"Jack, listen to me," Heller began quietly, but Jack was on a roll, and he wasn't about to stop.

"No!" he burst out sharply. "You are going to listen to me now." Once again he basked in the warm ecstasy that lit up his brain and glowed in his chest, where his anger was concentrated. His gun hand wavered slightly, and he lowered it, taking a few steps across the room. As good as it had felt to dominate Heller physically, that part of the conversation was over. Jack was about to start getting at the things that were really bothering him, and for that he needed some space. Not just because he didn't want to show too much emotion in front of Heller, but also because he was genuinely alarmed by how he had felt in the past few minutes, and he was afraid his anger would start pouring out all at once and in the wrong places and before he could stop himself he'd do something that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Control your emotions; don't let them control you. Dammit, had he just quoted his father? He was even more messed up than he'd realized. Pull yourself together, Jack. You didn't come here to break down and make a fool of yourself.

"Earlier today, you said that I was cursed." Jack fought hard to keep his voice even; after all, he was only stating a fact. But he didn't quite manage it. The anger and betrayal and hurt bled into his tone, and the words came out choked and strained, with just the faintest hint of a tremor coloring their edges. "That anyone I touched… ended up dead… or ruined." Heller hadn't said that last part, but Jack knew he'd meant it. Jack had opened up to Heller in the past about his strained relationships with Kim and Chase, and of course he'd admitted to feeling guilty about Audrey. Suddenly, the image of Miriam Henderson, crying and holding her leg as she stared at Jack in horror, appeared in front of his eyes, but he blinked it away. He was done letting Heller get to him.

"How dare you?" This time, Jack didn't fight the pain that laced his words, since it only strengthened the accusation. "How dare you? The only thing did, the only thing I have ever done, is what you and people like you have asked of me."

Jack allowed Miriam Henderson back into his mind, this time juxtaposed with images of her husband stabbing Tony to death with a needle, slitting Audrey's brachial artery, selling nerve gas to terrorists. Of Edgar collapsing to his death just outside the sealed situation room, of the little girl he had only just managed to save at the mall. Yes, there were people very close to Jack whom he had hurt or whose deaths he had, directly or indirectly, caused, but he could never be accused of apathy. Every one of those tragedies had happened despite, or perhaps because of, Jack giving everything he had and more to fight evil and protect innocent life. But for Heller, sitting there on the couch in his cozy mansion, Jack's sacrifices and his most arduous efforts were not enough. Jack wasn't surprised. They had never been enough for Phillip Bauer either.

…

When Graem heard about Jack's new lawn-mowing business, he wanted to try his hand at it himself. Phillip was all too happy to capitalize on the opportunity. He gave Graem his very own lecture on the stock market and announced that whichever of the boys owned more BXJ shares at the end of the summer would get to accompany Phillip to the shareholders' meeting in September. Soon, Jack and Graem were fighting over who got to use the lawn mower, to the delight of their father, who began charging them money to use the machine. He would auction it off by the hour: whoever bid more got access to the mower but had to pay double if he was so much as a second late in returning it.

Jack threw himself into the task of making as much profit as possible, excited to make his father proud. He walked around the neighborhood for hours distributing fliers to advertise his business. He experimented with different price points for his services. He followed the price of BXJ's stock in the newspaper and tried to buy shares when they were at their cheapest, always complying with the insider trading guidelines his father had shown him. He calculated that it would be cheaper to buy a used lawn mower rather than continue to rent from his father, which made Graem gloat as Jack fell behind him in the share count in the short term, but which Jack was confident would pay off eventually. And, of course, he mowed lawn after lawn in the bone-dry southern California heat, until his muscles were sore, his hands were covered in blisters, and his legs were scraped up from the small stones that would bounce up out of the grass.

It was hard work, but it paid off. On the day before school started, when the boys compared how many shares they each owned, Jack was well ahead of his brother. Jack grinned from ear to ear as he was officially crowned the winner. He didn't know exactly what a shareholders' meeting was, but he did know that he got to miss a day of school to go spend time with his father, and that was more than enough for him.

On the day before the meeting, Jack was called in to his father's study. He hadn't seen much of his father over the past few weeks, since Phillip had been at the office most of the time – preparing for the meeting, Jack guessed. He couldn't wait to find out more about what he could expect the following day.

Jack had barely stepped over the threshold when his father asked him, "Jack, how have your grades been recently?"

Jack bristled. This was a conversation he'd been hoping to avoid, because he knew his father wouldn't like the answer. "Well, school is just starting out, so I haven't had that many tests yet," he stammered, "but I got an A on the first English test and the first history test."

"All right, but what about math?" Phillip prodded.

"I- I got an A minus," Jack admitted. That would have been good enough, praiseworthy even, for most of his friends' parents, but Phillip Bauer's standards were high, and uncompromisingly so. "But it's only one test and I'll get it up next time–"

"I don't want to hear empty platitudes," Phillip interrupted. "I want you to tell me exactly what went wrong and how you plan to fix it for the next test."

Jack had known his father would ask this question, and he was ready. "I worked too slowly and I didn't have time to check–"

But Phillip was already shaking his head. "Wrong. You want to know why you did poorly on this test? It's because you spent your entire summer mowing lawns, which left you with no time to review your schoolwork from last year."

Jack felt heat rising in his face as he was forced on the defensive. "But I thought you wanted me to mow as many lawns as I could so I could buy more shares of BXJ!"

"And I've been telling you your whole life that you need to do well in school. Do you think that suddenly changed?" Phillip fixed his son with a piercing stare. "It's not all black and white, Jack. Just because I want you to learn about business doesn't mean I don't also want you to succeed in school."

"But, Dad, it was summer vacation! I didn't know–" Jack protested, his voice rising almost to a yell. He knew he would be reprimanded for getting emotional, but he couldn't help it when the attacks coming his way were so unfair.

"You didn't know, right," Phillip cut him off dismissively, and Jack had to fight the urge to take a swing at something. He felt like his father was pushing him into a verbal corner and not allowing him to defend himself. "So let's review," Phillip went on. "Either you're too immature to realize that there might be more than one thing you need to focus on, or you just lied to me and you decided to sacrifice your grades so that you could beat your brother. Personally, I think it's a mixture of the two, because like I said, the world isn't black and white. You're also too immature to realize your mistake and needed me to point it out for you, and instead of taking ownership, you're trying to make excuses for yourself."

"I'm not trying to make excuses, I just–"

"I'm not done talking," Phillip snarled, making Jack jump with the venom in his tone. "You own more shares of BXJ than your brother, yes, but to get there, you cheated. You neglected your other responsibilities, and that's behavior I can't reward. So you won't be going to the shareholders' meeting tomorrow."

Jack had been doing his best to push down his anger and frustration, knowing that he would only make things worse if he showed how upset he was, but the smug look on his father's face was too much to handle. "Do you think I care about the stupid shareholders' meeting?" he exploded. "I just wanted to spend some time with you without any fights or arguments or you telling me what a bad son I am! I don't care about your stupid company! I'm going to go get the phone right now so I can sell all those shares that I didn't even want in the first place!"

"No, you're not, Jack," Phillip replied calmly.

"Watch me!" Jack snarled, turning around to leave.

"No, Jack, you won't, because at your age, you can't buy or sell stock without parental consent. And you don't have my consent."

Jack whirled around. "Why not? It's my money and I earned it! You don't have the right to control how I spend it!"

"I have the right to hold you back when you're trying to run off a cliff," Phillip retorted coolly. "The only reason you want to sell these shares is because you want to throw it in my face like a petulant toddler. You're being irrational and, like you would have realized earlier if you'd been paying attention, immature. You're making a rash, long-term decision because of how you feel right now. Until you grow up and learn to control your emotions – and, judging by how you're acting now, that won't happen anytime soon – you need me to protect you from yourself. And by the way, next time you use that tone with me, you're sleeping in the yard. Now, I need to get back to work, so go study for your next math test."

Jack choked back the scathing remarks that tried to force themselves from his throat and ran out of the study, pushing past Graem, who had been eavesdropping in the hallway, and slammed the door once he reached his room. He'd pay dearly for that little act of defiance, but it felt good, and what was one more transgression when he'd already made so many? He could never seem to do anything right.

Phillip never did let Jack sell his shares of BXJ, even though he tried many times over the years. But once Jack turned eighteen, there was nothing Phillip could do to stop him, and Jack sold the shares, making a significant profit in the booming 1980s economy. A few weeks later, Graem found a check in the mail for the exact amount of Jack's earnings from the transaction, along with a note:

Grae – this is the money I made from selling all my shares of BXJ. I'd like you to have it. Not because I think I can fix anything by throwing money at you, but because the idea of me profiting from the company just doesn't sit right, after everything. Please know that I wish I'd left on better terms, and I truly wish you all the best. Jack.