She remembered once overhearing Zoe and Wizard talking about his father.
Apparently, Jack West Sr. was American, and he and Jack didn’t get along. To anger his father—who wanted him to join the US military—Jack had become a member of the Australian Army, based on his mother’s nationality.
So one day, over breakfast, Lily asked him straight out, “Daddy? Do you have a family?”
Jack smiled. “Yes. I do.”
“Brothers or sisters?”
“One sister.”
“Older or younger.”
“Older. By two years. Although…”
“Although what?”
“Although, she’s not older than me anymore. Her name was Lauren. She’s no longer older than me because she died when she was thirty.”
“Oh. How did she die?” Lily asked.
“She was killed in a plane crash.” Jack’s eyes became distant. “An airliner accident.”
“Were you close?”
“Sure we were,” Jack said, perking up, returning from his memories. “She even married my best friend, a Navy guy named J. J. Wickham.”
“What about your parents?”
“They divorced when Lauren and I were in our teens. My mother was a high school teacher. History. A smart and quiet woman. And my dad, well—”
Lily waited, holding her breath.
West stared off into space for a moment. “He was with the US Army, met my mum while out here on exercises. He was on the fast track up the promotions ladder and always wanting to go higher. Ambitious. He was also intelligent, really intelligent, but conceited about it—he looked down on anyone who didn’t know as much as he did, talked down to them, including my mother. Which was why they split in the end. She won’t see him now.”
“Do you keep in touch with her?” Lily had never met Jack’s mother.
Jack laughed. “Of course I do! It’s just that…she doesn’t want my father to know where she is, so I only see her rarely. I was actually going to ask you if you wanted to join me the next time I visited her. She’s very keen to meet you.”
“Is she? I’d love to!” Lily exclaimed, but then she frowned: “What about your dad? Do you ever see him?”
“No,” Jack said firmly. “We never really got along. In fact, I can honestly say I don’t ever want to see him again.”
Despite the fact that Jack was no longer on active service, the military never quite went away.
On one occasion in late 2006, an Australian general came to visit Jack at the farm and asked him lots of questions about the Capstone mission.
The general also asked Jack if he knew the whereabouts of someone called the Sea Ranger.
This Sea Ranger, Lily gleaned, was a modern-day pirate of some sort, cruising the east coast of Africa in some kind of boat.
Jack told the general he hadn’t seen the Sea Ranger in years.
But the thing about Jack that was of most interest to Lily was his relationship with Zoe.
When Zoe was finally able to come to Australia more often, Lily was thrilled—especially when she could see how close Zoe and Jack were becoming.
They would smile when they talked on the balcony or went for walks together at sunset.
Lily also enjoyed doing girly stuff with Zoe—painting toenails, doing each other’s hair, dyeing their end tips in matching electric pink—but more than anything else, she loved how Zoe made Jack happy.
She once asked Zoe if she was in love with Jack. Zoe had just smiled. “I’ve loved him from the first moment I met him. But, well—”
“But what?” Lily had asked gently, but Zoe didn’t reply, she just stared off into space, her eyes moist with tears.
Lily let it go, but more than once she imagined Jack and Zoe getting married, and it made her happy because then Zoe would officially be her mom.
Christmas 2006 was an occasion Lily would remember for a long, long time.
She and Jack spent it in Dubai, at the Burj al Arab tower, with all the members of the team that had found the Seven Wonders and the Capstone.
Pooh Bear and Stretch were there, as was Fuzzy, having come all the way from Jamaica. Zoe and Sky Monster, Wizard and Tank.
The whole family, back together again. Lily loved it.
She spent much of the next week with Pooh Bear and Stretch, visiting Pooh’s father’s palace.
