Chapter 8: Kitchen Table Truths
The kitchen was too small for Jax. When he sat down at the chipped formica table, his broad shoulders seemed to press against the floral wallpaper, and his long legs had to stretch out sideways to avoid hitting the wooden rungs of the spare chair. My mother sat across from him, her hands folded tightly in her lap, staring down at the faded oilcloth tabletop where a single mug of black coffee was sending up a thin, winding curl of steam. I stood near the refrigerator, keeping quiet, watching the invisible current pass between them.
"You shouldn't have come here, Thomas," my mother said softly, her voice barely rising above the hum of the old refrigerator compressor. "The club... they don't let go of things that easy. If word gets out that you tracked back here because of a picture and a boy—"
"Let them look," Jax interrupted, his tone completely flat, devoid of fear. He reached into the inner pocket of his leather vest and pulled out the small folded paper I had given him at the diner, laying it flat on the table with two thick fingers. "I've spent twenty years running from what I was, Clara. Thought I was doing you a favor by walking away before the indictment dropped, before the state took everything. But looking at him standing in that diner today... I realized I wasn't protecting anyone. I was just hiding."
My mother looked up, her eyes bright with unshed tears that she refused to let fall. "He has your eyes, Thomas. Every time I looked at him growing up, I saw the ghost of the boy who used to fix motorcycles behind the grain elevator. It nearly broke me half the time."
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"He's got more than my eyes," Jax said, his gaze shifting across the room to meet mine for a brief, steady moment. "He's got a spine. Walked right up to me in the middle of a rally full of patched bikers and laid that photo down without flinching."
"Because he deserves to know who he came from," my mother whispered, her voice cracking slightly as she finally reached out, her trembling fingertips brushing against the edge of the paper Jax had brought back home.
