Re: [Jack & Clem: family reunion]
She didn't recall. It was remarkably convenient. Jack had no intention or inclination to go back-reading through forum posts. He liked the forums, generally in the evenings because then he could read through other people's exchanges and either remind himself they were all boring and thus he was missing nothing, or that the sorts of lives they had were ones he'd find either exhausting or impossible to maintain. Shane and Penny were an additional complicating factor, as was Sylvie. Jack was thinking about all the ways he could possibly avoid a large-scale family reunion (centered on Clem, of course) when she suggested he thought she was making it all up.
"Why would he be an imposter?" he asked, with some sense of his own stupidity at losing trail of whatever leaps of logic she had made. The bar made sense. There were enough bars in this town that you could drink every night of the week, but there would always be someone there who knew you were doing it.
Jack was extremely pleased she was staying somewhere which meant he didn't have to worry about it - not that the motel particularly inspired the entertaining of visitors. "So he tried to apologize already?" It didn't sound like it had worked, "What were you expecting in the way of follow-through?" He hastened to add, "For chastising purposes, of course."
Jack went to the Capital as little as he possibly could. He went to the ubiquitous NA meetings, to remind himself why he couldn't pick up a pen even if he wanted to and he bought clothes once every few months in a batch at a single store, and he bought books. He couldn't remember last having a hair-cut and he had last had a professional shave the week of his own wedding.
"I like having been let gone," he said without any vested spirit. "Why can't I just deal with Michael?"