her numb emotions. “Thank you,” she said.Toby nodded, then left.There were four letters. Mom, dad, Jordan, Sara.Naomi put them in her purse, then into a suitcase, then into a dresser drawer in her new house. It took her ten months to open them. She read hers in a bathtub, soaked both in sweet smelling oils and Belvedere, and she cried in a screaming way while feeling entirely distant. It was a step toward healing, which was a scarred thing for a mother, but a possible thing.Rachel’s letter said many things. Big things, small things. Least of all, it said to not to hold it against Jake.She hadn’t spoken to her nephew since that day. There had been no time. Jake had ceased to be the too serious child her in-laws were in the process of spoiling, and had become a symbol and a legend far out her reach. It was all for the best. If she had seen Jake the day she finally understood what had happened above Earth that day, she would currently be in jail.When she did finally contact him, she thanked him, because without his guidance of her sadistic daughter, worse consequences than the loss of her life would have befell them all. Then, she requested that they never, ever speak again. Jake understood entirely.
Naomi sends Rachel’s letter to Dan in the mail. He receives it, reads it, and cries for the first time since he was a boy. The sensation was disturbing. He was disturbed to find he felt sick afterwards, almost hungover. There’s a reason he left tears up to the women.
Rachel’s letter specifically told him to never forget about Jordan and Sara. It was the last request she ever made of him, his poor daughter who had gone through so much while he slept with P.A.’s in Connecticut. That night, he promised himself and her memory that he would never forget about his other two daughters, no matter how busy his life got. Even if he was never quite sure what to do with Jordan and Sara. Even if the longer he spent away from his daughters, the less connected he felt to them.
He never kept his promise.
Jake had to wait a while to talk to George and Ellen.
Life was a dizzy affair after the war. There was this event and that medal, this conversation and that handshake. The Animorphs were much too busy learning how to find the right camera and how to attach a lav mic to tie up loose ends. There came a time, finally, after the three sent Ax back to his homeworld (an event that was shown on all networks simultaneously) that they finally had time to talk.
Marco pulled Jake from his hotel room. They went into Cassie’s. Cassie sat on her bed, Jake at the desk, and Marco remained standing. This elevated him, made him larger. In these matters, he was the new general.
He looked at the two of them. “David,” he said.
David’s parents were a liability. They Animorphs had a certain image to uphold, an image that was very important. Jake had to kiss babies, Cassie had to wear skirts, and Marco had to always smile. This was their life now. They couldn’t have a story leak about about the Andalite bandits clearly abducting, then losing, a child. Too many Yeerks knew it had happened, least of all the ones in David’s family.
It was decided, by Cassie, that they would tell David’s parents that he had been a hero. That he had tried to fight, and had failed. That he died in battle, wrapped in the body of a golden lion.
It was decided, by Marco, that he was the one who would track down the family and speak to them. Marco was the only one who could swallow it all down, and truly stomach the lie.
Marco told them it went well. He said the story he made up held weight. Surpisingly-unsurprisingly, David’s parents wrote a book about him. It was called The Seventh Animorph. People spoke of his heroics more than they did of Tobias.
After the book’s release, Jake drove to his aunt and uncle’s. They hadn’t been in much contact. Ellen and George had isolated themselves and their family over the years. It wasn’t a sudden shut down, or a finality of events, but a slow freeze that crept through the family like lips turning blue. There was Ellen and George, with wet faces and red eyes, mourning their son and their sanity. Then, there was less of them. Then, there was nothing.
They let Jake in with solemn faces. They offered him dry scones and weak tea. Jake waved it all away. He was in no position to accept even the humblest of offerings.
He explained what truly happened with David, leaving out David’s unsavory ending. He told them that it was David’s morphing Saddler that created the miracle, and that David’s murder of the half-dead shell-boy solved the mystery of the elevator.
Ellen stood up, pushed her shoulders back, and spat on him.
Jake didn’t know what to do. He had rehearsed every angle of this conversation, but had never anticipated that particular reaction. It was animal, uncouth and undignified, and on some level, Jake knew he deserved it.
“I know it’s hard to understand,” Jake said calmly, using his firmest tone, “But it is the truth.”
That’s when the screaming began. Jake said nothing. This outcome, he had expected. He bore it as best he could and, an hour later, when it hadn’t subsided, he quietly excused himself, and left.
He never saw Ellen and George again, and he never would.
There should be a word for the friends of a sibling, Jordan thought. It’s not that they’re important to you, not really, but they’re consistent and comforting. Cassie had slept over at Rachel’s house so many times that she had her own toothbrush in the bathroom. Every summer, Naomi organized a late-July visit to The Gardens, and while Jordan and Sara had a rotating cast of friends, Rachel always brought Cassie. Cassie was a sort of family member, in her own little way. Berenson-adjunct.
Jordan never knew Cassie that well, but she knew enough to see the changes in her. She wore make-up, now, and pantyhose. She had to, to get people to listen. Jordan was eighteen, and she had already learned that lesson.
Cassie was on the TV, rambling about this, that, or the other. Yellowstone, Hork-Bajir, Brazil, who cared. Jordan didn’t. She turned off the TV, relishing in her ability to do so.
Jordan had been living on her own for six months. She’d moved out while her mom was at work. She lived alone in a nice, new apartment, one that was just a few blocks from the Santa Barbara Andalite tourist center. This suited Jordan. She worked at the Cinnabon. She liked Andalites a lot, and was always especially patient with them, even when they were arrogant and frustrating. She made the staff keep it a secret that she was Rachel Berenson’s sister. She missed her big sister terribly, but she’d been young and malleable when it happened, and she survived, and she didn’t want the shadow to hang over her any more.
That’s why she left her mother’s house as soon as she could. She needed to be in complete control of her life. She needed to decide what to watch, when she wanted to watch it, even if that meant Cassie was on the screen.She couldn’t have done it without Jake. He’d helped her load everything into a truck, and went shopping with her to buy the sort of things a freshly eighteen-year-old didn’t have. He paid for the apartment, actually. She never could afford to live here, not on a Cinnabon salary.
Jordan stretched out on her brand new couch, very specifically not caring that she was still wearing shoes. She turned the TV back on, just to see Cassie’s face.
Sara never moves out. Sara lives with her mother for so long that, eventually, her mother lives with her. Sara marries half-heartedly, and he moves into the house that Rachel’s reward money built. He’s a nice boy, attractive and simple, and he doesn’t mind the attachment Sara and her mom have for one another. Sara likes to be needed, and her mother needs to have Sara. It it up to eldest daughters to challenge their mothers, while the youngest daughters provide stability and comfort. Sara does her job well.
Jean and Steve Berenson felt sick with how much had slipped past them. But who could blame them?
The Sharing was a healthy, helpful organization, they thought, and they were proud that Tom had taken such a strong interest. Jake spent entirely too much time with Marco, but little Marco clearly needed Jake’s influence. Their boy was good, and Marco was without a mother and had much too much freedom. Their boys were both so, so good.
A childless house meant they could discuss what needed to be discussed. They discussed Jean not bringing in any more money, relying on Steve to take on clients he had no time for. They discussed Steve using his long office hours as an excuse to just not come home. They discussed Steve’s shirts smelling like his secretary’s perfume, and his secretary avoiding Jean’s eyes whenever she visited. “You’re doing exactly what Naomi did to Dan,” Jean would say, tear choked and desperate, and Steve would scream, “You’re not! Fucking! Listening!”
It was hard to notice that they were fighting in a war when Jean and Steve were locked in one themselves.
It was a well known fact that a child’s death often dissolves a marriage, but Steve and Jean survived against all odds. There was no such blueprint for couples that lost one child, who was an imposter the entire time, because their other child sent their niece to kill him in a kamikaze mission. Steve and Jean had been through more than they could sort through, and the only people they had were each other.
When the war ended, Jean and Steve renewed their vows. They invited Jake, but he was not in the ceremony.
They were as relieved as they were horrified that he had left Earth in a rogue Yeerk vehicle. They never spoke of it, but all three knew that a love without like was all the family had these days. They loved Jake, really and truly, but it so hard to look at him and not see their eldest. Jake would never say it, but it was just as hard for him to see the two people who had been so close, and had noticed nothing.
Every year, Steve invites Dan and George for Rosh Hashanah. They never come.
