Chapter Fourteen #2
Thick slices of herb-crusted roast beef rested beside crisp roasted potatoes glistening with butter and herbs.
Roasted carrots, asparagus, honey-glazed pumpkin, and green beans surrounded the meat, while a jug of rich gravy sat warming beside a basket lined with a checked cloth that concealed fresh bread rolls.
I stared. Jack had always been a good cook. I'd known that since the first meal we'd shared together, but this belonged in an entirely different league.
Coach wandered in a moment later and came to exactly the same abrupt halt.
"Well..."
I glanced across at him.
"That was pretty much my reaction."
His gaze traveled slowly over the table before settling on the roast.
"I'd say something's definitely going on."
"I was thinking exactly the same thing."
Before either of us could speculate any further, Jack returned carrying a large salad bowl filled with crisp greens, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, feta, toasted pine nuts, dried cranberries, and thinly sliced red onion.
He placed it beside the roast, followed it with a bottle of sparkling apple cider, filled each of our glasses, then gestured toward the chairs with an expression that revealed absolutely nothing.
Coach pulled out his chair.
"Whatever this is, I'm looking forward to finding out."
"So am I," I agreed.
Jack waited until Coach and I had taken our seats while remaining where he was at the head of the table.
Rather than joining us, he picked up the carving knife and began serving dinner, placing generous slices of roast beef onto Coach's plate before doing the same for mine and then his own.
He worked methodically around the table, adding crisp roasted potatoes, honey-glazed pumpkin, asparagus, carrots, and green beans before spooning rich gravy over everything with the same quiet attention to detail he seemed to bring to every part of his life.
Once he was satisfied neither of us could possibly complain about the size of our meals, he returned each serving dish to the center of the table, adjusted the basket of warm bread rolls so we could both reach it easily, and stepped back instead of sitting down.
I watched him curiously. Something had changed.
Up until that moment the evening had felt mysterious but comfortable, filled with the sort of quiet anticipation that made me wonder what surprise he'd planned.
Now the atmosphere shifted almost imperceptibly.
Jack didn't pull out his chair. He didn't reach for his own plate.
Instead, he remained standing with one hand resting lightly against the back of the chair in front of him, his gaze moving briefly from Coach to me before settling somewhere between us.
Coach noticed it too. He reached for his knife and fork out of habit, then paused, his attention returning to Jack as though suddenly realizing our host hadn't made the slightest move to sit and begin eating himself.
The room settled into an unexpected silence broken only by the quiet ticking of the old clock mounted on the wall and the faint strains of instrumental music drifting through from the living room.
Steam continued to curl from the roast, carrying with it the warm scent of rosemary, garlic, and fresh bread, yet neither Coach nor I began eating.
Jack drew one slow, measured breath.
For just a heartbeat I wondered whether he'd changed his mind about whatever he'd been planning all evening. His fingers tightened briefly against the chair before relaxing again, and although his expression remained composed, I could see the emotion he was working so hard to keep under control.
Coach glanced at me, clearly as uncertain as I was. I could offer nothing except the smallest shrug. I had absolutely no idea what was happening.
Jack lifted his eyes, looked first at his father and then at me, and spoke.
"Eat up."
The words themselves were utterly ordinary, spoken in a warm, deep voice that carried naturally across the dining room, but there was nothing ordinary about the man who had spoken them. Every thought inside my head simply stopped.
Beside me, Coach froze in exactly the same instant.
His knife and fork remained suspended above his plate, forgotten completely as he stared at his son with an expression of absolute disbelief. Neither of us moved. Neither of us breathed.
For several endless seconds neither Coach nor I reacted because neither of us seemed capable of convincing our minds that what we'd just heard had actually happened.
The words themselves had been ordinary, spoken with quiet certainty and unmistakably coming from Jack, yet after twenty years of silence they carried the weight of a miracle.
I stared across the table at the man I loved, searching his face for some explanation that might tell me I'd misheard, but there wasn't one.
There were only tears gathering in his eyes and an expression that balanced hope, fear, and relief so completely that my own vision blurred almost beyond recognition.
Coach found his feet before I did.
His chair scraped violently across the timber floor as he pushed it backward without the slightest concern for the noise, crossing the room in three hurried strides before throwing both arms around Jack.
It wasn't the restrained embrace of a father trying to maintain his composure.
It was the desperate grip of a man who had spent two decades believing there were words he would never hear, only to discover in the space of a heartbeat that every impossible dream he'd buried deep inside himself had suddenly become real.
"My God...my God, son."
The words fractured beneath the weight of emotion as he held Jack tighter, his shoulders shaking openly.
Years of quiet acceptance dissolved completely, replaced by tears neither of them made the slightest attempt to hide.
Coach buried his face against Jack's shoulder for several long moments before finally drawing back just enough to cup his son's face in both hands, studying him as though he needed absolute proof that this wasn't some cruel trick of his imagination.
"I've dreamed about this since you were six years old," he whispered hoarsely. "Do you know how many nights I prayed I'd hear your voice again? Do you know how many times I imagined what your words might sound like as a man?"
Jack's own composure finally gave way. Tears spilled freely down his cheeks as he nodded, his voice trembling with emotion when he answered.
"I know, Dad."
"No," Coach said, shaking his head. "You couldn't possibly know."
Fresh tears escaped before he gathered Jack into another fierce embrace.
"I'd convinced myself it was never going to happen."
Watching them shattered whatever control I'd been clinging to.
I crossed the room, waiting only until Coach loosened his hold enough for me to step in.
Jack turned toward me immediately, and the moment my arms wrapped around him I felt his body tremble against mine.
I held him as tightly as I dared, overwhelmed by the simple reality that the warmth against my chest belonged to the same man I'd fallen hopelessly in love with, yet everything had changed because I could finally hear the voice that had lived silently inside him all along.
"I love you," I whispered, my own voice breaking. "I love every part of you."
He looked up at me through tear-filled eyes and repeated the words back to me.
I kissed his forehead first, then each cheek, the bridge of his nose, the corner of his mouth, and finally his lips, lingering there only briefly before kissing his face again and again. Every kiss felt like a celebration of everything he'd obviously fought through alone.
"I love your voice," I murmured. "God...I love hearing you."
A shaky laugh escaped him, softened by tears that still refused to stop falling.
"I was hoping you would."
I rested my forehead against his.
"I would've loved you if you'd never spoken another word for the rest of your life."
His hands tightened around me.
For several long moments none of us seemed capable of doing anything except standing there together.
The roast continued sending ribbons of steam into the air, the candles flickered gently in the center of the table, and somewhere beyond the dining room the music continued playing exactly as though the world hadn't just changed forever.
Jack eventually drew a slow breath and glanced toward the untouched dinner waiting on the table.
"We need to sit before dinner gets cold."
"Only you," Coach said, wiping at his face with the back of his hand, "would worry about the roast at a time like this."
Jack’s eyes glistened.
"I spent all afternoon cooking it."
Coach shook his head as all three of us finally returned to our seats, although his Dad and I couldn’t stop looking at Jack for more than a few seconds at a time.
Every time he reached for a serving dish or lifted his glass, I found myself waiting for him to speak again, needing to hear his voice one more time just to convince myself this wasn't some beautiful dream I was about to wake from.
Coach finally leaned back in his chair and drew a long, unsteady breath.
"Start at the beginning, tell us everything."
Jack folded his hands loosely on the table and looked from his father to me.
"I suppose I owe you both a very long explanation."
Coach remained quiet for several moments, his fingers wrapped around the wine glass in front of him although he made no attempt to lift it.
His eyes never left Jack's face, as though looking away for even a heartbeat might somehow cause the miracle he'd witnessed to disappear.
I understood exactly how he felt because I couldn't stop watching him either.
Every movement seemed familiar and yet completely new, transformed by the simple knowledge that, at any moment, he could speak again.
Jack drew a steadying breath before explaining while we ate.
"It started with Caroline…Dr. Juneau."
A memory of what I’d heard her mention in the hospital came to the forefront.