Happy Miserable Mess (FOB/Patrick Stump FanFic)

Chapter 20

I held Parker's hand tightly as we trudged through the half foot blanket of snow that covered the graveyard. Luckily the harsh and brutal wind from yesterday had died down over the night, so it was only cold now. Sunny and cold. My short, frequent breaths were visible in the frigid air as my eyes scanned every headstone, looking for hers. I didn't even know what it looked like, not having looked at it the day of her burial.

"Where is everybody?" Parker asked me innocently, looking around and noticing the absence of other people. "Why is it so quiet?"

"Because this is cemetery, Park, everyone's underground," I answered him, my voice a little louder than a whisper.

"Why are they underground?"

I took a few more steps before replying, "Because they're sleeping."

Another minute or two passed by where the only sound in the entire cemetery was the snow crunching beneath our feet, soaking Parker's and my shoes and making us lose feeling in our toes.

I was looking everywhere for her, looking for that tree she was by. But it was difficult when all the leaves had abandoned its branches. The last time I was here, the day of her funeral, there were barely any leaves left, most of them had already fallen to the ground. But now there were none, and I had couldn't find her.

Having felt like I'd been walking in circles, passing by a mausoleum once or twice, I stopped in my tracks and heaved a sigh. Parker bumping into the back of my leg.

I spun around in a circle, making a imprint in the ground, and ran a hand through my hair, sighing in defeat. "Goddammit, where is she?" I grumbled in frustration.

"Where is who?" Parker inquired, his head tilted back to look up at me and his hand pressed to his forehead to protect his eyes from the sun.

"Your mom," I muttered, glancing over my shoulder.

He gasped, "Mommy's here!?! She's awake!?!" Excitement bubbled up inside of him, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm as the idea of seeing his mother again overjoyed him. "Where's is she? Where's Mommy?"

"I don't know!" I snapped, spinning around again with tears forming in my eyes, "I don't know..."

Parker stood there for a little more before running off on his own. I threw my hands in the air, "Park, where are you going?"

"I'm going to find Mommy! She told me where she is!" He exclaimed, continuing to run away from me, his little legs propelling him forward, past all the gravestones he couldn't read or understand. But he didn't need to, because she told him.

She told him every time he came, though that wasn't often. After I'd taken him this time, it wasn't until he was sixteen when he wanted to return. He never needed to remember what tree it was like I had to, or the surrounding graves, because she always told him.

I heaved a sigh and followed after my son, having no other choice but to mirror his actions as he wove through the headstones, or else I'd end up lost and alone, two things I ended up becoming anyways.

It wasn't long before Parker found her, almost effortlessly.

My son cautiously approached the stone, collapsing to his knees and just staring at the engraved letters and numbers before him. The letters spelled out her name and above that, her significance, Mother, Wife, Friend. The numbers indicated her date of birth and her date of death. And below those four lines was a quote, a single line that read May Nothing But Death Do Us Part.

I took my fedora off and held it close to my chest, tilting my head down out of respect.

"Mommy said she'd be here," Parker murmured, a terrible amount of disappointment in his young voice, "Where is she?"

"Buddy, she's underground with everyone else," I told him, joining his side and squatting down beside him.

"But she said she would be here," He repeated, standing back up, "She said it!" He threw his leg forward and kicked the grave.

"Hey!" I snapped at him, smacking him upside the head. He quickly grabbed the area I hit. "What do you think you're doing? That's not nice, Parker! That's your mom's grave!"

"But she told me!" He cried, flinging himself at me and sobbing into my shoulder. "She told me..."

For years, I didn't understand what he meant. That she told him. How could she tell him anything when she was dead?

I didn't believe in ghosts, and I didn't believe that my wife was communicating with our son from another life.

If she was, if she had, why hadn't she communicated with me? Why Parker? I was the one who needed the consolation, not him. He was two, three years old. He had no recollection of who his mother was, why he loved her, we he wanted to see her so badly. All he was to her was his mom. But to me? She was so much more than just my wife. She was my second half, the love of my life, the mother of my child, the one I wouldn't hesitate taking the bullet for, among many other fantastic attributes. Yet, she chose to communicate with him. Not me.

He barely remembered his mom as the years progressed. He didn't forget about her, no, but he didn't remember a single thing about her. He didn't remember how close they had been, all the memories they shared that seemingly died when she did. When he would look at pictures in photo albums, he'd just smile because he knew who she was, because he knew that he once had someone else in his life that loved and cared about it. Not because of the stories behind them, or the emotions that accompanied them. All he remembered and all he still remembers about his mother is that she told him.

She told him.