Chapter 1: Uncle Jack

It hadn't been easy after Kevin died. 

Though Linda would like to think if she wasn't strong he wouldn't have liked her at all. She was indeed very strong, he was just the only person to not be threatened by it. 

Not as strong as the cruel storm that took him from her on their honey moon.

But strong enough. 

She turned on the local radio station and the four cup coffee pot he bought for her when they were in college. It was chintzy, silly thing with a griddle and a toaster as well - those two parts she only used on Sundays - and it was deeply out of place in the grand kitchen that was as much a memorial to Kevin as anything. 

"You know, dearest, you are unstoppable in almost every other way." Kevin once said, as he scraped the charred... something... out of what was allegedly as stainless steel pot that Linda had disproved the "stainless" part very thoroughly and very much by accident.  

*tap tap tap* went the crow on the window. Linda dutifully let him in as he was very dutiful bird. 

Marianne called him Uncle Jack and who on earth is going to tell a child she can't name a crow who had been so dutiful her whole life? 

Linda was having a hard time. It was always hard this week every year; she couldn't even be sure when he actually died.

The hurricane washed her up on the shore of the Chesapeake and a very nice old man and his wife - both of them looking like magical people from a much kinder, nicer place - had picked her up and took her to their house and called the local necessaries. 

The hospital was small; but had what was needed to figure out a few things. She was a alive, she was dehydrated and she was pregnant. 

And then there was Marianne. Linda tried to imagine him holding her. Imagined how he would sing classic rock off key. Imagined he was still. Still. 

Kevin planned quite far ahead and ensured a bright future so in a way he was still Still. 

Did he know he would die? Did he have cancer? Linda got her masters, doctorate and law degree and a house and a house keeper because Kevin has planned that far ahead. 

How on earth was such a warm and kind man made from such absurdly, comically cold and mean parents? 

When Linda first met Kevin's father he barely said a word to her and she felt very very hurt yet in the car as he backed out the drive way he said cooly, "Don't mind him, he probably hurt himself scraping his goddamned nose on the ceiling he was turning it up so high at you." 

And Linda absolutely lost it laughing. 

That was Kevin. He loved his parents but "God, are they snobs." he would say because they were snobs about goddamned everything. 

His mother was three sheets from hell to breakfast one Thanksgiving and let loose with the fact that Kevin was "very MUCH adopted!" and which point she comically fell over, but like most practiced alcoholics, she did not break her martini glass. 

A lot things made a lot of sense to Linda then.

Kevin was never, ever embarrassed. His younger brother and sister - both of them essentially raised by him - were blushing to their ears at their mother's outburst.  

Not Kevin, though, as he was quite familiar with his mother and her love of drink; he had to raise his younger brother and sister for that very reason. They were actually biological children with their rich dark hair and cold blue eyes and he, with his red hair and green eyes, was quite obviously not and after that Thanksgiving Kevin's mother would remind Kevin of this fact in front of Linda as often as... 

"CAW!" said the crow, bringing Linda back to the present. 

Linda went to cupboard where she kept Uncle Jack's food. Nuts and dried fruits. 

"What would you like Uncle Jack?" she asked as the coffee maker finished. 

"Caw?" said Uncle Jack titling his head to one side. 

"Salted or unsalted?" Linda asked. 

"Caw!" said Uncle Jack. 

Linda opened the container of unsalted almonds and took one between thumb and forefinger. Uncle Jack bounced from left to right foot in anticipation. Linda lightly tossed him the almond and he caught it with practiced skill. He then placed it on the counter and split it with his beak once and then twice into four neat pieces. 

"Sugar today?" Linda asked as she poured herself a cup. 

"Caw!" said Uncle Jack. 

"Aren't we in a mood?" Linda took Uncle Jack's small clay coffee cup that Marianne had made in school with "Uncle Jack" inscribed on it in cursive, though Linda was certain that school didn't teach her cursive. It was an engineering magnet school and cursive? Surely not! 

Linda was in a fog and didn't notice the sky darken. The rich, wonderful promise of a warm thunderstorm; the first of May, a rain to raise every last flower that was hesitating and rinse away the last dead flesh of a very cold and dark winter. 

"Uncle Jack!" Marianne shouted. 

Oh shit, I forgot! Uncle Jack thought and out the window he went.

"Baby! You scared Uncle Jack!" Linda said, quite taken aback and then she saw how dark it was. 

"Well, that's an early storm..." she said. 

Uncle Jack flung himself back into the window in a hurry and what he was carrying left his beak and bounced all around the very sadly unused kitchen. 

*tingTINGtingTING* and then it stopped bouncing and started spinning so fast it was momentarily a sphere. 

Marianne nabbed with both hands and held it up to her bewildered mother.

Marianne. Everything beautiful about her father. Green eyes and red hair and compassion.

Marianne. Everything strong about her mother. Studious and smart and always learning. 

"Uncle Jack says this is yours." Marianne said. 

It shined. Rich and silver and very heavy for such a small thing. 

Linda turned it over in fingers and felt the text, gentle and fine Latin inscribed by a professional jeweler. 

"semper venit in domum suam" 

Kevin's ring. "I will always come home." 

The sky opened fulfilling more than just the promise of rain. The storm brought a red haired man with it. 

"I will always come home."