Chapter Forty-seven: Answers
It all happened so quickly that Jack Vaughn wouldn't be quite sure what had happened until later.
One minute, a gun was being held to his grandfather's head and he was being asked to make a decision. The next minute, the gun was being knocked out of Sark's hand. It took Jack a few seconds to realize that it was his mother who had done it. There was a struggle, Sydney and her mother both fighting for control, and then a shot rang out, and a body dropped to the floor. It was a few minutes before the reality of what had happened sunk in.
Irina Derevko was dead.
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A week later, Jack Vaughn and his mother sit on the porch of their house, staring out at the waves. Jack will head back to UCLA that day. His father is bringing his things down for him, and Emily and Keith are in the living room doing God knows what. Jack thinks that Keith got the best end of the deal, going to LA but staying out of the line of fire. He didn't have to see what the rest of them had seen, and Emily thought he was some kind of hero.
The rest of their time in LA had passed in a blur. Sark had traded their freedom for his own life, and they had been back on the island by the end of the day. Sydney's father was beat-up but fine; Jack was planning to check in on him every once in awhile when he went back to LA.
"I think that's great," Sydney had said, her voice soft. "I never had much of a relationship with him. Maybe you can now."
Now, he turns to his mother. "Mom?" he asks tentatively.
She offers him a weak half-smile. "Yeah?"
"How do you feel now that it's all over?" he asks. "Now that your mother's gone."
Sydney shrugs. "I don't know. Relieved. Kind of sad. Safer than I have in years. How am I supposed to feel?"
"I don't know."
Sydney smiles sadly. "Jack, for what it's worth, I'm sorry you had to go through all of that."
Jack shrugs. He opens his mouth to speak, but then his father appears in the doorway, Jack's duffel bag slung over his arm. "You didn't have much stuff, Jack."
"Yeah, I know," Jack says. "Listen, I--"
"Hi, Jack."
Jack looks up in surprise to see Delia standing in front of their house. "Delia," he says, surprised. "I was just about to leave for the airport."
"Can I drive you?"
"Uh…sure." He turns to his parents a bit regretfully. "So, I'll see you."
"When do you think you'll be home again?" Sydney asks worriedly.
"I don't know," Jack says. "Spring break's in March, but I don't really know what my plans are."
"Well, call when you get back to LA."
"I will." Jack hugs his dad first, taking the duffel bag from him, then turns to his mother. When he is in her embrace, she whispers, "I'll understand if you can't forgive all we've done."
He smiles sadly. "It's okay," he says. "You always come through when it counts."
Sydney's eyes are brimming with tears as he turns to leave with Delia.
"So," she says when they are in her car. "I tried to come by yesterday, but no one was home. The restaurant was closed, too."
"Yeah, um--" Jack bites his lower lip. "We went to see my grandma."
"Oh," Delia says. "How is she?"
Jack grimaced. "She died, actually."
"Oh, Jack, I'm sorry," Delia says sympathetically. "I'd never heard you mention a grandmother."
"Yeah, she and my mother weren't close."
"Oh. You just went to see her because she was dying?"
"Something like that."
The two of them drive in silence for a moment before Delia says, "Look, Jack, I know we've both moved on. But you never said goodbye when you left for college, and I just wanted to say goodbye now."
Jack smiles. "Maybe I'll see you next time I'm home."
"Maybe."
Jack feels, as he comes to the end of his stay on the island, that all he has are maybes. He doesn't know when he's coming back, when he'll talk to his parents again. But he has more answers than he did when he came home, and though he doesn't like all of those answers, he thinks that he likes them a lot better than having only questions.
THE END