Violet & Jack: Chapter 12 – Solstice Jack Stallings

By the middle of December, Violet was trying to be careful.

She had dropped off Jack’s things and had hugged him goodbye. She had left without staying, even though part of her had wanted to. After the DUI disclosure, after the story about jail and losing access to his children and walking to work, she knew dating him was not a good idea.

She had told him that and she believed it, but belief did not make the connection disappear. They kept texting.

At first, the conversation stayed close to recovery and self-care. Violet sent pictures of the little shelf by her door, the one she jokingly called her mental health shelf because she had never come up with a better name. It held reminders, slogans, small objects, things that helped her pause before leaving the house and remember who she was trying to be.

Jack said he might need to make one for himself.

He told her he hoped someday he could enjoy being alone and treat himself well.

When he got frustrated, he said, he just wanted to burn it all down.

Violet understood that feeling more than she wanted to. She also knew where resentment could lead. She told him it could destroy any chance of peace.

She sent him the serenity prayer. She told him about Al-Anon, about old slogans on post-it notes, about the program friend who had given her an ornament years earlier. She told him she still repeated the prayer when she could not calm her brain.

Jack listened, or at least he seemed to. He told her he was grateful they had met.

“And that you’re not afraid to be different,” he wrote.

Violet asked what he meant.

“What I’m accustomed to?” he answered.

She did not know how to be anything other than herself. She knew she was not for everyone, but she did not have to be.

“I just appreciate you being yourself,” he wrote. “It’s refreshing.”

That was the kind of thing that stayed with her, not because it was grand. But it landed in the exact place where she was still tender. Violet had spent a long time learning how to be herself without apologizing for it. Jack seemed to see and appreciate that.

The conversation moved easily from recovery to television, from philosophy to jokes, from The Good Place, from eggnog to Christmas movies. It felt ordinary in the best way. Light, familiar, safe.

Then Violet sent him a link to a holiday music event she had gone to for years that they had talked about previously. Jack had indicated he was interested when they talked about it before, but he could only make one of the performances, and it was sold out. Violet thought she might have an extra ticket. “I am thoroughly interested!!” he wrote. He offered to pay her back.

She told him her kids were going, along with her best friend and her best friend’s boyfriend. “You’re making me smile,” he wrote. “I’m excited. It’s been a long day.”

That made her smile too. She had been missing him by then.

She knew she should not. She knew the boundary had been hers. She knew there were good reasons for it. But the texts had softened something. The gratitude. The recovery language. The jokes. The way he still seemed to know how to meet her in the places that mattered.

And now there was the practical problem of the ride. Jack could not drive. The DUI had made that part simple and complicated at the same time. He could walk from work, he said. It was not far. Or she could pick him up, if she wanted to.

Violet knew walking would make the timing tight. She told him she could pick him up.

Her mother was in the hospital. It had already been a long day. She was tired and worried and trying to keep herself steady. But picking Jack up felt easy to offer. She as nothing if not kind and reasonable. He thanked her for thinking of him.

She joked that there was no way he could walk home, shower, and be ready that quickly. “I’ve been walking it in about 50 minutes,” he wrote. “But you’re probably right.”

“Of course I am,” she answered.

“Oh, you got jokes, too, huh.”

The flirtation slid back in almost without effort. He said he would smell better if she picked him up and he was not drenched in sweat. “Who says I’m planning to smell you,” Violet wrote.

He answered, “Here I was thinking you wanted to watch me shower.”

She told him he was silly, but she was smiling.

A few days later, Violet told him she was dreading the next week because she might have to travel to see her mother. Jack answered with something gentle.

“It doesn’t feel like you’ve gotten to rest and just watch a slow sunset much lately.”

She loved that he said it that way. The next day was winter solstice, one of Violet’s favorite days of the year. She told him about the service at church that she loved, about the hope of getting through winter and seeing the light slowly return.

Jack responded early the next morning. “I rarely meet anyone who even thinks about the winter solstice,” he wrote. “It’s one of my favorite days of the year — reminding me that even darkness has limits on how much it can take before it can take no more.”

That was Jack at his most compelling. Not charming in the simple way or merely flattering. He could reach for language that sounded like it came from the same inner weather as hers. He could make darkness feel witnessed. He could make hope sound intelligent instead of sentimental. Violet sent him one of her favorite solstice poems.

By Sunday, they were both excited for the show. It was one of Violet’s favorite December traditions, something she had been going to for years. Her kids were going too, along with her best friend and her boyfriend. Jack would also meet her son for the first time.

That made the night feel bigger than a ticket. When Violet picked him up, Jack had just finished work. He showered and changed, and they still had a few minutes before they needed to leave, so they talked. He told her more about what life had become since Thanksgiving: the legal mess, the custody fallout, the required parenting and substance abuse classes, and the daily walk to and from work. Violet could not imagine doing that every day. He seemed tired, like he had his hands full, and she felt for him.

In the car, Jack told her she looked beautiful.

They went to the show and sat in the second row. And it was good. Not tense or dramatic, just a damn good time.

They listened to the music. They laughed. They sat close to the stage, close enough to feel the energy in the room. Violet had loved the event for years, and bringing Jack into it felt intimate in a way she did not fully want to admit. He sat beside her in a place that already held meaning.

For a couple of hours, everything felt almost normal. After the show, she drove him home. This was the part she had been trying not to think about.

She wanted him to invite her in. She knew that was not fair, exactly. She was the one who had said they should not keep dating. She was the one who had set the boundary after he told her about the DUI. If he respected it, that should have been a good thing.

But wanting does not always follow the rules set by the wiser part of the mind.

He thanked her for the show. Then he got out of the car and went inside.

Violet sat there for a moment. Disappointed.

Embarrassed by the disappointment. Then she started to pull away.

Not far. She stopped. She told herself she needed to use the bathroom. That was true. It was not the whole truth.

She got out of the car, walked to his door, and knocked.

When he opened it, she asked if she could use the bathroom. He let her in.

When she came out of the bathroom, Jack was standing in the living room.

She went to him and hugged him. He held her tightly. The way he held her had always made it harder to remember the reasons she was supposed to keep distance. His body could say things his actions did not support.

Then they kissed. At first, it was just a kiss. Then it was not.

It became deeper, warmer, more urgent. The kind of kiss that made the room narrow around them. The kind that made Violet not want to let go. The kind that was hard to resist. She had missed him. She had missed this.

The closeness. The wanting. The feeling that there was something between them that could not be easily explained or dismissed. For a long while, neither of them pulled away.

Then Jack did. He said he should write.

Violet heard that as restraint. As him trying to be good. Trying to honor what she had said. Trying, maybe, to take recovery seriously. She wanted to believe that.

He thanked her again for the show. She left.

But something had shifted. The boundary was still there on the surface. No one had named a change. No one had said they were dating again. No one had talked through what the DUI meant, or what recovery required, or what honesty would have to look like if they were going to keep any kind of connection.

But the distance had narrowed. The door had opened.

And this time, Violet had been the one to knock.