"I don't know," he said.
"Yes, you do."
"Jos—"
"You know what you want to do. You're just scared to do it because, well, you have your reasons —“ She stopped herself. Took a breath. "Listen. I'm not going to lecture you. That's a lie, I'm absolutely going to lecture you, but not right this second. Right this second, I need to tell you something."
Jack's stomach tightened. He knew that tone. That was Josie's transition tone — the gear shift between busting his ass and delivering news she wished she didn't have to deliver.
"What?"
"Dad's anniversary is next week. Tuesday."
Jack gripped the railing. He'd known it was coming. Always knew — the date lived in some back room of his brain year-round, quiet until it wasn't.
"I know," he said.
"Mom wants to do the cemetery thing. Just us. She asked if you'd come home."
Home. Lockport. The house he grew up in, with the porch his dad built and the kitchen table where two empty chairs sat across from each other like a conversation nobody wanted to have.
"I don't know if I can do that, Jos."
"I know." Her voice was gentle, which was worse than the yelling. "But she asked. And I told her I'd pass it along."
"Is she okay?"
"She's Mom. She holds it together and then she doesn't. Same as every year." A pause. "She misses you, Jack. I know you know that, but I'm saying it anyway. She misses you and she's too proud to beg you to come home, so she asks once a year and then pretends she's fine when you say no."
Jack closed his eyes. The sun was warm on his face. The ocean was steady below. Inside the lighthouse, Clara was talking to a literary agent about her future.
And here was the past, reaching for him the way it always did — with gentle hands and a grip that never loosened.
"I'll think about it," he said.
"That means no."
"It means I'll think about it."
Josie sighed. "Fine. Think about it. And call Mom, you jerk. She doesn't bite."
"She cries."
"Yeah, well, maybe she's earned that. Maybe let her." Another crash from Josie's end. "BRODY JAMES CALLAHAN, IF THAT HAMSTER IS ON THE KITCHEN TABLE I SWEAR TO—sorry. I have to go. My son is staging some kind of rodent uprising."
"Kiss the kids for me."
"Call your mother and I'll consider it." Her voice softened one more time. "Jack? This woman — Clara. If she's what I think she is? Don't be an idiot about it. You've been running for seven years. That's long enough."
She hung up before he could answer.
Jack stood on the gallery with the dead phone in his hand and the weight of his dad’s anniversary pressing on his chest like a stone.
He went to town the next morning in the old truck. Needed lumber for the cable rail project. That's what he told himself.
What he actually needed was noise. People. Something to fill the space in his head that Josie's phone call had hollowed out.
He got more than he bargained for.
