Chapter 10
Jonah Finds Out Furious at Lily
Narrator: Dr. Lillian "Lily" Quinn
The thing about grief is that no one tells you how it curdles between people who love the same person.
When Luke died, I thought my father and I would hold each other up. That we'd cry the same tears, speak the same language of loss, move forward if not together, then at least side by side.
But we didn't.
He mourned in silence. I mourned in fury.
And somewhere between the funeral and the day I packed my life into boxes and left Iron Hollow, we stopped speaking to each other in any meaningful way.
Until now.
Until this.
Until he found out I had married Elias Ward.
I hadn't planned to tell him at all.
Not directly. Not because I was ashamed not really but because there were only so many emotional explosions I could manage in a single month.
We hadn't spoken more than a handful of words since I returned to town. Awkward hellos at fundraisers, stiff nods in passing. The one time I tried to bring up the inn project, he changed the subject to weather.
So I told myself that not telling him was a kindness. Or at least a shield.
I should have known better.
Because in Iron Hollow, secrets don't stay buriednot even under ash.
It happened two days after the courthouse.
I was standing on the newly reinforced porch of the inn, clipboard in hand, walking through the morning crew's checklist, when I heard the familiar cough of his pickup truck's engine.
I froze.
Eli, who was kneeling beside the front steps installing a new railing bracket, glanced up at the sound.
"That your dad?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah," I said. "Apparently the universe ran out of subtlety."
The truck door slammed. Then came boots on gravel. Heavy, angry steps.
I barely had time to step off the porch before Jonah Quinn was in front of me, red-faced, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed beneath the brim of his worn-out fire department cap.
"Is it true?" he barked.
I glanced at Eli, then back at my father.
"If you're asking whether I married Eli," I said, voice flat, "then yes."
His hands curled into fists at his sides. "And you weren't gonna tell me?"
"I didn't think you'd"
"Wouldn't understand? Wouldn't support it? Wouldn't scream at the daughter who decided to marry the man who—" He cut himself off, chest heaving.
Eli stood up, slow and silent. He didn't interrupt. He didn't defend himself.
He just waited.
Jonah's eyes flicked to him and back to me.
"This some kind of stunt? A political move? PR?"
"It's a federal requirement," I said tightly. "For the grant. For the project. It's not real."
"That's bull and you know it."
"It's paperwork."
"You signed your name next to his."
"And what would you rather I have done?" I snapped. "Let the town lose the money? Let the building rot? Let everything Luke wanted to save crumble because I couldn't face the man who survived when he didn't?"
He flinched.
I didn't stop.
"Do you think this is easy for me? Living in that place? Sleeping under the same roof as him? Looking at Eli and seeing all the things I wanted and lost?"
Eli looked away then, jaw tight.
Jonah's face hardened.
"You think I'm mad because it's hard for you?" he said. "You think I'm mad because of the paperwork or the project?"
He stepped forward, voice low and sharp.
"I'm mad because you're wearing your grief like armor and calling it strength. You've shut me out for five years, Lily. You buried yourself in cities and grant applications and dusted-off buildings, and now you come home and play house with a man who "
He stopped again. Words choking in his throat.
"This isn't play," I whispered.
"Then what is it?"
"It's survival."
He shook his head. "You could've told me."
"I didn't think you wanted to know anything about me anymore."
"I wanted to know you were okay."
I laughed once. Bitter. "I haven't been okay since Luke died. You just stopped asking."
That landed. I saw it in his eyes. Regret. Hurt. Something raw.
"I didn't know how," he said after a moment.
"Neither did I," I whispered.
Silence stretched between us. Too long. Too thick.
Then he looked at Eli again.
"Do you love her?" he asked.
The question hit like a slap.
Eli looked up slowly. Straight at my father. Then at me.
"I'm not going to lie to you, sir," he said. "This started as a contract. An agreement. Nothing more."
Jonah raised his eyebrows. "But?"
"But," Eli said, voice steady, "I've never stopped trying to be someone who deserves her forgiveness. And if she ever gives it, I'll spend the rest of my life earning it."
I couldn't breathe.
Jonah looked between us. Then turned and walked back to his truck.
The engine roared to life. Gravel sprayed behind the tires.
And then he was gone.
Later, inside the inn, I found Eli sitting on the stairs, head resting in his hands.
He didn't look up when I sat beside him.
"Sorry you had to deal with that," I said softly.
"He was right to ask."
"He was right to yell, too."
He looked at me then.
"Are you mad at me?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I'm mad at myself."
"For what?"
"For waiting this long to face him. For letting my anger get so comfortable that I didn't realize it was eating me alive."
He nodded slowly.
"You handled it better than I would've."
"That's not saying much," I said. "You've barely raised your voice since I've been back."
"I was yelling on the inside," he said.
That made me laugh. Just once.
"I think he'll come around," Eli said after a moment.
"Maybe," I replied. "Or maybe he won't."
"Would it matter?"
"Yes," I admitted. "Even if I say it doesn't."
We sat in silence for a long while.
Then I leaned back on my hands, staring up at the ceiling.
"I miss my brother," I said suddenly.
Eli turned his head. "I didn't know you had one."
"I didn't," I said. "Luke used to joke that my dad raised him like a son. Sometimes I think he loved Luke more than he ever knew how to love me."
Eli didn't argue.
He didn't say "That's not true."
He just let me say it.
And sometimes, that's all we really need.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
I sat at my desk, a cup of tea growing cold beside me, staring at the marriage license tucked into the drawer.
Legally binding. Emotionally fragile.
I took it out. Ran my finger along the edge of the signature lines.
Then I opened my journal.
He found out. He yelled. And for once, I didn't retreat.
I stood my ground.
I don't know if it makes me brave or just broken in new ways.
But maybe that's what healing is: the slow realization that being cracked open is better than being sealed shut.
I closed the journal.
And for the first time in a long time, I didn't cry.