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Someone else might have asked me to intervene, begged me to help convince Jackson to let him stay. After all, Jackson isn’t the ultimate authority at New Haven. Ham might work under Jackson, but Jackson and I run this place together. Ham doesn’t ask me to help, however. He’s internally stewing—I can see it on his face—but he doesn’t expect me to make it better.
I’m kind of worried too now. Jackson is a hard-ass, but he usually isn’t unreasonable. He seems to genuinely like most of the people here at New Haven, and he works hard to keep us safe. He even had a girlfriend for a couple of years. They never seemed particularly affectionate or romantic, but they ate together and slept together until Monica was killed on a supply run a couple of years ago.
But it’s twice today that Ham failed to live up to his responsibilities, so there’s no telling what Jackson will want to do.
Miguel’s at the gate, and he lets us in with a wave. As we’re approaching the house, Jackson must have seen something in our posture or our walk because he comes out from the garage to meet us.
“What happened?” he asks, his eyes running up and down my body quickly before he turns to Ham.
Ham doesn’t hesitate, and he doesn’t fudge the explanation. He tells Jackson what happened in a simple, straightforward narrative.
Jackson’s shoulders tense after a couple of sentences, and he turns back to scan my face and body in a searching look.
But when Ham finishes the explanation, Jackson’s eyes and mouth are narrowed.
I’m holding my breath at this point. I’m not going to let Jackson kick Ham out of New Haven, but I really don’t want to fight about it. Evicting people is one of the hardest decisions we have to make, and we’ve never disagreed about it before.
Jackson is angry. That much is obvious to me, although he hasn’t said a word yet. He’s silent for a long moment before he grits out, “Go to the house and pack up your stuff.”
I stiffen my spine and see Ham’s expression crack.
Jackson goes on. “You’ll sleep in the old barn for the foreseeable future. You’ll have to work your way back into the house.”
I let out my breath with a rasp, and Ham makes a choked sound as his face twists with palpable relief. “Got it,” he says, sending me a quick look before turning back to Jackson. “It won’t happen again.”
“It better not. Tonight we’re going to have a conversation about what you should have done better.”
“Got it. Thanks. Got it.”
Ham looks like he’s about to burst into tears of relief and gratitude, so I tell him to get moving since he needs to pack up his stuff.
There are two large bunk rooms in the house. We’ve kept adding beds as we could, and now there are twelve bunks in each one. We also have an old barn where we put overflow residents. It’s not all that comfortable. People sleep on cots or mounds of hay. But Ham lived there for a year and a half before there was room for him in the house, and he clearly has no complaints about moving back.
He was so scared Jackson was going to kick him out.
I honestly wasn’t sure myself.
Jackson calls out to his back, “If you’d hedged the truth even a little, you’d have been out.”
Ham turns around, nods in acknowledgment, and then continues on to the house.
“Doofus,” Jackson mutters when he’s out of earshot.
“He’s not a doofus. He’s a good guy.”
“He’s got to do better.”
“I know that, but he’ll get there. He’s only seventeen.”
“You helped me take down that gang who attacked the farm when you were seventeen.” His eyes never leave my face.
I give him a half-hearted eye roll, although the memory of that particular night is one of the worst in my life. We lost almost half our people that night. “Ham would have helped too if he’d been here back then. We do what we have to do, when we have to do it. Ham will step up. He’s already come a long way. He’s not built for this kind of thing. This kind of world. Not like you are. He’s doing fine.”
I start back to the house, tired and hungry and ready for this day to be over.
“If he’d get over his crush on you, he’d do better,” Jackson mutters as he falls into step with me. “It’s clueless and embarrassing.”
I start to argue with his sentiment since I’m honestly not convinced Ham has a crush on me at all. But it doesn’t seem worth the effort, and we’re reaching the house anyway. So I leave the words unanswered as I step inside.
