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Ben was, all things considered, a remarkably easy child. He cried when he was hungry, and didn’t like to be cold, but he was generally content to determinedly grasp at the mobile above his crib, and spent swaths of time shaking his chubby fists with excitement at whatever was going on, eyes bright.
Morticia smiled out the window at the gloomy Thursday morning, plucking Ben out of his crib with a flourish. The rest of his siblings were already up and about.
She held him in the crook of one arm, swaying to the sound of Lurch on the harpsichord. Wednesday and Pugsley had recently taken up Taiko drumming and tap, respectively, which created a lovely cacophony of rhythm to accompany Lurch’s most recent composition (“There’s a baby”). As Morticia ran a gentle finger down Ben’s tummy, something shifted under her finger. It felt like an octopus tentacle.
Morticia, to her credit, merely paused, considering the multitude of ways a determined infant might find and hide a single tentacle. She gave up after reaching the 26th possibility; he simply wanted a snack. And of course, it was healthy for babies to have live snacks—it helped them develop important hunting instincts.
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Ben was four years old when he introduced his imaginary friend, “Trixie,” an Eldritch horror he said lived in his stomach, didn’t like to play much, but joined in sometimes if he played with dolls. The rest of the children had imaginary friends of their own, of course, so Trixie didn’t stand out much.
Luther’s, on the other hand… Grandmama sighed often at the unimaginative nature of their rosiest child and his imaginary friend, Dolphin, who was a dolphin. Not even a dragon named “Dolphin.” There was little hope for creative writing in his future.
Klaus seemed to have multiple imaginary friends, though he never named any of them. He sometimes carried out full conversations, and once reenacted a battle, which the rest of the Addamses watched with fascination and rewarded with a standing ovation.
Allison’s imaginary friend was a “Black, Victorian ghost- lady,” named “Mathilde Frankenfurt.” Allison spent lots of time having tea parties with Mathilde and Klaus. And sometimes Luther was allowed to join them, but only when there were no grass stains on his pants. So almost never.
To absolutely no-one’s surprise, Vanya and Five shared an imaginary friend. That is to say that Vanya had an imaginary friend, a giant flying squirrel named Piccolo, who was immediately offered as shared custody when the imagination necessary for creating something of his own proved too much for Five. Or so he said. Morticia had heard him whispering to someone named “Dolores” a few times in the dead of night.
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When Ben was eight, Gomez came upon him crying one night, curled up in the corner of the parlor. He kept repeating “my tummy hurts,” nearly gasping for air as fat tears rolled down his cheeks. Gomez sent Thing for Morticia immediately.
Morticia, in a black nightdress and matching robe, slid sidesaddle down the banister in her haste. Never could it be said that Addamses put their children second.
She gently reached out a hand to rub Ben’s back, sinking down to sit beside Gomez in their protected corner. “What’s the matter, darling?” Ben sniffled. “I think Trixie is angry with me. And it hurts.”
“Why is Trixie angry with you, dearest?” “I don’t know,” Ben wailed, sounding frustrated and scared all at once. “I always know what’s wrong with Trixie, but this time I don’t!” The tears were falling quickly now, soaking the collar of his pajama top. Morticia’s heart broke a little for him. “Perhaps you’re just growing apart?”
Ben shook his head. “No.” Thing delicately handed over a huge handkerchief, one generally used for members of extended family who were larger than houses, had huge noses, or those prone to dramatic sobbing.
Gomez reached over to pull Ben into his lap, and in doing so, pulled the front of his striped pajama shirt up slightly. Something slithered out and batted at Gomez’s arm, leaving a bright red suction mark on his wrist.
Without skipping a beat, Gomez smiled. “Well, hello Trixie. Are you fighting with my boy here? Awfully unsportsmanlike, you know. Much fairer if everyone gets a rapier.” Trixie reached out another tentacle, wrapping one around Gomez’s arm and reaching for the huge handkerchief with the other. Morticia expertly avoided Trixie’s reach, wiping Ben’s nose with singular focus before handing the handkerchief back to Thing, dry side out.
Then she clapped her hands in delayed excitement. “Oh, how wonderful! Just like your namesakes, Gareth and Jareth, you and Trixie are conjoined! Of course the two of you aren’t growing apart, you couldn’t possibly.”
She reached out a hand towards the waving tentacle. “How do you do, Trixie?” She paused, looking up to meet Ben’s eyes, which had just stopped battling Niagara Falls for dominance. “Does Trixie use girl- words or boy- words?” Gomez toppled backwards after a particularly hard tug from Trixie, doing a backwards somersault. “Or neither- words, or both- words?”
Ben hesitated, furrowing his brow. “Trixie doesn’t use any words.” Gomez nodded. “Ah, no pronouns for our Trixie.” Trixie waved another tentacle, seemingly in agreement. Ben shrugged. “I think Trixie- words don’t exist yet. Or maybe, they aren’t words human mouths can make. Trixie has some theories.”
Morticia wrapped a gentle arm around Ben’s shoulders, pulling him into her side, and placed a quick kiss on his temple. “You and Trixie talk, then?” Ben nodded sleepily, the excitement and stress of the past half hour suddenly hitting all at once. He yawned. “Yeah, but they aren’t really words. It’s more like I just know the meaning of Trixie’s thoughts in my head, but they’re just colors and shapes and noises. And Trixie always knows what I’m thinking too.” Morticia tipped her head to the left, considering. “How lovely to be known so truly.”
Gomez chuckled to himself. “I suppose we can’t say you have singular focus anymore, hmm?”
Even Thing seemed to groan.
But somewhere, Trixie was laughing. Trixie loved dad Jokes.