Chapter Seventeen #2
The market was winding down. People were packing up, heading home, making plans for the rest of the weekend. The sun was lower now, the light thick and gold, painting everything in the kind of glow that made even the most ordinary things seem magical.
I thought about the ritual again. About what it would mean, officially, to be one of them. “I don’t need a ceremony,” I said, softly.
Knox squeezed me. “Didn’t think you did.”
“But if you ever want to throw me over your shoulder and parade me around the farm, I wouldn’t object.”
His laughter was the best sound in the world.
“I’ll do that,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Maybe every day,” I countered.
He smiled, eyes full of something I didn’t have a name for. “Deal.”
And just like that, I was home.
The market had reached that magic hour when the sun hit the tables just right, turning jars of jelly into stained glass and all the kids sticky and wild with sugar.
I was so relaxed I’d practically melted into the curve of Knox’s chest, his hand heavy on my thigh, when the first ripple of unease swept the clearing.
I felt it before I saw it—a tightening, a hush, the sensation of one collective inhale, like everyone was waiting for a punch-line that never arrived.
At first, I didn’t recognize the man. I thought it was just some lost traveler, one of those chain-smoking retirees who haunted the tourist traps up by the river.
He wore a suit that could have been tailored, once—now it was crumpled, the tie slack, shirt untucked, shoes covered in enough dust to grow a new crop. His hair stuck out in wild cowlicks, and even from a distance you could see the dark crescent moons under his eyes.
He cut a swath straight through the vendor stalls, knocking over a display of rhubarb and sending a fistful of strawberries rolling into the grass. His gait was urgent, a fast stagger, but every step radiated instability. The closer he got, the more I realized what I was seeing.
James Bridger, father of the year. Living proof that blood could congeal into poison. He stopped just short of the picnic benches and scanned the crowd, wild-eyed and twitching. His gaze landed on me with a force that almost knocked the air out of my lungs.
There was a second—a single, heart-stopping beat—when I wanted to run. Instead, I locked my jaw, squared my shoulders, and tried to channel Knox’s favorite emotion—stubborn defiance.
James took a drunken, half-lunging step toward us, and that’s when the shouting started.
“You!” he bellowed, voice slurred but loud enough to reach the furthest edge of the market.
“You little fucking traitor! You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?
Parade yourself around town—destroy everything your family built—” The words came out as a bark, torn and frayed at the ends. “You ruined me!”
Every conversation in the clearing stopped dead. The only sound was a toddler somewhere, shrieking with glee as she made off with an unauthorized scone.
James drew himself up, clutching the lapels of his jacket like it was the only thing holding his organs in place. He glared at Knox, then back at me, face mottled with rage and something sadder, darker, maybe even fear.
“Thought you could win? Is that it?” he spat. “Thought you could run off, hide behind this—this garbage family—like I wouldn’t find you?”
Knox’s hand tightened at my waist, every finger a separate, calibrated vise. He didn’t stand, but I could feel the tension rolling through him, kinetic, ready to snap.
James’s voice cracked. “You humiliated me. You—” He stopped, swallowing, as if the taste of the next words might kill him.
“You ruined the Bridger name. You cost me my goddamn job. Thirty years at that bank, and now it’s gone.
Gone because you dragged the feds in, and then the whole fucking world finds out—”
He wavered, and for a moment I thought he might collapse. Instead, he turned on the crowd, flinging out his arms like a carnival preacher.
“You all know, don’t you? You know what he did?
My own son! Throws me to the wolves, then stands here, gloating—” He stopped, out of breath, chest heaving.
“And now Francine—she’s gone, too. Gone, thanks to this little worm.
She took the car. She took the money. Left me for dead, and that’s all on you, Newton. All on you.”
No one moved. Not even the wind. The entire market had folded itself around this display, every vendor and customer a rapt, silent witness to the world’s least dignified Shakespearean meltdown.
I wanted to disappear. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole, or at least create a small, tasteful sinkhole under my father’s feet. Failing that, I just wanted to survive the next ten seconds without letting him see me flinch.
James pointed at me, finger trembling, the tip so white I wondered if he was cutting off his own circulation. “You are nothing. You’re less than nothing. You’re a—”
Knox stood.
It was one motion, effortless and absolute, a glacier uncoiling from centuries of sleep. He stepped in front of me, body blocking my view, his back straight and jaw clenched so hard I thought it might shatter.
James faltered, just a hair, but kept going. “What, you think this big ape can save you? He’s a McKenzie, Newton. He’ll throw you away the second you stop being useful. That’s what they do. That’s all they do. Everyone knows it. Everyone—”
“Enough,” said Knox, and the word carried more finality than a gunshot.
James stopped. Maybe it was the weight of the voice, or maybe he just ran out of venom. He staggered sideways, caught himself on a nearby table, and for a second I saw the ghost of the man who used to pay my tuition and teach me how to tie a bowline.
Then he looked at me—really looked at me, over Knox’s shoulder—and what I saw there was not anger or even hate. It was desperation. A drowning man, grabbing for any driftwood in the storm.
He whispered, so low I almost missed it: “You’re still my son.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My tongue was fused to the roof of my mouth, and my hands had gone numb.
James wavered again, then turned away, shouldering through the crowd. No one tried to stop him. Some people moved back, but most just watched, frozen, unsure if this was the end or just a chapter break.
Knox stayed standing, breathing hard. His hand reached back, found my arm, and pulled me forward, shielding me from whatever last looks might be thrown our way.
He didn’t let go, not even when the whispers started up, not even when the crowd began to flow again, slower and more careful, like everyone was afraid to break whatever spell had just been cast.
We stood there, him in front of me, me behind, tethered together and unbreakable. If my father wanted a show, he’d gotten it. But I was done playing his part.
Silence held the market in its fist for a full ten seconds after my father’s departure. Even the bees at the honey stand seemed to lose interest in their own buzzing.
I could feel the eyes on me, a hundred pairs or more—old women in sun hats, school kids, the chess players, even Rosie with her tray of day-old danishes, all waiting to see what the wreckage would do next.
I had never, not once in my life, wanted to speak up in front of a crowd. The idea alone made my skin itch. But right then, the urge was stronger than fear.
It was volcanic.
For the first time, I didn’t just want to survive my father—I wanted to obliterate his power over me, to salt the earth so nothing like him could ever grow back.
I took a shaky step forward, moving out from the protective shadow of Knox’s body. My legs vibrated so hard I thought my kneecaps would rattle loose, but I didn’t sit down, didn’t try to hide.
I just looked at the place where my father had disappeared, and then at the circle of faces waiting for my next move. I tried to remember how Knox did it. How he stared down threats, how he made himself ten feet tall by simply refusing to blink first.
“Guess that’s that,” I said, and my voice carried, cracked a little, but didn’t break.
The words hung there, trembling, until someone in the crowd snorted.
It was the guy who sold homemade pickles, the one who wore his sunglasses on a cord even on cloudy days.
His laugh wasn’t cruel—just honest, the noise a person makes when they recognize something true and ridiculous at the same time.
I flushed, but the laughter broke the spell. People shifted, some looking away in embarrassment, others staring at me with a weird, tentative hope. Like maybe I’d say something that would let them feel okay about witnessing a human train wreck on an otherwise beautiful Saturday.
I cleared my throat and tried again. “He’s wrong, you know,” I said, gesturing vaguely after my father. “About everything.”
I saw Rosie mouth “Amen,” and felt a jolt of courage.
“He always said I was a bad seed,” I continued, louder now. “Said I was weak. Worthless. Said I’d never be a real man, let alone a Bridger.” I paused, felt the weight of all those years of insult and neglect settle into my muscles, heavy but not crushing.
The words spilled out. “But the thing is, I am a good boy.” Here, I looked back at Knox, who was grinning in a way that would have made my heart stutter if I wasn’t already on the verge of a cardiac event. “Knox says so.”
There was a beat of stunned quiet, then two high schoolers by the bandstand snickered in perfect sync, like a choreographed response. It took me a second to realize the phrase had landed somewhere between self-affirmation and gay porn tag.
My cheeks went nuclear, but I rolled with it.
“I didn’t destroy my father,” I said, pushing through. “He did that all by himself. When he hit me. When he let Luther hit me. When he decided the only way to fix his own failures was to break whatever was left of me.”
I stopped, breath coming fast, but the dam was broken. The words just kept coming.