Page 145 of Deacon

Cold moved through me so quickly my fingers tightened around the fork. I set it down before anyone noticed.

“He’s been in Bay of Saints several times,” I said carefully. “He keeps... happening to be in the same places I am. The grocery store. The coffee shop.” Matty’s eyes stayed on mine as I continued. “He said it was because he has a new girlfriend there and is thinking of moving and transferring to live with her. But I don’t know. It’s felt kind of creepy.”

Jade had been attacking a roasted carrot with more force than necessary. She looked up. “I’ve always said he was Lewd Jude.”

Dad stared at her like she had announced something absurd. “He is a good kid from a good home. You are all making a mountain out of a molehill. I’m sure it really is coincidence. He probably did find someone else, since you won’t give him a chance.”

Across the table, Matty met my eyes. The look passed between us quickly, but I knew my brother well enough to read it. He didn’t believe in the coincidence either, and he intended to look.

I nodded once. Some of the tightness in my chest eased with the silent promise.

Dad either missed the exchange or chose to. He cleared his throat and reached for another subject. “Remember the cabin? Out past Eastwick Hollow?”

The question caught me harder than it should have. Matty’s face softened too, and suddenly I could smell old campfire smoke and summer air, remember mosquito bites and Dad laughing more easily than he did now. The cabin held some of the last uncomplicated memories we had as a family.

The memory softened my voice before I could stop it. “Yeah,” I said quietly.

Matty nodded, looking toward Dad. “Of course.”

Dad smiled for real. “I was thinking maybe we should take one last trip out there. All four of us. A weekend soon.” He folded his hands on the table, looking around at us. “Then I’ll probably sell it. I’m not getting any younger. We haven’t really used it since Jade was little, back when Matty was just making detective and you were finishing nursing school. Seems silly to keep pouring money into the upkeep if nobody’s actually enjoying it.”

The idea hit me less because of the sale than because it meant an ending. Some family places survived only as long as people kept returning to them, and we hadn’t.

“I can’t afford the upkeep,” I said before Dad could ask. “But I’d love one last trip.”

Matty nodded. “Same,” he said. “No way I’ve got time to maintain a cabin, but one last camping weekend? Yeah.”

All three of us looked at Jade. She blinked at the sudden attention. “I don’t remember it, obviously. But if you all just got those looks on your faces over it, I kind of want a memory like that too.”

Dad clapped his hands together once, decision made. “Then it’s done. I’ll plan everything. One last camping trip. No electronics. Just like back in the day. Just us and nature.”

Jade’s face went stricken. “Wait,” she said. “No electronics?”

Matty and I looked at each other before answering at the exact same time. “Yep. Cabin Morgan’s number one rule. No electronics.”

That finally cracked the tension for good. Jade groaned and sank back in her chair. “Maybe this won’t be fun after all.”

The three of us laughed at once, sudden and genuine enough to startle me. Jade rolled her eyes while smiling through it, and for a few seconds the table felt less like a place where old wounds had been dragged out and more like somewhere we might still know how to be a family.

Night had settled cool around the house when Jade and I finally got back into the car. I started the engine and backed out of the drive, waiting until we reached the road before I looked over at her.

“Well,” I said, “that wasn’t a complete disaster.” The fact that I could say it without irony felt like its own victory.

Jade snorted. “High praise.”

I smiled. “Your grandfather didn’t mention your dad. Your uncle apologized. You got invited on a potentially cursed no-electronics camping trip.”

She looked out the window before turning back to me. “Honestly? For this family, that’s basically a Hallmark ending.”

A real laugh broke out of me. I glanced over once more as Dad’s house disappeared behind us. “I’d say this was as much of a success as we could’ve asked for.”

Jade folded her arms and settled deeper into the seat. “Sure. If by success you mean nobody cried, Grandpa only defended Lewd Jude once, and I’m apparently about to be held hostage in the woods without Wi-Fi.”

I laughed again, easier this time. The dinner hadn’t fixed anything. Matty still had years of hurt to work through with Jackson, Dad was still stubborn enough to defend Jude despite every reason not to, and the look my brother had given me promised that problem had only begun.

Still, Jade had left the house smiling beside me. Progress didn’t look particularly graceful in this family, but I was starting to think it counted anyway.

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