"What on earth happened to you?!" demanded Mrs. Quinzel at seeing the state of Harley's wet and muddied clothes when they returned home. "Get out of those at once or you'll catch your death of cold!"
She turned on the fire in the grate and Harley sat down in front of it. "Jack, can you please help me?" she asked, holding out her boots to him.
He nodded, pulling off her muddied boots and placing them down by the fire, and then helping her off with her coat. "We…uh…fell in some mud," invented Jack. "And then tried to wash it off by jumping in puddles…"
"And then a car nearly hit me, but Jack saved my life," said Harley, casually.
Mrs. Quinzel stared at her. "What?" she gasped.
"I didn't see the car in the road, but Jack did, and he jumped in front of me," explained Harley, calmly. "He saved me, and then he called the guy in it a rich twit and his goddamn…"
"That's enough, Harley," interrupted Jack, hastily.
Mrs. Quinzel stared at Jack as he helped Harley pull off her hat, gloves, and scarf. "I would appreciate if you didn't use language like that in front of my daughter," she said, quietly.
"Yes, ma'am, I'm sorry, ma'am," said Jack, hanging Harley's wet things over the fireplace.
"And when she's out with you, I expect constant supervision so that she doesn't run into streets," she continued.
"Yes, ma'am – I won't let it happen again," said Jack.
Mrs. Quinzel nodded. "And…thank you so much for saving my baby girl!" she gasped, embracing Jack suddenly. "Oh God, Jack! I don't know what would have happened without you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"
She kissed both his cheeks. "Now you warm up there while I make you both some hot cocoa with marshmallows! And then, Harley, you're taking a bath!"
Harley made a face as her mother disappeared into the kitchen. "I hate baths," she muttered.
"Well, you don't want that mud all over your face forever," said Jack, smiling and wiping some off. "You don't look very pretty."
"You think I'm pretty without it?" she asked.
"Sure I do," he said, nodding. "Prettiest girl I've ever seen."
"Yeah?" she asked. "How many girls have you seen?"
"Lots," he said.
"You ever kissed a girl?" she asked.
"Sure," he said, shrugging.
"On the lips?" she pressed.
"Why are you so curious?" he asked, grinning.
She shrugged, flexing her toes in front of the fire. "If you kissed a girl on the lips, you must have thought she was pretty. So I can't be the prettiest girl you've ever seen if you've kissed someone else."
He laughed. "Only you would take a compliment and try to think of a reason why it can't be true!" he chuckled, wiping more mud from her face. "But it is true, trust me. You're the prettiest girl I've ever seen. And you need to learn to think less, kid."
"I don't wanna think less," retorted Harley. "Stupid people think less. Smart people think more. And I wanna be a smart person."
"You're already a smart aleck," he retorted, ruffling her hair. "Believe me, thinking too much can be a bad thing."
"There's no such thing as thinking too much," said Harley, frowning. "That's like saying you're too smart. You can't be too smart, or too pretty. They're good things to be, so you can't have too much of them."
"You're so young, kid!" he laughed. "And too smart, and too pretty for your own good," he added, kissing the top of her head. "Ew, mud!" he said, coughing and making a face.
"Maybe you shouldn't have thrown it at me!" giggled Harley.
"Thrown? I thought Jack said you fell," said Mrs. Quinzel, entering the room at that moment with a tray of hot chocolate.
"Oh…yeah..after we fell in the mud, we kinda got into a…mud fight," admitted Jack. "We figured we were already covered in it, so why not?"
Mrs. Quinzel sighed. "Finish your cocoa, Harley – I'm filling up your bath."
Jack and Harley sipped the cocoa through straws, and then suddenly Jack started blowing bubbles in it. Harley giggled, imitating him.
"Honestly, Jack, you really do teach my daughter the worst habits," sighed Mrs. Quinzel, re-entering the room. "Come on, Harley – if you're just going to play with your cocoa, it's bath time."
"Save me, Jack!" screamed Harley as she was dragged off.
"Not this time, kiddo!" he laughed.
"Meanie!" she said, sticking her tongue out at him as she was pulled into the bathroom and the door slammed. Jack chuckled, sipping his own cocoa in front of the fire.
"Gladys told me about what you did for Harley," said Mr. Quinzel, entering the room suddenly. "Thank you, Jack."
He shrugged. "I don't deserve thanks – it was just a natural instinct to protect her."
Mr. Quinzel nodded. "It's a natural instinct of a good man to protect the innocent," he agreed.
Jack shrugged again. "I don't think I'm a good man, Mr. Quinzel."
"I do," he said, sitting down next to him.
"Well, you don't know…everything about me," murmured Jack. "My past, my upbringing, my…family."
"A man can't help his circumstances," said Mr. Quinzel. "His actions are what make him a good man."
Jack was silent. "My Dad…was a hitman for the Valestra gang," he said. "He was in and outta jail my whole life. And my Mom…never wanted a kid, y'know. So I was alone a lot growing up, but I was always surrounded by crooks and thugs and criminals, bad types of people. And then one night I woke up to…gunfire and screaming and…and I ran. I got outta there. I still don't know what happened, some kinda hit, I guess. I saw pictures of my parents' bodies later on discarded scraps of newspaper, and that's how I found out they were dead. From someone's thrown out, yesterday's news."
"I'm sorry, Jack," said Mr. Quinzel, gently.
He nodded. "I've…done bad things, y'know?" he said. "From an early age, I…I never knew right from wrong. And my parents and the gang thought it was funny, making a kid do bad things because he didn't know any better. I stole and lied and cheated and did tons of other stuff. I can't just erase the memory of all that just because I wanna be a good man now. I can't forget who I used to be. And there are people out there who…won't let me forget," he added, glancing out the window.
Mr. Quinzel said nothing for a moment. "Jack, what do you want out of life?" he asked at last.
Jack shrugged. "To be happy, I guess. Isn't that what everyone wants?"
"Yeah," agreed Mr. Quinzel. "But being happy means different things to different people. To some people it means money and power and influence, and to some people it means a home and a family. That's my definition of it anyway," he said, smiling. "What's yours?"
Jack shrugged again. "I…I dunno, Mr. Quinzel. I'm happy when…I do a good job at work, or…when I'm with Harley."
"So maybe you're a family kinda guy, same as me," said Mr. Quinzel, nodding. "And now think about Harley. Do you think she gives a damn what you used to do?"
Jack shook his head. "No. She adores the guy you are now. A good man," said Mr. Quinzel. "And trust me, Jack, it'll be the same for anyone who loves you, wife, kids, whatever. They won't care what kinda past you had, they'll just love who you are. You don't need to erase your past to be happy. You just need to embrace the present."
Jack nodded slowly. "Harley's lucky to have a Dad like you," he said at last, smiling at him.
Mr. Quinzel smiled back. "Well, I always wanted a son too," he said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Now c'mon, get out of those muddy clothes and get cleaned up for dinner. Gladys is making meatloaf."