1942
Leroy had always known that someday, Danny would finally ask the difficult questions about his mother. Oh, he had asked about her before, but the questions so far had been easy to answer inquiries about her personality or things she liked. It surprised him that it had taken this long for Danny to start asking the uncomfortable things. He'd been much younger when he'd asked his mother questions about his own father that she'd refused to answer.
"Dad?" Danny asked, picking at his half-grapefruit. Leroy folded his paper and set it aside to give his son his full attention.
"Yes, Danny?"
"How did Mom die?"
He sighed, "Well, she...she died in childbirth."
Danny looked down at his breakfast again, biting his lip. "Oh."
"She already loved you so much—she was excited to meet you. The whole time she was pregnant, she loved getting things ready for you. Everything had to be perfect."
This information did not seem to make Danny feel any better. "Will you take me to see her grave?"
"Of course, kiddo. How about we go on Easter break in a few months?"
"Why can't we go today?"
Leroy was taken aback by the sudden urgency. "Well, she's not buried around here. She's on the other side of the country. We can't just take a day trip..." Danny hung his head and looked down at his food, dejected. It tore Leroy's heart to see his son disappointed like that, so he sighed and said, "Alright. I'll make the arrangements. But don't get used to me letting you skip school to go on vacation."
Danny smiled that shit-eating grin that always followed Leroy giving in to his every whim, "Thanks, Dad."
They packed some clothes and set off for the Los Angeles train station early the next morning. Leroy bought tickets to Union Station in Washington, D.C. in a series of sleeper cars. It wasn't until after they'd settled their things into their cabin and went off to the dining car for lunch when Danny asked the follow-up questions Leroy had been expecting the previous day. "Why's Mom buried so far away? I thought you met her when you first came to California."
"You're right—I did meet her out here. But did I ever tell you that she'd been married before I met her?"
"She was?" Danny asked, intrigue and confusion written across his face.
"Yes. To a brave man named Daniel Benson who fought in the war but didn't come home. We named you after him, and she wanted to be buried with him."
Danny sank back into his chair, lost in thought. Leroy let out a sigh of relief and went back to reading his paper, hoping that his relationship with his son could get through this trip unscathed. His stomach was clenched up in knots—worried he'd have to come clean and tell his son the truth, something he was woefully unprepared for. His son had somehow developed a rather conservative outlook on social matters, despite Leroy's trying to raise him with more modern, progressive values.
The majority of their trip was spent in silence—unusual for Danny. He asked a few more questions about his mother, all the while clutching the worn photo of her that Leroy had given him when he was little. Leroy tried to draw his son out of his shell by asking questions about the brightly colored comic books he'd brought with him without success.
They arrived in the capitol after a few days of being cramped in silence on the train. After several minutes of huddling under his umbrella on the steps of Union Station, Leroy managed to hail a cab to take them to check into the room he'd reserved for them at the only five-star hotel with any last-minute availability. Danny looked out at the window in excitement at the Romanesque architecture blanketed by gray skies.
Leroy took a hot shower and wrapped himself in the hotel's cozy bathrobe and slippers. He shuffled over to the bed by the window, claiming it for himself. Danny turned to look at him from the other bed, blue eyes wide with questions Leroy didn't feel like answering yet. "Go take a warm shower and settle in for bed. Let's hope the weather will be better tomorrow and we can go out to the cemetery then."
"I wanted to go today."
"I know you did, but it's cold and damp. I don't want you getting sick. Not to mention the mud would make getting around much more difficult. We'll go tomorrow afternoon if the weather is better."
"I don't mind rain, Dad."
"You only know California rain, and let me tell you, that isn't real rain. You're not ready for East Coast rain, yet, kid. Shower and get ready for bed."
Danny stood up in a huff, slamming the bathroom door shut behind him. Leroy sighed in frustration, running his hands over his face as he counted to ten and sank back into his pillows. Childish as it was, he scrambled under the covers and feigned sleep as his son stomped out of the bathroom, not wanting to have any more arguments before bed.
***
They took a cab to the National Mall the next morning so that Danny could see the Washington Monument and the Lincoln and War Veterans Memorials. Part of the reason was, as he had told Danny, that they might as well see the sights while they were already in the capitol. The other, more prevalent, part was that he worried how his son would react once they got to his mother's grave and put the pieces together. It almost made him wish his son was a dullard.
As they walked around, they passed an army recruiter's tent. Leroy smiled to the personnel in front but never slowed his pace as they headed for the street to catch a cab. "Doesn't it bother you that the whole country is doing its part to fight this war and you're just sitting back at home?" he asked, fiddling with the wrapper on the bouquet of flowers they'd bought to take with them.
"I'm all that's left to take care of you. Your upbringing is more important to me than some war. There have been wars before this one and there will be wars after."
Danny mumbled something to himself that Leroy couldn't quite catch as they hopped into the cab and he told the driver where they were going. It was a short drive to the cemetery, and as they passed through the gates into Arlington, Danny's dark expression cleared, and he looked out the window in confusion.
Leroy paid the driver and they got out and started walking into the grounds. Danny followed his father as they passed thousands of stark, white marble stones in silence. Leroy turned to look at his son's wide eyes and somber expression as they approached his mother's grave.
Danny set the flowers down. Leroy watched with his breath held as his son looked down at the marker that read:
Daniel Andrew Benson
United States Army
1898-1918
Margaret Alice Whittier Benson
1899-1930
"What do you know about him?" Danny asked, not taking his eyes off the stone.
"He was a good man. He and your mother were high school sweethearts and they got married at the courthouse a week before he was shipped off. Your mother meant the world to him. That photo of her that you're holding belonged to him. He carried it in his breast pocket everywhere he went, and he gave me express directions to take it back to her with one last letter in case he died. It took me some time, but I kept my promise, and that's how I met your mother."
Danny said nothing; he stood there thumbing the ragged little wallet print.
"I can leave you alone for a few minutes if you'd like," Leroy said, squeezing his shoulder gently when the boy nodded. "I'll wait for you down at the gate. You remember how to get back?" The boy nodded, and so Leroy went outside and waited, looking over all the graves from a distance, feeling guilty for not being dead at least seven times over.
In time, Danny met his father out at the gate, swiping a few tears from his eyes. He shoved his hands into his coat pocket, turning up the collar to help shield him from the wind. They got into a cab in silence. Leroy didn't break it until they were back in their hotel room, trying to give his son some privacy to wrestle through his feelings.
"How are you doing, kid? Are you hungry? Where should we go to dinner tonight?"
Danny was sitting on his bed, facing away from him. After several moments it seemed as though he wouldn't even turn to acknowledge that his father had spoken. Danny turned to look at him, "Why isn't our last name on her tombstone, too?"
Leroy swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "Your mother and I never got married."
Danny nodded, expecting this answer, his face turning red. "So, I'm a bastard."
"If it makes you feel any better, so am I."
This was not what he'd wanted to hear. "Why couldn't you just marry her? Would it kill you to do something normal for once?"
"Her husband was the love of her life. She told me she wanted to be buried with him. If she remarried it wouldn't be possible. You can understand that, can't you?"
"Yes, I can," he said, though Leroy could see that he was gripping the bedspread so tight that his knuckles turned white. "It's no wonder she would rather stay married to a dead man than marry you."
Leroy's mouth dropped open and he furrowed his eyebrows. "What did you just say to me?"
"You heard me. I don't blame her—I only wish he'd been my dad instead of you. I'd rather be the son of a dead hero than a living coward."
"You think I'm a coward?" Leroy whispered, taken aback.
"Of course, I do! Every other man is enlisting to fight for our country—all of my friends' fathers. Even some women are going to war. Aren't you ashamed of that?"
"Your friends have families who can take care of them while their fathers are away. We don't have that luxury. There is no one else—just me."
"Stop using me as an excuse! I'm not a child. I can take care of myself. If I were old enough, I would enlist too."
"You're only thirteen, Danny. That is still very much a child," Leroy said as he sat down on the edge of his son's bed, waiting for a volatile reaction. "And I pray that you never have to experience war. Did the sight of those graves today mean nothing to you? Those are not the graves of many old men—most were young, like your namesake, and their potential was ripped away in an instant. That's what war is—justified or not—it is thousands of people dead that wouldn't be otherwise. Do not go rushing to join them."
Danny stared down at his feet. "How would you know?"
"I fought in the Great War alongside Daniel Benson. Did you hear nothing I was telling you?"
"Do you think I'm stupid? It's not possible for you to have fought in the Great War. I know how to do math! You're barely old enough to be my dad. Everyone in my class talks behind my back about how young you are. They all think you're really my brother trying to get out of enlisting. It's embarrassing. All you do is make excuses to stay home when you should be out there. You're just a coward and it's so much worse that you can't even admit it."
"I am not a coward, Danny. When you get older, you'll understand that there are more important things than—"
"There you go again! Just stop. I don't want to hear any more lies."
"Is that all you want from me? To leave you behind to fight some Germans?"
Danny scoffed, "You'd never do it. You're too scared of dying."
Leroy laughed as he stood up, startling his son with the bitter sound of it. "I promise you that is one thing I do not fear." He studied his son's face and saw nothing but defiant resolve. "Fine. When we get home, I'll figure out what to do with you if my going to this war is all that you care about."
"Don't bother talking to me until you do," Danny said, crawling under the covers, turning his back on Leroy.
"Hey—like it or not, I'm still your father and you can't talk to me that way."
"Then prove me wrong."
Leroy sighed, knowing there wasn't any other way of getting through to Danny—he wished not for the first time that his son hadn't inherited his stubbornness. He went to bed feeling unsettled. His son thought he was a lying coward. Well, he wasn't wrong about the lying—but there wasn't anything he could do about that. Some lies were necessary—it wasn't his fault he couldn't age and die like everyone else. His life would have been much easier if he could.
***
Leroy was able to arrange for his neighbors to take in Danny until the war was over, assuring them he would make it home—though, unlike him, they had no way of knowing he wasn't just being optimistic. The morning had come for him to leave for training. He stood with Danny on their porch, the Wilsons watching from their kitchen window.
"I'll write you every day. Make sure to check the mail." Danny responded only by crossing his arms over his chest. Leroy cleared his throat and straightened the collar of his son's shirt. "The war'll be over soon. We'll meet again—every time that song comes on the radio, think of me. I'll come home, I promise."
"It'd be nobler if you didn't," Danny muttered.
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Danny, but you shouldn't say things like that. You'd hate if it were true."
"If you say so."
Leroy pressed his lips together, trying not to say something he would regret. With tears in his eyes, he looked over at the transport waiting for him before taking off his father's ring. "I love you, kiddo. Don't forget that. Take care of this for me until I come back."
Danny looked down at the ring in his hand, turning it over to look at the designs along the side. Leroy could tell by the look on the boy's face that he thought it was as gaudy and hideous as he had when his mother had given it to him. But Danny slipped it onto his middle finger and he hoped that it might provide comfort to the boy as it had him over the years. All he said in response was, "Don't cry, Dad. It's embarrassing."
He took a deep breath and hopped into the back of the transport. It started off down the street, and Leroy turned to try and wave goodbye to his son, only to find that he'd already taken off into the Wilsons' house without so much as a glance back at his father.
***
1945
Crossing the Atlantic and facing his fear of water was the hardest part of the war for Leroy. Being pointed in the right direction with a gun and being a killing machine was familiar. The technology was different than the last one, sure, but war was still war. He tried to think of it as saving Allied lives, but that brought him little comfort when he was gunning down twenty-year-old kids. The other men in his unit, all bright-eyed children getting their naivety destroyed, gave him the nickname "Tank" because nothing could kill him—he always got back up. He'd heard "I could've sworn you were dead back there!" more times in the last two years than he could count. He felt guilty about it, of course. It felt like misleading them. They thought he was some kind of ultra-brave hero soldier when in reality he was a freak of nature.
He wrote Danny every day, wanting more than anything to shadow travel home even for a few moments just to get a glimpse of the son he'd never before been away from for more than a day. How had it turned into years since he'd seen him? The letters he got in return were never enough. They were short, succinct, and infrequent, like writing them was a school assignment for a class Danny couldn't stand.
It made him regret how infrequently he'd returned his mother's letters when he was growing up in England. He, too, had received mountains of letters from his mother in the years they were apart—and largely ignored them. It wasn't until being snubbed by his own son that he realized how much he must have hurt his mother. Not for the first time, he wished she was still alive for him to apologize for being such a brat.
But the war was over at last and he could go home and see his son. He waited in England a few weeks, long enough for the first of the troops to make it back to America. Then he shadow-travelled home. There was no way in hell he would be crossing that damned ocean again.
He arrived at the end of the block so that Danny wouldn't see him appear out of thin air through the Wilsons' kitchen window. Each step he took toward his son he grew more anxious for their reunion. In the few letters he'd received, Danny had never told him whether he'd changed his mind—whether he still thought Leroy a coward. He hoped that his son could be proud of him now. It'd break him if his son left him the way he'd abandoned his own mother in shame.
When he got closer to his house, he thought saw Thomas Clarke leaning on his front door. He broke into a run, dropping his packs on the driveway, and threw his arms around his childhood friend.
"You're alive! I never thought to hope you'd be a Grim too. Are you alright?" He cleared his throat and took a step back, letting go. In Thomas' silence, Leroy sensed some lingering resentment for what had happened thirty years before. "I'm so sorry for everything. I'll spend the rest of eternity trying to make it up to you if you'll let me. Why haven't you ever come to see me before now?"
"Well, Leroy, I'm afraid that's because I've been waiting for the right time to ruin your life like you ruined mine."
His breath caught in his throat, his pulse quickening with worry. "Where's Danny?"
"Oh, I can't tell you that yet. It'd ruin the fun."
"How'd you know I had a son?"
Thomas tutted at him. "Please. Do you think me an amateur? I've been watching him since the day he was born. I set eyes on your son before you did. I was the one holding him when they tended to his poor mother. Did you know that if you inject even a little bit of air into the bloodstream when no one is looking, it'll cause a massive heart attack?"
Leroy's face contorted in anger. "You—you killed Maggie?" his breathing quickened, worry for his son constricting his heart. "Where is he? Please—please don't hurt him. He's all I have. I'll do anything. Please, Thomas."
"That's just it, Leroy. You have nothing I want. You can't bring Sarah back or make her love me, can you?"
"Please. I-I've got money. I can give you as much as you want."
"I don't need money. Isn't that what makes me free to do what I want?" He smiled and took a step toward Leroy, wrapping his hand around Leroy's wrist. "I've got this nifty little trick I've been just dying to show you. Any power you have, I can...let's call it borrow..." Thomas' hand glowed with blue energy and with a sickening grin on his face, black fog swirled around him. Danny looked back at Leroy, his small hand still gripping his wrist.
"No. No, no, no," Leroy whimpered, falling to his knees and shaking off Thomas' hand, forcing him back to his real form. It felt like he'd been punched right in the solar plexus, all the air knocked out of his lungs. He let out a cry of something unintelligible, defeated, tears slipping from his eyes. "What did you do to him?"
"Well, first, I strangled him until the light was just about to go out of his eyes, and then when he was almost able to catch his breath, I stabbed him right through the heart the same way Sarah killed me—to save you."
"Please, give him back. I need to see him, to say goodbye. To—to—" he took a deep breath, "to bury him."
Thomas squatted down in front of him. "You don't get to know where he is. That would be a gift. No, you have to live with the fact that your son is in a watery grave out in the middle of the ocean—being ripped apart by the fish—just like Sarah. This is your penance for betraying me and killing the only woman I have ever loved."
"I-I didn't kill her, Thomas," he sobbed, gripping onto the hem of Thomas' pants. "It was an accident—it's not my fault. Please, please, give his body back."
"You let her die out there on that boat. I bet you don't even feel bad about it."
"Killing my child is far worse than anything I ever did to you," Leroy screamed at him. He felt the rage coursing through his veins, and when he finally looked up, he was seeing red. But by then, Thomas was gone, and he had no outlet for the pent-up anger. Leroy forced himself to stand up, still feeling that dangerous, murderous fury. He picked up his bags and walked into the house, catching a glance at his reflection in the window, and for a second it looked like his eyes were glowing red. He shook his head and looked again—his eyes were the same mundane blue they'd always been.
He sat down in the armchair and stared at the wall for several hours. When he turned his head some time later, he caught a glimpse at a framed photo of Danny on a side table. Looking at it physically pained him, and he knew he couldn't stay in this house.
It was the house where he had raised his only child—where he helped Danny take his first steps, where he taught him to talk and play catch and how to read. There were too many memories—in every corner of the house he could see ghosts of his son in different stages of his life. Over there in the corner is where they'd always kept the Christmas tree that Danny would spend hours under, shaking all the boxes to try and guess what was in them. And on the floor in the front of the fireplace was where Danny had read his comic books and did his homework. Even the grass in the backyard was special—where they'd stargazed on clear nights, searching for planets and constellations.
He went upstairs and threw everything important to him into a box—all of the picture frames and photo albums, a few of Danny's childhood toys, and his guitar. He shut all the windows and turned on the gas. He lit a match and threw it inside. Flames engulfed the house and he watched from the street—shape shifting into the form of someone else so that no one would hassle him—as the flames grew too out of control to salvage anything. Only then did he shadow travel away.