6. Jack
JACK
On a warm day in late September, Ivy took me to her home. By the time we reached Juniper Creek, the sun had started its slow drop behind the hills, illuminating the welcome sign like it was planned.
Welcome to Juniper Creek, Tennessee.
Good water. Good people. Good Lord willing.
“It’s good to be home,” Ivy said, hometown pride clear in her voice. “Juniper Creek. Population depends on who got married, who got divorced, and how many babies were conceived in the back seat of someone’s car.”
I laughed. “Is that a regular occurrence?”
“Not in my family. My brothers know better than that.” Ivy sat up straighter in the passenger seat, bare legs tucked beneath the skirt of her dress. We’re about to hit downtown. Don’t blink or you’ll miss half of it.”
The road curved, dipped, and then carried us into town.
Juniper Creek was like a community from another time, with brick storefronts, uneven sidewalks, and shade trees planted long enough ago that their roots had lifted whole sections of concrete.
American flags hung from black iron brackets.
Planters spilled over with petunias, trailing sweet potato vine, and a few stubborn geraniums still hanging on from summer.
A banner stretched across Main Street between two lampposts.
Go Juniper Creek Hawks! Homecoming Friday Night!
“That’s Waylon's doing, most likely,” Ivy said, pointing toward the banner. “High school football is basically religion around here. Church on Sunday, football on Friday, gossip every day in between.”
“They must be proud of you around here,” I said.
“They’re not too impressed. They knew me when I was just the little sister of the famous James brothers.”
I didn’t comment, but I felt certain folks around here were plenty proud to have raised Ivy James.
On the corner sat Creekside Diner, a low brick building with a striped awning and a neon coffee cup in the window.
“That’s a popular place to go after church,” Ivy said. “Mama and her friends have planned church socials, baby showers, Christmas pageants—you name it—right there in the corner booth. They make a mean biscuit too, but don’t tell Mama I said that. She’s real sensitive about her baked goods.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
Across the street was Puckett & Sons Hardware, with rakes, mums, and bags of feed displayed out front. An older man in overalls stood by the door talking to a woman holding a paint sample, both of them turning to watch my truck roll past.
“That’s Caleb’s second home,” Ivy said. “He uses local products and wood when he can. He always says if folks want a custom house built around these parts they should be made with local goods.”
“What got him started in construction?” I asked.
“Oh, he was just born to do it. Used to build furniture in the barn—started when he was like twelve or something. That’s all he ever wanted to do. Make beautiful things with his hands.”
We passed the Juniper Creek Pharmacy, with an old-fashioned soda fountain sign painted in the window, then the Bank of Juniper Creek, the post office, and a little shop called The Flower Cart, its front door propped open with a galvanized bucket full of sunflowers.
“That’s where everyone gets their prom boutonnieres and corsages,” Ivy said. “And apology flowers.”
“I’m going to stop and get a bouquet for your mom.”
“That’s a good idea. Best not to come empty handed.”
I pulled in front of the shop. Ivy said she’d wait for me. “It’s always a thing when I come around, so it’s best if you just get in and out.”
Soon enough, I was back in the truck with a bouquet of sunflowers mixed with sweet peas and a few lilies.
“She’ll love those,” Ivy said, taking them from me.
I started the truck, and we drove past the courthouse square. An old brick building with navy awnings and hanging ferns sat on the corner.
“The Blue Heron,” Ivy said. “That’s our fancy place here in Juniper Creek.”
“How fancy?”
“You wear your good jeans—at the very least. Everyone goes there for special occasions.” She leaned forward, pointing ahead. “And there’s the feed store. Everyone gets their supplies there, but it’s also a great place to gossip.”
On the side of Juniper Creek Feed & Seed, someone had painted a mural of the creek winding past a white farmhouse, a blue heron standing in the shallows, wings half lifted like it might take flight if nobody was watching.
The radio had been low under our conversation, but, as we rolled past the town square, the first notes of “Finally Home” came through the speakers.
“And here it is again,” Ivy said, laughing.
“Fifteenth week at number one.”
“And I’m grateful for it,” Ivy said. “But mostly that it brought me you.”
“Back at you, pretty girl.”
When we’d recorded it, I knew it was a good song, maybe even great.
I hadn’t known it would be this big of a hit.
It was everywhere. Coming out of truck speakers at gas stations, floating through hotel lobbies, playing in restaurants, bars, grocery stores, backstage corridors, and once, memorably, in a dentist’s office in Tulsa while I was getting a crown on a tooth I’d broken on a corn nut.
None of it mattered as much as finding Ivy. Since that first night at my house we’d been as inseparable as two people could be who performed on the road for their supper.
Downtown gave way to smaller houses, a church, then a baseball field, and finally the low brick sprawl of Juniper Creek High School, where the football stadium rose behind it with fresh white lines painted on the field.
A few boys were on the field running drills under the eye of a man with a whistle around his neck and a clipboard in his hand.
“That’s Waylon. Hard at work,” Ivy said.
I slowed the car and Ivy rolled down the window, sticking her head out and waving wildly. “Waylon.”
Waylon turned to look, and even from this distance I could see his grin. He took off his baseball hat and waved it at us.
“He’ll be coming for dinner,” Ivy said, settling back into her seat.
The road narrowed. Storefronts and houses thinned into pastureland, wooded hollows, cattle ponds, old barns, and white farmhouses set back behind fences. The hills rolled soft and green in every direction, the September light a coating of warm honey over the landscape.
A few minutes later, Ivy pointed ahead to a gravel driveway on our right. A sign hanging from the gate read: Whispering Oaks.
“This is it. Turn here.”
I did.
The James family driveway began beneath an archway of old trees, oaks mostly, with trunks thick enough that two grown men couldn’t have wrapped their arms around them.
Their branches reached across the gravel drive and tangled overhead, creating a canopy.
Late-afternoon sun filtered through the leaves, making green-gold patches on the hood of my truck.
Instinctually, I slowed, as if the truck and I both knew we were about to step into a quiet, serene world where hurrying wasn’t at all necessary.
Beside me, Ivy turned her head and smiled. “Whispering Oaks has been in our family for four generations. Used to be a working farm back in the day. Now Mama just keeps chickens and a few horses, which she loves more than us. And her garden’s epic.”
“Why is it called Whispering Oaks?” I asked.
“My great-great grandfather named it for the way the wind moves through the trees like a whisper.”
Past the fence line, the land rolled away in green swells, pasture on one side, woods on the other, with a few horses grazing under the shade of a massive oak. Black board fencing ran along the drive, weathered but well kept.
“I’m nervous,” I said.
“They’re harmless. Don’t let them fool you into thinking otherwise.”
“You’ve told me too many stories to believe that now,” I said.
“In hindsight, maybe I should’ve kept those to myself.”
She’d told me enough to know her brothers were protective of her and not afraid to use their powers of intimidation to make sure no one took advantage of her.
I’d also heard how notorious they all were in this part of Tennessee.
Wild boys who refused to entertain any ideas of marriage or getting tied down to one woman.
Apparently, they’d been proving their point with a string of broken hearts from Juniper Creek to Nashville.
At the end of the drive, the trees opened, and a white farmhouse with a deep front porch and black shutters came into view, sitting on a gentle rise as if it had grown straight out of the Tennessee hills.
The roof was tin, catching the sun in pale flashes.
A white picket fence wrapped around a garden to the side of the house, where tomatoes climbed cages and zinnias and black-eyed Susans spilled over the borders.
Beyond that sat an old barn, its red paint faded to the color of dried clay, and a chicken coop that looked sturdier than some apartments I’d rented early in my career.
To the right, a workshop stood with both bay doors open. A white truck with James Plumbing painted on the side was parked out front, along with two other trucks, a fire department decal on one back window and a construction company logo on another.
A woman with silver-streaked hair twisted into a loose knot stood on the porch, wiping her hands on a dish towel. A tall man with silver hair, a close-cropped beard, and the muscular forearms of a man who’d worked every day of his life stood next to her.
Gus and June James.
I parked, and, while I grabbed the flowers, Ivy ran across the yard, up the steps and into her mama’s waiting arms. She hugged her daddy next and then pulled them down the stairs to where I stood waiting to be introduced.
“Mama, Daddy, this is my Jack. Jack, these are my folks. June and Gus.”
I suddenly became aware of every inch of myself. My boots on the gravel. My hat in my hand. My shirt, which had seemed fine when I put it on, but now felt too well-ironed.
“Glad to meet you, Jack,” Gus said, shaking my hand. He was an inch or two shorter than me but broad-shouldered and fit for a man in his early sixties. His hand was broad, rough, and strong when he shook mine.