Broken Records by Bree Bennett

Chapter 19

When Jack woke the following morning, he was tangled up in an armful of Lucy. It was still dark out, the November sun having been granted an extra hour of sleep by the U.S. government and their antiquated rules on Daylight Saving Time. In Lucy’s bedroom, though, her small bedside lamp glowed, sending scatterings of light into the nooks and crannies of the attic space. Jack gazed at her face, studying how the faint light tripped over her freckles, highlighted the slope of her nose, and added layers of shadows to her dark lashes. He tugged her a little closer, enthralled by the way her body seemed to fit in all the empty spaces of his own—an elbow here, a shoulder there, cold toes intertwined with cold toes in the hollows of their blankets. She felt natural, and complementary, and utterly necessary.

But, unfortunately, it wasn’t just his heart that believed her necessary. He carefully untangled her arms in a Jenga-like process, making sure there was no chance that Lucy would swipe her hand down to be greeted by the tent in his pajama pants. He crawled out of the bed and tiptoed downstairs in search of coffee.

As Jack neared the dining room, he heard an alternating chorus of baby whimpers and guitar chords. Ben hunkered by the brick fireplace, picking at his guitar. Lucy’s niece—soon to be Jack’s niece, he realized in horror—fretted and whimpered in a yellow swing by Ben’s feet. Jack stepped into the room cautiously, and Ben’s face lit up with frenzied relief.

“Thank God,” he said, rubbing at glazed-over eyes. He thrust his guitar into Jack’s arms. “I’ll give you a million dollars if you take over. I can’t feel my fingers.”

Jack’s coffee-deficient mind wasn’t quite sure what was occurring as he blinked first at the baby, then at the vintage instrument in his hands. “You want me to play?”

“It normally works,” said Ben with a sigh. “Lettie came over about two hours ago. They had a rough night. She’s on the couch trying to catch some sleep.” He leaned over the baby, who was champing at her fist. “You need to go to sleep, Gigi. It’s a big day.” The baby narrowed her eyes as if to say, Old man, I do what I want.

“What’s wrong with her?” asked Jack, taking a seat and fiddling with the tuning pegs on the guitar.

Ben snorted. “You haven’t been around babies much, have you?”

“Never.” Jack cocked his head at the tiny gremlin. “I’m an only child.”

“Well, every baby is different,” explained Ben, flexing his fingers. “But you get good sleepers and bad sleepers. Eventually, they work out a sleeping rhythm, but the first few months, even the first year, can be brutal.” He cooed down at the fussy baby. “Yes, pumpkin, you’re so brutal!”

Jack tore his gaze away from Miss Brutal Pumpkin and inspected the guitar. It had a few spiderwebbed cracks in the lacquer, and “I Love You, Daddy” was written in a shaky, childlike script along the waist, but other than that, it was in excellent shape.

“Elena has always been our artist,” Ben said, pointing at the blocky words. “But we hid the permanent markers after that. I couldn’t bring myself to clean it off though. Now, start playing.”

Jack obeyed his future father-in-law immediately, playing mellow chords and miscellaneous melodies that would disappear from his memory as soon as they hit the air. Ben nodded in approval and peered over his silver reading glasses at the fire. “I’m going to get more firewood. Keep playing like that. She’s nearly there. I think.”

Jack looked at the baby skeptically. Her bright blue eyes were wide and round. Their definitions of “nearly there” were vastly different.

And then Ben was gone, and Jack was alone with an actual, real live child.

Fuck.

He squinted at the baby. She whined back.

Fuck. Fuck.

Jack struck a few chords, a progression he had percolating in the back of his mind that he hadn’t yet tried on an actual instrument.

“Eh? What do you think?” He waggled his eyebrows at the baby. “Should I go with this, or switch to D minor?”

The baby’s face went from pale to raspberry-colored, and her eyes squeezed shut as she arched her back, sucking in air for what was projected to be a mighty wail.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

“Kid, please don’t cry, please,” Jack pleaded. “I’ll play any chords you want, just don’t cry.” He glanced around the dining room, praying that a more responsible adult would pop up out of nowhere and save him.

“Here, how about this?” He started an easygoing blues riff, knocking the guitar every so often in rhythm, often with a dramatic flourish of his hand to distract Gianna. Her face relaxed and her bleary eyes tracked the movement of his hands with curiosity.

“There we go. I’m not so bad, see? Not a big ol’ scary rock star at all.”

The baby continued staring at his fingers as he extrapolated on the riff, adding a key change and an improv solo. Then, she cooed—a sweet, snorty noise that could have been amusement or maybe just gas—and Jack stopped playing to pump his fist triumphantly in the air.

Which startled Gianna, who began to cry again.

“Kiiiiiiid,” he groaned, picking up the guitar for more chords. She calmed down with a squeaky snuffle, watching his fingers pluck and strum. And then finally, whether the music was working or the planets had aligned just right, she fell asleep.

“You put her to sleep,” Lucy whispered behind him, her voice thick and groggy. Her gaze swept from his hands, still strumming, down to his foot, which was balanced on the swing so he could rock it and still play at the same time.

“You forget,” Jack said, cooing in a singsong voice toward Gianna, “I’m Jack motherfucking Hunter.” He tilted his head back until it rested on the top rail of the chair. Lucy smiled down at him.

“Where’s everyone else?” she asked, rubbing at the corners of her eyes.

“Your parents are working on breakfast. Lettie’s on the couch.”

“We should move the baby,” Lucy said. “Before everyone shows up.” She knelt down and scooped up Gianna with gentle hands, moving at a snail’s pace. Tucking the child against her shoulder, she swayed a little as she tiptoed for the door, humming something that sounded a lot like “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” Jack was taken aback by how relaxed and natural she looked holding a baby, and disturbed by how much it made his chest twinge. He didn’t even know if she wanted kids, but by the way she gazed down at the sleeping child, he was pretty sure she did. He wondered if her next husband would also want to have children. He pictured her in a van with a passel of dark-haired boys and girls, husband in the passenger’s side as she drove them to Disney World and lectured them on the effect of the Beatles on modern-day entertainment.

“Jack?” murmured Lucy from the doorway, her lips pressed against Gianna’s chubby cheek. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he grumbled. “Why?”

“You just growled to yourself.”

“Just hungry,” he said with a scowl.

Lucy shook her head and disappeared with the baby.

Jack soon learned that the Meyer dining room and adjoining kitchen were the equivalent of Grand Central Station in the old farmhouse. As soon as one person popped in, another popped out. Once Lucy took off with the baby, Sophia came in, still dressed in pajamas and carrying a messy three-ring binder. She eyed Jack warily. He eyed her back.

“I know I’m supposed to treat you like any other guy,” she said, sitting across the table from him. “And ignore the whole rock star thing.”

“Okay,” said Jack, raising an eyebrow.

“But I need help,” she said, tossing him an uncapped pen.

“Okay,” repeated Jack. “Do you want an autograph or something?”

She stared at him. “Dude, you’re marrying my sister. I’m not going to use you for some nefarious eBay scheme.” Her face turned thoughtful. “Unless you want to. We could go 50/50 on the profits.”

“I think I’m good.”

“I need help with my homework.” She started flipping through her binder, somehow finding what she needed by way of crumpled sticky notes and fingerprint-smudged tabs.

“Um.” Jack twirled the pen in his hand. “I didn’t go to college. I won’t be much help.”

She rolled her eyes and tossed him a few sheets of paper. “I’m a musical theater major. I need help with my composition final.”

“You’re a musical theater major?” Jack tilted his head at her. She reminded him a little of Lucy, if Lucy were spliced with Wednesday Addams in a genetic experiment gone wrong. Sophia’s hair was dark and stick straight, and her eyes were dark brown with flecks of chaos and mayhem.

“Not every theater kid is sunshine and rainbows,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Well, you’re definitely more Sweeney Todd than Sound of Music,” he said. He perused the composition paper in his hand. “Where do you need help?”

“This is the main character’s eleven o’clock number,” she said, and when Jack gave her a puzzled look, she clarified, “A big showstopper number in the second act. I can’t get the bridge right, no matter what I try.” She flipped through the pages full of erasure markings and scribbles until she found the section she needed. “Going from the bridge to the final chorus, right there.”

Jack squinted, then plucked out the melody on the guitar. He paused, read the lyrics, and looked up at her. “What the hell is this musical about?”

“The U.S. Senate during the zombie apocalypse,” said Sophia matter-of-factly. Jack opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. He ran through the bridge a few times, and then, like it so often did in the early days of his writing career, the pieces fell into place.

“There,” he pointed at a measure. “Switch those three notes with those two, change that chord to a sixth, and add a half-rest there.”

Sophia’s eyes darted back and forth as she went over the changes, humming to herself. When she lowered the page to the table to look at Jack, her eyes were filled with shocked appreciation. “Holy shit.”

“Sophia,” said Rose, coming into the room with a cup of coffee. “Language.”

“Ma, Jack just fixed my final for me,” Sophia said, holding the song pages in front of her mother’s face.

Rose glanced over the song. “Zombies again, Sophia? Can’t you ever write anything happy?”

“It’s about the implicit failure of elected officials during the country’s times of crisis,” said Sophia.

“Oh.” Rose nodded and took a seat next to Jack. “That’s okay, then.”

“Thank you so much,” said Sophia, sliding the pages back into her unwieldy binder.

“Honestly,” Jack said. “The songwriting is the best part of what I do. Performing is fun, but writing is what I really love.”

“Did you ever want to write full-time?” Rose asked, sipping at her coffee.

“I’ve thought about it,” he admitted. “I’ve ghostwritten a few things here and there. But then—” He shrugged, a single movement that encapsulated writer’s block and failure and maybe a little alcoholism all in one.

“Hmm,” said Rose in that hum that could mean anything. “You’re an interesting guy, Jack Vincent.”

Jack wasn’t sure if interesting was a good or bad thing in this instance, but since he was pretty sure Lucy’s mother could murder him in his sleep, he simply answered with, “Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

Decorating for Christmas at the Meyer household was a thing. It started the morning after Thanksgiving with an official kick-off meeting—yes, a meeting—in the basement of the old farmhouse. Ben Meyer had grown up in a picturesque town straight out of a Hallmark movie and was determined to keep the holiday spirit alive by way of two bedecked Christmas trees, flickering electric candles in every window, nutcrackers on every surface, and, if he had his way, a partridge in a pear tree somewhere in the house.

Of his children, Lucy was the most enthusiastic about the holiday. Christmas meant warmth, safety, contentment, and above all, tradition. For someone who needed things to be just so, it was truly the most wonderful time of year. It was also the only time of the year she put her foot down with Brock, and they would go to the farmhouse, where Brock would hole up in a bedroom writing legal briefs while the rest of the family bustled around decking the proverbial halls.

By the time Lucy came back downstairs dressed for the day, Matteo and Dante had arrived. Nico, who lived outside Indianapolis, had stayed the night, as had Ariana, who lived outside Chicago. Lettie had woken up, and though her eyes were still bleary, she bounced Gianna on her knee with renewed energy.

Jack and Lucy took their spots at the dinner table, Jack, of course, taking the milk can again. A light breakfast spread filled the table, and Lucy handed Jack the coffee pot and sugar bowl without a word. He mixed his sugared sludge and inhaled it with a sigh before snagging a cherry pastry.

“Have as many of those as you want,” said Rose, pushing the plate toward him. “You’re too skinny, eat up.” Lucy sent Jack an I told you so smile before Rose continued. “Before we start decorating, we’re going to discuss the wedding.”

Lucy took a deep breath, bracing herself against her mother’s unpredictability.

“We want you to have it here,” Rose said. “Dad and Matteo finished remodeling the granary in September, and we could fit enough chairs in there for something small.” She flicked her eyes to Lucy. “No crowds, no loud reception. Just us, maybe Nonna and Nonno, and you two.”

Lucy loved the idea. “You’re sure? Jack’s PR guy will have to okay the decor and everything, and he’s—”

“A menace,” said Jack through a mouthful of pastry. “But good at creating an image.”

“You’re worried if I can handle your PR guy?” Rose’s eyebrow arched, and Jack gulped.

“No, ma’am,” he said. “Let’s have a good old-fashioned Indiana wedding, then.” He raised his coffee in a mock toast. “I can’t believe I’m getting married in a barn.”

“Granary,” corrected half of her family members, and Jack waved them off.

“Now that’s taken care of,” said Ben, “to the basement!”

As Lucy followed her siblings down the basement stairs to where all of the holiday decor was kept, the front doorbell rang.

“Lucy, can you get that?” called Rose. “I’m supposed to be getting new tree lights from Amazon.”

Lucy made an about-face and headed to the front door, stopping only to pat Larry on the head as he snored in front of the dying fire. She opened the front door, finding the lights her mother had been expecting. She brought them into the living room, working the cardboard box open with her index finger and releasing serpents of green wire onto the carpet near the bare tree. Sitting cross-legged next to the fake branches, she untangled the lights and plugged them in, inhaling in delight at the bright bright bright and the red green blue yellow pink. She began to wind them in and out of the fuller branches at the bottom, twisting and turning and creating a pattern all her own.

She didn’t notice the shadow behind her until it was too late, and the heavy hand touched her shoulder.