Amped Up: Why Is My Name Jason?

Just as I had expected, there was something to prevent my father from spending time with me. I’m not sure what it was, but I knew that it was, once again, going to prevent me from spending time with me. That’s just the way my father is. Somehow, he finds a way to get out of it and I have to go back to talking about all of this with Aunt Lizz, Uncle Joe, and Uncle Nick. Maybe I could talk with my mother about this though. It was possible that she could help me stop Dad from doing this. Although Dad couldn’t see her, she could still convince him that he needed to spend time with me rather than avoiding me all the time. What is my father doing this time? I wondered as I watched him talk on the phone with someone; I wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation, knowing that this conversation was yet another one to tear me away from another chance at spending time with my father after all of the times he had been ignoring me over the years.

“So, what is it this time?” I asked angrily.

“You wouldn’t care,” my father grumbled.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t,” I shot back. My father had ONCE AGAIN bailed on me and was going out to do who knows what. With that, I stormed away from where my father was and headed off in the direction of my uncle’s place. Upon walking back into Uncle Joe’s place, I saw that Uncle Joe and Uncle Nick had been joined by Aunt Lizz who was currently on the phone. It was her! I realized as I walked in. She was the one that called my father! I turned to my uncles. “Why exactly did Aunt Lizz call my father and pull him away from spending time with me. I thought she was the one who wanted him to spend time with me; I was utterly confused by what was going on, particularly considering the fact that she was the one that was so intent on making sure that this happened.

“It was so we can get a little more time to teach you this song,” Uncle Nick told me. If your father is spending time with you as you seem to want, that just means that we have less time for you to learn the song. Therefore, I asked Beth to contact your father in order to get you out of there; I knew you wouldn’t want to deal with your father when he disappeared. Remember, your father must never learn that you have your mother’s mandolin and we’re currently teaching you how to play the one song he refuses to play any more.”

“You could have mentioned that,” I told him.

“Didn’t think of it at the time,” he replied.

“Obviously,” I said. With that, I sat down and began practicing the song. Despite the fact that she had caused my father to once again bail on me, Aunt Lizz had given me a little more time to practice this; I had seven weeks in order to learn Lovebug before I lost the opportunity to spend time with my mother. My father didn’t know what was going on; maybe if he did, I wouldn’t exactly have to learn the song and Dad would finally agree to play it. It was Mom’s song, the song that would cause her to appear before him. Why didn’t he understand that? He was just being so stubborn about this and not playing the song.

Aunt Lizz soon got off the phone and turned to me. “Sorry about that, Jason. Your father was just getting too close to learning what was going on. I had to get him out of there.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He realized a little while ago that the mandolin went missing. I’m not sure exactly how, but he knew that I hid it from him in order to preserve my sister’s memory. He knows something’s up because of that; he suspects that I hid it so you could have it and is wondering why I did that.” Aunt Lizz sighed. “We’re going to have to be extremely careful. If we aren’t, your father could realize that we’ve been teaching your mother’s favorite song so that the fans can hear the one song that they couldn’t listen to for seventeen long years. Your father just doesn’t understand why he can’t see Amanda’s ghost. I never actually told him that he could though; I was kind of hoping that he’d realize it for himself. Unfortunately, your father refused to play the one song that would cause her to appear before him. Now, you must help your father realize the truth: that the only way for him to see his wife ever again is for him to play Lovebug before the year ends.

“I know,” I shrugged.

“Good,” she said.

I then went back to learning how to play the song. As I did, I noticed that my mother’s ghost was floating around us. She was smiling. I looked around my aunt and uncles; they were the ones who knew that I could see Mom. So, I could probably talk to her while they were around. “Mom, what is it? Why are you here?” I asked her with a sigh.

“Yeah,” Aunt Lizz wondered, “why are you here?”

Before I heard my mother answer, I noticed that my uncles were murmuring amongst themselves. They must have known that we were talking to my mother. After all, they couldn’t see her; they weren’t allowed to. “Jason, Betsy, you’ve got to make sure that this works. I mean I can already feel myself losing the connection I have to you guys. If you two don’t make sure that Kevin plays that song, I’m done. I’ve never be able to see you guys again.”

I bit my lip. This was not good. Dad was being a stubborn ass and I could end up losing Mom because of it. There was absolutely no way in which I could let this happen. I could end up losing Mom, someone I only realized that I could communicate with last week. Why would I want to give that up? I looked over to see what my aunt was doing. She seemed to have been sulking. “Amanda, that can’t happen. You can’t just disappear on us.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” my mother yelled. “Unfortunately, I’m not exactly in control of all this. It’s Kevin. His playing Lovebug will keep me around. Jason can’t be the one to do it; Kevin must. It is Jason’s job to convince his father that it would be in his best interest to play the song. My hope is that once he hears Jason playing the song will convince Kevin to break his promise and start playing it again himself. It needs to work and we all know it.”

“Yeah, we know,” I said.

Mom floated away so Aunt Lizz and I turned back to Uncle Joe and Uncle Nick. “What did Panda have to say?” Uncle Joe asked once he realized that we were done talking.

“She’s losing her link to us,” I said quietly. “We don’t have very much time to do this. I want to have this song down by the time Thanksgiving rolls around. That will give us about a month to convince my father that he needs to play Lovebug in order for him to see Mom.”

“So, we need to work faster?” they asked.

“Duh!” I exclaimed. There was absolutely no way in hell that I was I was going to let my mother disappear from my life…even if she was a ghost. I wasn’t going to let it happen. So, my aunt and uncles were going to make sure that I knew this song front and back so that I could convince my father to play it. Why in the world I want to go on with my life without my mother around. Yeah sure she’s a ghost, but I don’t care. She’s still my mother and I want her to always be around…no matter what ended up happening here. Dad needed to understand that this wasn’t right for him to do and why I was so intent on getting him to stop ignoring me and get back to the way he was prior to when Mom died.