The knock came on a Thursday night while the Mercer brothers were having dinner at their mother's house. It was just a few days before Christmas and they had almost finished fixing the house after the shooting. Everybody looked in the direction of the front door, but no one made a move to answer it. Camille looked at the brothers and rolled her eyes.
"One o' you gonna get that, or is the woman gonna do it?" she said in her usual, annoyed tone.
Sofi smacked Angel's arm and made a "tsk"-ing noise. "Don't be so lazy, baby," she ordered him.
The truth was that none of the brothers really trusted the sound of knocking on their front door after what happened to Jack.
Jeremiah made a move to get up, but Bobby signaled for him to stay seated. Bobby left his seat and stalked over to the front door (the one they had just put on a couple of days before this night). He looked through the peephole as another knock came. The only person he could see outside was a young woman in a black leather jacket. She hugged herself and shivered against the cold. Just as she began to turn away from the house, Bobby opened the door. She spun on her heel and giggled a little.
"Hi… I wasn't sure if anybody was home…" she said quietly. She was an attractive girl, with curly, red hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and bright eyes. Her skin was pale, though her cheeks were rosy from the cold, and she had a healthy, athletic build.
"Sorry it took so long. My brothers and I were having dinner," Bobby explained, poking his head out the door and looking both ways down the street.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just looking for Jack Mercer. Is this Evelyn Mercer's house?"
Bobby was taken by surprise by this question. He thought that everybody knew that Jack had died by now. He failed to form questions for a moment, stuttering and gesturing with his hands. He blurted out the first words that formed coherently in his mind. "Who are you?"
She seemed confused by his question, as well, and just stared at him for a second. "I'm Sadie Rivers… Jack's fiancé…" she said this as if it should have been obvious to Bobby. Bobby closed his eyes and sighed. "He hasn't told you about me yet? He said he was going to tell you right after the funeral. Is he in there?"
Bobby shushed her and invited her inside. "I'm Jacky's oldest brother, Bobby," he explained. As they made their way into the dining room, she looked around with some interest. When they reached the room, Bobby pointed to each of his brothers and introduced them to Sadie. She looked confused for a moment, but then Bobby explained how Evelyn had adopted all four of them. Next, he introduced Camille, Jerry's kids, and Sofi.
"You know, I'm real sorry about your mom," Sadie said. "Jack said he was going to bring me here in the spring so I could meet her, and then… He was so heartbroken the night he got the call."
"Yeah, he took it the hardest," Jerry explained.
"There was a sad silence between them all, and then Sadie looked around. "So, where is Jack?" she asked. Jerry and Angel both looked surprised.
Bobby sighed and put a hand on her shoulder. "Listen… There's something we've gotta tell you." He looked at his brothers and signaled for them to follow him. "Why don't ya come into the living room, maybe take off your jacket for a while." She nodded with a confused look in her blue-green eyes and followed him into the living room. Angel and Jerry stood from their seats and followed close behind them. On her way in, Sadie spotted a picture of Jack hanging on the wall and smiled. He was the most handsome man she'd ever known. Once in the living room, she took off her jacket, revealing arms riddle with tattoos.
'Definitely Jack's kinda girl,' Bobby thought. She sat on the couch and Bobby sat next to her. Angel and Jerry sat on the loveseat across from them. "I'm sorry you didn't hear this earlier, but we didn't know about you," Bobby began. "After our mother's funeral, we knew the cops weren't goin' to do much to find her killers, so we decided to take matters into our own hands. We found the guys and, uh… took care of 'em. Unfortunately, the guy they worked for found us." She now looked utterly confused and a little on the scared side. "They shot up the house, and… They, uh… They killed Jack. They shot him and we couldn't get to him."
Her eyes began to fill with tears and she squeezed their lids shut. "No…" she whispered. "No, don't tell me that. Please, no…" When she opened her eyes again, she saw that Bobby had a tear running down his cheek. She looked over at Jerry and Angel, who were both looking at the floor, trying not to cry. Her silent tears turned into whole-hearted sobs and she buried her face in the black and white scarf she wore around her neck. Bobby did the only thing he could think to do to comfort her. He pulled her into a hug and let her cry into his shoulder. She returned the embrace and cried openly on him.
"I'm so sorry, Sadie," he said. She shook as she cried and he wanted nothing more than to take away her grief and bring Jack back to life, for all of them. He looked over at his brothers, who both had tears in their eyes. This was one of the toughest moments of his entire life…
Angel climbed the stairs and headed for his room. As he passed Jack's room (which he and Bobby had kept the same as Jack had it), he heard sniffling. He pushed open the door to find Sadie curled in a ball on Jack's bed. He had offered her the room for as long as she was in town. Bobby had told her that she was welcome to stay longer, and that she was welcome to come back anytime she wanted to. When she heard the door open, she sat up and brushed her red curls out of her face.
"Hey," he said quietly, "are you gonna be alright tonight?"
She wiped her eyes and smiled. "Yeah. I was just thinking about the day he left for your mom's funeral. He cried a little as I drove him to the airport. When they announced that his plane was boarding, he gave me the tightest hug anyone had ever given me. This may sound corny, but I took in a deep breath of his smell because I knew I wouldn't see him for a few days. We kissed, and then he said… he said he loved me and that he'd be back before I could miss him too much." She wiped more tears away and took a deep breath. "When I didn't hear from him after he was supposed to be back, I figured that he just needed more time. A couple of days ago, I couldn't take it anymore and bought a ticket to fly out here."
Angel walked all the way into the room and sat next to her on the bed. "We must've gotten so wrapped up in getting our revenge that he didn't have the time to tell us about you." He laughed a little. "Bobby was always makin' fun of him, callin' him his little sister because he never had a girlfriend." She laughed through her tears and started fidgeting with the scarf she'd been wearing earlier. "What's the deal with this thing, anyway?"
She unraveled the scarf a little to show off its black and white threads. "I made this for him last year. He wore it all the time. When he left, he gave it to me to hang on to. I know it was just something to keep me from missing him too much." She held the scarf up to her nose and inhaled a deep breath. "It smells just like him."
Angel grabbed a corner of the scarf and sniffed it. He smiled and said, "Yep… That's Jack, alright." Silence filled the room and he sighed heavily. "Well, I'm off to bed. Sleep well, little sister."
She looked up at him with watery eyes and smiled. "Thank you, Angel. For everything." Angel nodded and left, closing the door behind him. Sadie smelled the scarf again and lay back down. Everything about the room reminded her of Jack. She looked across the room and spotted his guitar, one of his most prized possessions. She remembered the night he played the song he wrote for her on the guitar. Hugging the scarf close to her chest, she closed her eyes and pictured Jack's beautiful smile. All of her sorrow was pushed to the back of her mind because she at least had all of the glorious memories.