The Five-Year Contract. (#arrangedmarriage)

Chapter 2 - Jack Van Lowden

Connecticut, Greenwich, 17th November 

All of us in the living room froze for a quick second. 

No one moved, we just look at each other with apprehensive and worrying faces. The famous Connecticut Queen as my mother is know around here was down on the floor of the living room clutching to her phone like she might actually break the thing. Something serious must have happened, because she wouldn't be in that state for any reason. Meredith and Madison were the first to approach our mom, one on each side. They were trying to calm her down, at the same time they were softly asking what had happened and who had called. It wasn't working. My mother kept crying and I had the feeling she wanted to talk. She just didn't know what and how to say it, which, was worrying the heck out of me.

The twins managed to sit our mother  in the opposite white pattern couch that was facing the stairs. They too sat on each side of my mother. Meredith was on her right side, holding my mother's right hand and Madison was in the left, but not holding her hand since that hand hadn't let go of her phone.  Madison was smoothing her back. I approach them, sitting in the coffee table. 

"Mom," I called her softly. She raise her eyes to meet mine, and I tried. "Who was on the phone, mom?" 

My brother Will was sat on the right couch, waiting for answers. He too looked apprehensive. Carter hadn't sat down and was standing behind me. Elle was on the left couch, her right hand constantly toying with her hair as she looked at my mother. Toying wit her hair was Elle code to being worried and nervous. 

"It was the police..." My mother finally mumbles, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. 

The police? Why would the police call? Why would a phone call from them even leave her in this state? Nothing was making any sense. 

"There was an accident." My mothers says between cries. Suddenly, I feel like I don't want to hear it because if my mother is crying...God, nothing serious, please. "Your father and Gerald," she quickly glances at Elle, who is furiously toying with the ends of her blonde hair. "They were in...helicopter. They were going home." She starts crying again. "They were coming home, honey. There...there was an explosion mid-air."

"NO!" Carter shouts behind me. "Mom, please no."

My mother brushes a few tears from her eyes, "No one survived." 

 Suddenly all hell breaks loose in the living room. My mother's crying stars back up again and it's followed by my sisters crying, who now, are hugging my mother from each side as they keep repeating the word dad and no. 

I don't move. I don't know if I can, its like my heart was taken out from my chest. My dad. The guy who would spend hours with me in the garage talking about cars, who took me to the company he built from the ground up and taught me everything we knew, the father even though was an workaholic was still very much in love with my mother and bought her flowers almost everyday. My father who would smile between reads of the Wall Street Journal. The man that took me to my first soccer game in Europe, to my first NBA game. The one who would sneak with me out of the house to go fishing and drive mother crazy because I was suppose to be studying and not fishing. He had been the best father I and all of my brothers had ever had and now he was dead. Dead. He had died in a stupid helicopter accident while his family was back home patiently waiting for him to return. He would never return. We would never see him again. 

I kept my eyes on the cream carpenter. I don't know how much time I spend like that or how much time had it gone by since my mother gave the terrible news. I didn't cry. I didn't want to cry in front of them because suddenly as I raise my eyes up and look at the three women that were in front of me still crying as they hold each other, I'm aware that I'm the man of his family. William is twenty-eight and although he is a full grown up guy, his life is back in Miami where he is a doctor alongside his wife, Erin, who wasn't here because she wasn't able to change shifts. Carter was only nineteen and was still a freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania. So, that left me. Dad would want me to take care of all of them.