Page 70 of Echoes of a Southern Song

I smile. “Thank you.”

He nods, tossing some cash on the table, and we head back out to his truck. Jack reaches over and takes my hand, squeezing it gently as we pull into their driveway.

“Ready?” he asks, turning to me.

I take a deep breath and nod. “Ready.”

Dad answers the door. “Well, hey, Jellybean,” he says, giving me a big hug. “What a surprise. And Jack! You guys want cookies?”

“Actually,” I say, heart hammering, “we need to talk to you and Mom. Like sit-down serious kind of talk.”

He sobers immediately and waves us in. “Okay. Sure thing.”

We all sit around the kitchen table, my mom wiping her hands on a dish towel as she joins us.

She looks from me to Jack and back again. “What’s going on?”

So I tell them. I tell them everything. From the elopement to the trial, to the discovery in court that the marriage wasn’t even real. I don’t gloss over any of it. Jack sits beside me the whole time, hand on my knee under the table, grounding me.

By the time I finish, my mom’s eyes are wet, and my dad looks like he’s been holding in an explosion.

“You should’ve come to us,” Mom says, voice thick. “You didn’t have to go through all that alone.”

“I know,” I whisper. “I just... I was ashamed. Embarrassed. I thought you’d think I was stupid.”

My dad snorts. “Oh, sweetie. We all do stupid things when we’re young. The trick is learning from them, not hiding them.”

“And you learned,” Mom adds, reaching across the table to take my hand. “You’re safe now. That’s what matters.”

They both pull me into a hug. I feel the dam finally break. All that tension I’ve been holding in is gone. Just like that. Because I’m not hiding anymore.

They offer to help with any leftover legal fees, though I tell them Jack already took care of most of it. That earns him a long, grateful look from both of them.

“You’re good people,” my dad tells him. “I can see why she kept you around.”

Jack chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “I like to think I’m growing on her.”

“You are,” I say, giving his hand a squeeze.

“You did it,” Jack says as we drive back to my place. “You told your folks. Faced the courtroom chaos. Now you can breathe.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I can.”

“I’m proud of you, Jinnie.”

I smile at him. “Thanks for being there.”

“Always.”