Chapter 30 – Jack
JACK
Jack stared at his phone, trying to think of anyone else he could call, but he knew she was the one who could help the most.
Since the divorce, he and Anna had maybe three conversations a year—holidays, the occasional check-in, the comfortable, low-maintenance contact of two people who'd ended things without catastrophe. She remarried two years ago. Her mother still sent Jack a Christmas card.
He finally punched his own thigh in frustration and pressed call. It rang four times. He almost hung up.
"Jack?" Anna's voice was warm, slightly surprised. "Everything okay?"
"No." The word came out before he could stop it. "No, I fucked up. I need your help."
Silence on the other end. Then a door closing. “Hold on, I’m—Okay. Hi.”
"Hi. Sorry to call out of nowhere."
"Don't be. What's going on?"
He'd planned to ease into it. Instead, he said, "Do you remember me telling you about Luke Calder?"
A pause. "High school, Luke."
"Yeah."
"I remember."
"He's here. In Calder Ridge. I've been—we've been involved, and it was going great, and I screwed it up."
Silence on the other end, and then Anna exhaled a bit of a laugh. "Of course you did."
"That's not very helpful."
"I'm just … I always wondered about him. You only mentioned him a couple of times, but I knew he was important.”
Jack hadn't realized she'd noticed.
"What did you do?" she asked.
He told her. About the birthday party, the meeting, the choice he'd made, and the choice he'd made afterward, not going even when he could have. Then Sunday morning at Luke's kitchen table.
Anna was quiet for a moment after he finished.
"You knew you could leave and you didn't," she said.
"Yes."
"Because going meant you'd have to walk in there not knowing how it would go."
"Yes."
She didn't say anything else for a beat, and Jack appreciated that she didn't reach for a lesson. That had always been one of Anna's better qualities—she could sit with a thing before rushing to fix it.
"Can I say something?" she said finally. "And you can tell me to mind my own business."
"Go ahead. I called."
"You did the same thing with us. Not the same situation, but the same mechanism, I guess.
Whenever things got uncomfortable, you'd find something else that needed doing instead.
" She paused. "I used to think it was about me, that I wasn't enough or that I wasn't asking the right way.
It took me a long time to figure out it was … how you were built."
"Anna—"
"I'm not saying it to make you feel bad, but you did. And this sounds like the same thing. Had this not occurred to you?”
It had, but it still helped to hear her say it.
He'd known it in the parking lot Friday night and again on Sunday, and he kept knowing it in a way that didn't seem to lead anywhere useful.
"What did you do?" he asked. "When you figured that out about me."
"I left," she said simply. "Which was the right thing for us. But Jack, this sounds different. You sound different."
He didn't have an answer for that.
"How did he take your apology?” Anna asked. “Luke.”
Jack thought about Sunday morning. Luke at the kitchen table, tired and clear-eyed, saying what he needed to say without flinching and without cruelty. "Like he knows what he wants."
"So, what are you going to do?"
"I don't know yet.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Jack.”
“I’m trying. Why do you think I called you?”
She laughed. A real one this time. He'd always liked her laugh.
"So he manages a gym?" Anna said, and there was something in her tone—not quite judgment, but a hint of disbelief.
"He owns it, basically. Runs the whole operation."
"Right. And he's... what, a personal trainer?"
"He's the manager. He does everything, programming, finances, community outreach, coaching."
A pause. Then: "What do you two talk about?"
Jack squeezed the phone. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, you have two bachelor’s degrees and an MBA. You commanded troops, negotiated with foreign officials, and taught at the War College. And he's... I'm sure he's very nice. And obviously attractive. But do you have anything in common beyond the physical?"
Jack groaned. "God, why does everyone think that? No one accused you of being my trophy wife, Anna."
"That's different. "
"Is it? He is undeniably gorgeous. But he's also one of the smartest, most emotionally intelligent people I've ever met. He built a business from nothing. He's been sober for fifteen years, which takes more strength than anything I did in the Army. And yes, we have plenty to talk about."
Silence on the other end.
"I'm sorry," Anna said finally. "That was out of line."
"Yeah, it was," Jack said firmly. "Luke's had a harder life than either of us and has come through it with more grace than I ever managed."
A brief silence was followed by warm goodbyes.
After they hung up, he sat for a while longer without moving.
She hadn't told him anything he didn't already know, but somehow that was enough, just to check in with her about everything. He'd half-expected or hoped that she'd have some version of the answer, some outside perspective that would clarify the thing he couldn't see clearly.
She’d referred to “the mechanism.” Whenever something got close or rough, he pivoted to a different direction, looking for an out.
He turned that over for a while.
He thought about what Luke had said. We put off difficult tasks, not joy.
He picked up his phone.
Jack didn't know what to write. He texted something, then deleted it; drafted something else. Everything either said too much or too little, either explaining himself at length or being so brief as to communicate nothing.
He finally typed:
“I know you need space, and I'm not trying to rush it. I just wanted you to know I'm trying to figure myself out. No response required.”
He read it twice. He knew it wasn’t a magic bullet, but it was an honest start.
He sent it.
He sat with the phone face-up this time, which was different from his usual habit and felt like a small thing, but it also didn't.
Three minutes passed. Five. He told himself not to watch it and watched it anyway.
Then:
Luke: “Coffee Thursday? That place between here and campus. 10 am?”
Jack stared at the screen.
Two days. Not today, not in two weeks. Thursday.
He typed back: “I'll be there.”
He set the phone down on the couch cushion, screen up, and looked at the ceiling. He'd come to Calder Ridge for reasons he hadn't fully admitted to himself. And against all his training, he'd found himself needing something of someone.
Of someone who needed him, too.
Thursday. Two days.
He could do two days.
And it was almost time to meet the parents.