After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 4

Ralph didn't get his subpoena until September 21st, eight days after Jack got his. Jack spent that time trying to keep his father from finding out about his subpoena, and about the trial. Of course, Paige was adamantly opposed to his deception. The way she saw it, no good could come of it. Evan would only be angrier once he discovered that Jack wasn't just in a heap of trouble, but he also tried to cover the whole thing up. Jack, on the other, hand was hyperfixated on delaying the inevitable; his next trip to the hospital that could very well turn into a trip to the morgue this time.

Jack stashed the subpoena in one of the drawers in his nightstand. He kept it buried at the very bottom. Piled on top of the envelope, he had old Playboy magazines he hadn't touched in two years. They were practically collecting dust. Jack figured that even if Evan payed enough attention to become suspicious that something was going on, he wouldn't look hard enough to find out what it was.

Just over a week later and shortly before news of the trial would hit the press, Jack dragged himself and his hefty backpack through the double doors of the Merridew house after spending the weekend at Ralph's. It was just after 1900 hours on a warm but chilly late September evening; warm enough that Jack didn't bother to wear a sweater but cool enough that he regretted it a little. If he hadn't grown used to being outside, half-dressed at night on the island, he probably would've sprung for the jacket. But naturally, with his progressive but slow recovery in the works, he hardly noticed the goosebumps on his arms as he entered through the mansion doors.

When Jack saw his father sitting at the bottom of the grand staircase that night, he froze in place. After dropping his rather heavy bag to the white linoleum floor, his eyes tensely locked with Evan's. Jack had never seen his father sit up and wait for him to come home before. In fact, Jack spent an entire two weeks camping with the Langleys over the past summer, and Evan didn't even know Jack was gone until after he got back. So seeing him sitting here now made Jack think that he was surely about to find out someone was dead.

Jack continued to stare at his father in silence while he waited for the other shoe to drop.

"What the hell is this?" Evan asked in a quiet but firm voice, pulling the subpoena envelope from his lap to show his son.

"I have no idea" Jack lied, knowing better than to admit to anything before he could be proven guilty.

"I found it in your bedside table drawer so you might want to think again" the man intimidated the boy with his still but harsh demeanour.

"Why were you snooping around my room?" Jack attempted to turn the tables on him.

"Looks like you're already in a lot of shit with law enforcement, and I know for damn sure you don't want any extra from me right now" Evan threatened the boy. "So how bout you start by telling me what the hell you did that warranted all this?"

"It's a formality" Jack's voice shook as he spoke, as did his hands at his sides. "All of us got one, even Ralph. I didn't do anything the rest of them didn't."

"You better fucking hope the jury agrees with you on that" Evan snarked.

"They will" Jack insisted in an effort to convince both Evan and himself.

Jack knew that his innocence was a tough sell given that trouble had a way of following him everywhere he went. The boy was preparing himself for the blowup that was surely to come. He was waiting for the moment his father would lose it and beat the blood out of him, despite the fact that Jack still had one more week in the leg brace, and another two in the sling. They were past the point in which his healing injuries could shield him. So Jack waited and waited for the explosion; one that never came.

Evan simply diverted his gaze before tossing the orangey envelope onto the finished, circular glass table in the center of the entryway. Jack watched, unable to move, as Evan turned his back to him and walked up the stairs to return to his own bedroom.

Jack should've been stunned to his very core in that moment, but he wasn't. Even though he had certainly been expecting his father to bleed him dry, Jack knew that the fact that he hadn't was actually much worse. It wasn't that Evan wasn't mad, the boy knew, but that he was indifferent. He had completely given up on Jack, lost what little interest or care he ever had in the boy's life. Evan had just thrown in the towel with Jack, deciding that this trial thing was too big a burden to carry for a child he didn't really love. Jack would be turning sixteen in the new year; the age in which the legal line between child and adult was blurred. What shitty timing this whole trial thing had, Jack thought.

"He didn't even yell?" Paige asked about a day and a half later, when Jack finally got the chance to update her on the matter.

"No" Jack confirmed, "he didn't even flinch."

"Wow, that's a first" Paige declared with surprise.

"And it'll be the last" Jack added, dropping his head so he wouldn't have to look at her.

"What's that mean?" she questioned.

"Don't you get it? This is probably the most trouble I've ever been in, and the first time he's ever not hit me over it. He's done, Paige, he's gonna disown me even if I'm not found guilty of anything. He probably already has, mentally speaking" Jack began to connect the dots for her.

"Come on, Jack, he wouldn't do that. He's never gone that far before" the elder sibling countered.

"Yeah, but neither had I."