Scout and Jem call him "Uncle Jack" and every time James Connors Finch brings this fact up to Atticus, he answers in a low, amused tone, "What else should they call you, Jack?" Of course, Jack doesn't know and never claims to, but he finds it odd that Atticus Finch, of all people, can treat a seven-year-old girl like a rational adult and yet still be completely obtuse as to who he chooses to sleep with.
-.-.-.-
James Connors left his wife Marian with the dilemma of two children and no money when he died, just a few acres of swampy Alabama land not fit for farming and a pile of debt. Alexandra, proud to her detriment even as a girl, protested and then fussed about her mother taking on another husband, but James Connors Junior – Jack – liked the chance to learn hunting, fishing, and reading as taught by Roger Finch. He even liked having himself an older brother in Atticus, though the way Alexandra saw it, Atticus had queer ideas about people and was only going to make their mother sorry she ever married a Finch, let alone a widower with a boy like Atticus. But Jack finds it comforting – exciting, even – and calls himself Jack Finch before his mother even kisses her groom.
Atticus has a deep voice and says, "Sounds far better on you than it ever did on me, Jack."
After that, all the fussing in the world couldn't make Alexandra ruin the allure of the Finch family name.
-.-.-.-
Atticus Finch does have queer ideas about people, and Jack figures it out long before it ever makes their mother sorry, though Alexandra sits on the porch with her needlework and complains that Jack's just going to get them both into trouble by putting so much trust in "that Finch." She has no great love for Atticus, but then, she's nothing like Jack anyway (and it's something Father Finch reminds her of: "Jack's got more Finch in 'im than Atticus and you combined, girl.")
Jack craves Atticus's knowledge, Atticus's reasoning, Atticus's addictively thoughtful personality, and they talk about things while they smoke cigarettes down by the crick that they're not supposed to talk to at the dinner table, things about if niggers and white folks are the same kind of folks (Atticus says they are, and it's the first time Jack hears it), about doctorin' and lawyerin' and going to college, about the boy down the street who's got his eye on Alexandra and about all the fussing their mother makes when Atticus calls her Marian.
"If I have children," Atticus promises, and even though he's sixteen he sounds like an old man, "I'll not have them calling me Papa until they're grown. They can call me by my name."
"You really want your kids callin' you Atticus?" Jack boggles.
"And why not? It's my name."
"It's not proper."
"Not teachin' your girl anything just because she doesn't want to ain't proper, either," Atticus points out, dropping onto his rear end in the high grass and watching a leaf caught in an eddy. "Or not lettin' Negroes get an education just 'cause they used to be slaves. Or chasin' poor ol' Mrs. Fields right out of the yard when she's bringin' around her things from the church. I caught up to her one day, and you know what? She was bringin' Alexandra bread. It's not right for Marian to chase her away, just 'cause she's bringin' in some bread."
"Mama says it's nig – " Atticus looks very carefully at Jack as he says it. Jack's eleven and wants to be as much like his brother as he can, so he straightens his back. "Mama says it's Negro bread."
"So? Bread's bread. I don't see you complainin' when Polly brings over that fried chicken."
Jack frowns. "But everybody says it's not proper. Mama says that Jesus wouldn't like it."
"Marian says a lot of things," Atticus muses, "but I don't know if all of it is what Jesus said. Jesus said we should be good to children and not worry about money more'n him and love our neighbors. I think that's a little more important than chasin' Negroes out of our yards and schools."
"Yeah," Jack agrees, and it's the first time he realizes that more than wanting to do right by his parents, by Jesus, by the world, he just wants to do right by Atticus.
-.-.-.-
The first time Atticus kisses him, not on the cheek but on the lips, it's after Atticus has been away at college for three years and Jack's the only one left at the Landing, moping and waiting for his letter so he can go off and learn to be a doctor.
The wine and the dinner and everything else aside, Jack knows that kissing Atticus feels better than kissing Polly (who got married last year to one of her brother's friends and promptly stopped bringing over that fried chicken her mother's colored girl made so good) and Atticus's skin when it's bare and warm feels better than when it's bare and cold in the crick and they're wrestling over nice stones or a frog one of them caught.
"Still wonderin' what's proper?" Atticus breathes, because Atticus remembers every conversation they've ever had.
"Shut up," Jack mutters, and when his belt comes undone and his pants are on the floor, it's like he's flying without wings.
-.-.-.-
Atticus comes home to tell Dr. Jack Finch he's getting married and Jack kicks things around in the house for the whole Christmas week, even when Alexandra slams things around and demands, "You stop that this instant!" Alexandra's daughter, an annoying thing Jack doesn't like but pretends to, tells on him three times for "fussin'" even though she's twelve and he's over thirty. "In fact, serves you right, bein' angry," Alexandra continues, like she's thinking about it for the first time. "'Bout time Atticus got himself a little sense and a wife. You ought to follow right along, Jack Finch."
Jack calls her a lot of names he's not proud of and storms out of the house, and Alexandra turns up her nose at him.
It's not until it's dark, past dinner and dessert, that Atticus comes out to find Jack sitting on what's left of an old stone wall that had been up when the Landing was a plantation and there were things to wall in, and he climbs up next to him and stares out at the fields that haven't been plowed thoroughly for a generation.
"You don't wanna talk," Atticus says after a moment, "and I respect that."
"The hell would I wanna talk?" Jack demands. "You're getting married."
"I am," Atticus confirms, "and you probably should, too. The world's not a simple place, Jack. There are a lot of things that can happen to people, good people, even God-fearing people if they don't know where to keep their heads. I know a man in Mississippi, found strung up by his feet in a tree and left there to die."
"What's that got to do with – "
"'Cause people found out what he was doing with the man he boarded with, Jack," he answers carefully. His eyes never slide to Jack, but instead focus on the night, dark shadows on a darker backdrop. "This still ain't the world we like to dream up."
Jack huffs, desperately wanting to stay angry, but there's sadness enough in Atticus's voice that it's hard to hold this thing against him. Finally, after a few long moments, he says, "Am I gonna like her, at least?"
Atticus smiles broadly. "I think so, Jack."
The first time she stretches out like a cat before them, her toes curled and her hair trailing over the pillows, Jack's sure he does.
-.-.-.-
"Uncle Jack, why don't you have a wife?"
Scout's twelve this year and finally starting to look like a little lady, with hair that's growing out and a body that's almost ready to show off hips and breasts and a slender figure, one not in her lineage but that Jack's seen in photographs of Atticus's mother. Even though she still goes by Scout and she still reads more than anyone else he's ever met, adult and child alike (and not including Atticus, of course), she's staring to enjoy conversation and education more than slipping off into her own games, and the more they talk the more Scout seems sure she's going to go be a newspaper reporter, "even though no lady I've ever heard of is in the newspapers. Yet."
Jack stretches out and closes the book he's been reading, an old copy of A Christmas Carol that Atticus and he read every Christmas, though the children haven't noticed that. They haven't noticed a lot of things, like how Jack and Atticus don't always kiss on the cheek and how they sit closer than most brothers when they're on the couch in the evenings. Sometimes, Jack thinks Jem's noticed something, but Jem's finally at the age where he doesn't care to ask about things he might not like, so he worries about football and college more than why his father and uncle - two men in middle age with no wives – fall asleep together on the couch during the winter holiday.
"Why don't I have a wife?" Jack repeats, and Scout nods. "Why don't you have a husband, Miss Jean Louise?"
Scout wrinkles her nose. "I'm too little for a husband."
"I thought you and that Dill fella were gonna tie the not as soon as you were done with the fourth grade."
"Dill's not smart enough for me," she says. It's just snide enough to make Jack laugh. "But you're funny and smart. Any lady'd love you. Why don't you have a wife and children? You'd be good at it."
"I certainly would," he replies, and she grins at his cockiness, "but I don't have enough room in my heart for a wife and children and then you two and your father. Not to mention Miss Rose Almer."
"I don't think Atticus would blame you for liking a wife more than you like him," Scout points out.
"Maybe not, but I don't want to take that chance. I'd rather have this little slice of family for good than worry about giving up one and starting all over."
Scout, satisfied with her answer, climbs onto the end of the couch. "Read to me," she half-demands.
"It's A Christmas Carol."
"Atticus says you read that every Christmas."
"That's because he does," Atticus says. Jack looks up and realizes that Atticus has been there the whole time, leaning against the wall and smiling that little half-smile only he can manage. "I used to read it to him, when he was a boy. He probably doesn't remember it. He used to shake all the presents under the tree while I was reading."
"I remember," Jack informs him. He does, too, the first Christmas they were family, when Atticus had read so long that he'd fallen asleep in front of the tree and he'd been carried off to bed. He couldn't have been much older than six or seven, just a child, but even now Atticus's voice is imprinted on his memory, permanent. Comforting, though he doesn't tell Atticus how often he thinks of it when he's away, or how soothing it is when it's near.
He sits up and Atticus slides onto the couch beside him, separating him from Scout. If Scout notices anything odd about Atticus's arm over the back of the couch, halfway around Jack, she doesn't say it. "Read to us, Jack."
Jack smiles, settles back, and reads.
Maybe it's not real family, but it's all he's got and he'll take it. After all, he's always wanted to be a Finch.
Fin.
Author's Notes: I know this doesn't entirely mesh with Aunt Alexandra's care for the Finch family name she shows in the book, but this is an idea that came to me when Atticus and Jack's behavior together was noticed so fully by Scout and I wanted to explore it. Especially given that Atticus has not remarried and that Jack has never married, which seems suspect given their positions in their respective communities. I am obviously a sick, twisted person.