Chapter 11 Jack
ELEVEN
JACK
I park in the same spot I used to back when I was seventeen and furious at the world. My parents gave me a good, albeit ordinary, life, but I was a punk who wanted more.
My parents’ house sits tucked on a quiet tree-lined road. Nothing here creaks with old magic or hums with legacy-property energy. It was home, once upon a time. Now, it’s where my family lives, not where my life is.
I shut the truck door, staring up at the porch light.
I figured I’d handle my family alone. Isla gets stressed about the lying, and I’m usually pretty cool under pressure. Though I am quickly realizing I didn’t account for the sheer, unstoppable force of my parents hearing the word wedding and immediately rewriting my entire future.
I should’ve brought someone along for moral support.
My mom peers out the front door, apron on, hair pinned back, cheeks warm from the oven. She smiles like she’s been waiting by the peephole, which wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.
“Jacky, honey,” she says, delighted. “There you are. You’re late.”
“I’m not late,” I tell her, stepping into the entryway. “I’m precisely on time.”
She tuts. “Take your shoes off, please. I just cleaned.”
I line them up carefully by the door. Inside, the house smells like roasted chicken and vaguely vanilla-scented candles. It’s familiar in a way that’s a bit disorienting. My life has changed a lot over the past ten years. But the last two weeks have rearranged it entirely.
My dad’s in the living room with the TV on low, watching the Red Sox game. He looks up as I walk in, eyes widening. “Jesus, Jacky boy!” he says. “What did you do to yourself?”
I toss my head back. “Hello to you, too.”
My mom turns. “Oh, it’s blond,” she says as if I’ve personally insulted her. “I barely looked at you outside. That’s, well, that’s—”
“It’s a choice I made.”
“It looks like you lost a fight with a mop bucket,” my dad adds.
“Thank you,” I say, deadpan. “I came here for support, so this is perfect.”
My mom reaches up and touches my hair. “Why is it like this, honey?”
“Because I wanted it to be.”
Her mouth presses into a line. “Well. Wash your hands. Dinner’s almost ready.”
I head for the kitchen. It’s exactly the same in here, down to the scratched corner of the counter where I dropped a drill when I was twelve. The table is already set. Four plates. Four glasses. My mom’s good napkins, the cloth ones with little blue hydrangeas on them.
Mel appears in the doorway. “Hey, JJ.” Her gaze goes straight to my hair. “Well, what can I say, it’s much better in person.”
“I had it fixed.”
She hugs me, quick and tight. I’ve never kept things from Mel. She’s had a direct line to my bullshit since childhood. There’s no version of my face she doesn’t know how to read.
“You okay?” she asks, low enough that our mom can’t hear.
“Yeah, great.”
I head to the sink to wash my hands, scrubbing beneath my nails like I’ve been working with tar, not just trying to delay the moment where I have to open my mouth and detonate a bomb in my parents’ dining room.
My mom pulls the chicken out of the oven, sets it on the counter, and shoos us into our seats. My dad comes in with a basket of rolls. We all sit.
It’s normal, at first. My mom asks about work. Mel complains about her commute to school. I nod and answer and chew and wait for the right opening, which never comes.
My mom slides potatoes onto our plates, then green beans, then chicken, then more potatoes because she’s never believed in restraint where feeding people is concerned.
I pick up my fork and stare at the food. My stomach is roiling, but I’m not going to be weird and not eat.
“So,” my dad says. “You said you needed us all here.”
“I’ve got something to tell you guys.” I clear my throat. Take a sip of water. Rearrange my napkin. Decide that if I stall any longer, Mel is going to kick me under the table. “I’m getting married.”
My mom freezes. Then shoots out of her chair. She comes around the table, grabbing my face in both hands. “Who? When? Where?”
“Mom, please,” I say, muffled.
She lets go, but only to clutch my shoulders. “Who is she?”
“It’s Isla,” I say. “Isla Winslow.”
My mom’s entire being lights up. “Oh,” she says, clapping her hands. “Oh, she’s lovely.”
My dad gives me a skeptical look. “The orchard girl.”
“The orchard owner,” I correct automatically.
Isla works extremely hard. She’s successful in ways people overlook because they still think “small farm” means quaint instead of brutal. She grows, bottles, mends, markets, hauls, and somehow keeps the whole place standing. Most men I know would’ve folded under half of it.
My mom squeezes my shoulder. “Honey, of course. He didn’t mean it like that.”
“You and Isla are getting married,” Mel says, deadpan.
My dad sets his fork down. “When did this happen?”
“Recently.”
My mom laughs. “Recently as in you’ve been seeing her recently, or recently as in you got engaged recently?”
“Both,” I say.
Mel’s eyes narrow, but she doesn’t grill me like I expected she might. For whatever reason, she’s chosen now to show me mercy.
I feel a flicker of gratitude that quickly melts into guilt.
My mom goes back to her chair, vibrating with excitement. “When is the wedding?”
“In three weeks,” I say.
My dad’s head jerks. “Three weeks?”
My mom shimmies in her seat. “Oh, that’s soon!”
“It is,” I agree.
“Why so soon?” my dad asks.
I take another bite of chicken so I don’t have to answer immediately. I chew, count ten slow seconds in my head, then swallow. “Just, uh, good timing for her dad and our friends.”
My mom nods instantly, like that’s explanation enough. “Sometimes you just know. You proposed, right? Tell us everything.”
“It was . . . spontaneous. Private.”
My mom smiles. “We’re so happy for you.”
“I’m happy, too,” I say.
Mel gives me a look that says this conversation isn’t over. But I made a promise not to tell anyone, and I won’t break it, even if it means standing here and letting my sister quietly dissect my every move.
My dad clears his throat. “You told your crew yet?”
“Not yet. I’m making arrangements to take a full week off after the wedding, though.”
“We need to meet with Isla,” my mom says. “We need to plan. Is she coming here? Are we going there? Should we do a dinner? Do we need to rent chairs?”
“It’s gonna be small,” I say quickly. “Courthouse, and then the Harbor Light after.”
My mom’s face falls. “If that’s what you want.”
“It’s what we both want.”
“Good,” my dad says. “No debt for a party.”
My mom shoots him a look. “Weddings aren’t just parties.”
“They can be,” he replies.
My mom turns back to me, softening. “Are you sure she’s okay with small?”
“Yes.”
I keep repeating it, hammering the same nail, trying to keep the boards from shifting. This is going well, but I’m worried it’s all about to collapse any moment. I still don’t think my parents believe I’m capable of that level of commitment.
Could they fish out such a far-fetched lie?
Mel sets her fork down. “So. Three weeks?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve officially been together,” she says suspiciously, “how long?”
I lift a shoulder. “We’ve known each other for a long, long time. You know that.”
My mom beams. “That’s what matters. Sometimes the timing catches up to the truth.”
My dad reaches for a roll, breaks it in half. “Marriage is serious, Jack. You don’t do it unless you mean it. It’s not dating. It’s not a roommate. It’s your life.”
“I know.”
For years, I’ve been messing around with anyone who would give me the time. Nothing serious that required me to slow down and think too hard. I like to joke and deflect and keep things light in my relationships.
If you don’t commit, you never have to admit you’re scared of doing it wrong.
That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to be serious.
“Well,” Mel says, “at least he didn’t drunkenly propose to a random bartender this time. That’s growth.”
That was a one-off disaster involving my twenty-first birthday, too much whiskey, and a Ridgefield bar where I absolutely should not have been left unsupervised. Mel has never let me forget it.
“You’ll be a Blue Willow man for real now,” my dad says, ignoring Mel’s cheap shot. “No more back and forth from Ridgefield.”
My stomach tightens.
That’s what I wanted, isn’t it? To be rooted somewhere for good. To be claimed by the town that took me in and kept me. To stop feeling half in transit, half waiting for whatever comes next.
It’s not that I’m marrying Isla because I think she’ll anchor me to the town for good. But I do want to prove to myself that I have roots now. I’m not some flighty kid. I can be there for her in all the ways that matter, even if it’s meant to be temporary.
“Yeah.”
My mom’s eyes light up again. “And kids! Oh, Jack. You’ll have little ones running around that orchard soon. Imagine that.”
My dad smiles. “Grandkids in the Winslow rows.”
My parents don’t even know it’s magic. That the land bends a little around the people who belong to it.
I learned that slowly and in pieces. A conversation overheard.
A look exchanged and then dropped. The kind of knowledge that’s offered carefully because the more people who know a thing, the easier it is for that thing to be taken apart.
Blue Willow has always protected its own by staying quiet. And I’m proud to play my small part in ensuring that protection.
“We’re not thinking that far ahead.”
“Well, you’ll get there,” she says.
I smile because it’s expected of me. Because this is the moment everyone will remember later, when they say they always knew. No one will think to question how carefully we built the story because it fits together so well.
It’s strange, and it’s dangerous—how easy it would be for me to start believing it, too.
I stay until dessert, until the conversation drifts, until I can leave without anyone noticing how badly I need the air.
On the drive home, the quiet finally settles inside me. I intentionally leave the radio off and take the longest route back to Blue Willow, left foot bouncing in the well.
Normally, I’d burn off my anxiety by talking it out. I’d swing by Wells’ place, sit on the porch with a beer, let the words come out messy until they stop buzzing under my skin. But Wells doesn’t know about our marriage being a sham.
I don’t want to pretend with him right now, so I call Isla.
It rings and rings. My hands tighten around the wheel, already rehearsing excuses in case she doesn’t pick up. She doesn’t owe me this. She’s busy. I should have waited.
She answers, and my pulse stumbles.
“Jack? Hey.”
Hearing her voice takes the edge off enough that I can breathe again.
“You busy?”
“I’m just on my way to Hartford,” she says, and there’s a soft click as she switches me to speaker, the muted sound of the road coming through. “What’s up? You okay?”
She’s heading out for another midnight shift at the club. I know I should keep this light, tell her it can wait, let her go. She doesn’t need my shit piled on top of hers.
“Actually,” I say, forgetting every worthy excuse. “I just left my parents’ place. I, uh, told them we’re getting married.”
“Yeah? How’d it go?”
“Do you want the short version or the long one?”
“Tell me everything.”