Chapter Thirty -One : Visitors and Volunteers

Late summer brought unexpected guests to Dalton.

Ellie was hanging June's tiny clothes on the line when she heard the sound of tires crunching gravel. Jack stepped out of the garage, wiping his hands on a rag, as an unfamiliar green truck pulled up to their house.

Out stepped a woman and a teenage boy.

The woman had kind eyes, streaks of silver in her hair, and a look that said she'd been through a lifetime's worth of stories. The boy, tall and lanky, looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.

"Jack Lawson?" the woman asked.

Jack approached slowly. "That's me."

She smiled gently. "Name's Clara Jean. I knew your brother. A long time ago."

Jack's face changed. Ellie stepped beside him, gently holding June on her hip.

Clara Jean reached into her bag and pulled out a faded letter. "He wrote this before he passed. Said if anything ever happened to him, I should bring his son here. Said you'd know what to do."

Jack took the letter with shaking hands. "His son?"

The boy looked away, clearly uncomfortable.

Ellie exchanged a glance with Jack. They both felt it—life shifting again.

That night, after dinner, the boy—Lucas—sat on the porch, silent. Jack brought him lemonade.

"I don't expect anything," Lucas muttered.

Jack nodded. "Neither did I, once. But sometimes life gives us things we don't expect so we can become people we never imagined."

Lucas didn't respond, but he didn't get up either.

In the days that followed, Lucas stayed in the guest room. He barely spoke, but he watched—watched Jack fix things, watched Ellie write, watched June babble her way into everyone's hearts.

One afternoon, Ellie handed him a notebook. "You don't have to talk," she said. "But if something needs saying, write it."

Jack found the notebook under Lucas's bed days later. The first page read:

I don't know where I belong. But this place feels quieter. Like maybe I could think here.

Ellie and Jack read it together, sitting on the porch swing, June sleeping between them.

"We'll give him time," Ellie said

Jack nodded. "We've got plenty of that."

And so, the story of the Lawsons expaNot just a family of three anymore, but a family with room. Room for healing. For new roots. For the lo