Jack Harrison leaned over the wooden crate filled with letters, a strand of dirty blonde hair escaping from the chignon at the base of her straw sailor's hat. The heat of the summer of 1918 swept through the small brick post office and Jack ached to leave it behind and ride off on her bicycle into the Virginian countryside. A few more minutes, she promised herself. I'll ready the mail for the milkman and go home.

Harold Blackaby, the milkman, also served as the town of Irvington's postman, delivering the mail that Jack received and sorted every day. With the genesis of the Great War and the departure of most of the able-bodied men, women like Jack volunteered to take over jobs previously only available to men. Jack rather liked the blurring of the line between men's and women's duties; she herself had never fit into the categories society provided, and she much preferred to contribute to the war effort through building bombs and sorting mail than embroidering handkerchiefs or writing love letters.

As Jack sorted through the mail, her fingers caught on a missive addressed to a familiar name: Frances Hunt. Curiosity piqued, she pulled the letter from the stack and searched for the sending address. When she found what she sought, Jack's breath caught in her throat and her face blanched. Roy. Of course, she'd heard from the gossips in town that Roy had joined the Army, and like thousands of other young men, he had been sent to France, but she'd thought nothing of it. Jack had not spoken to Roy in many years, avoiding him when she could and looking the other way when they were so unfortunate as to cross paths in town. He had not been part of her life for so many years that she now barely spared him a second thought--until today, that is.

Jack didn't need to open the letter from Washington to know what it said. She had distributed too many of these letters on days previous. It is my painful duty to inform you that a report has been received from the War Office notifying the death of Roy Hunt. The words soaked into Jack's heart long untouched by Roy Hunt with the power of cold winter rain. An image of the man in his youth appeared before Jack, Roy with his misty green eyes and blonde curls and ready laugh. Though Jack had long learned to forget Roy, this letter brought him back to her in stunning clarity.

For a moment, she tried to imagine how he died. Torn apart by a mortar shell? Shot through the heart? Worn down by weeks of dysentery or pneumonia? Killed by the new strand of the Spanish flu sweeping Europe and the world at large? Jack shivered at the gory images that appeared before her. The Great War had killed thousands of other men, and Roy was no different. Still more mothers' sons and women's husbands would perish before the great bloodshed concluded. She should be grateful that the letter wasn't addressed to her niece, Christina, whose beau also fought in France. Still, Roy was dead.

Jack straightened her broad shoulders, clenching the letter in her hand. She would have to ride to the home of Frances Hunt, Roy's mother, and hand-deliver the letter as she did with all letters of this type. The people of Irvington had learned to pray against Jack Harrison riding her bicycle to their front door. She was the grim reaper of Irvington, always bearing bad news. Jack fetched her messenger bag, slipping the letter inside, and slung it over her shoulders, slamming the door of the post office behind her and emerging into the sunny outdoors.

The Virginia summer sun temporarily blinded her as it cast its honeyed hues across the open fields and cobblestone streets of Irvington. If it weren't for the oppressive cloud hanging over her, the warmth of the sunshine and the chirps of the songbirds in the nearby elms would have brought a smile to Jack's face, but not today. With the arrival of that letter, the decade that stood between Jack and her memories of Roy had evaporated and she felt like she was still a young, naive girl in love with a boy known for trouble.

Jack lifted her chin and stared at the sun through squinted eyes. Despite the war, despite the death and the loss, Jack had lived long enough to know that the sun would still continue to shine.

Ignoring her morbid reflections, Jack swung her leg over the peeling ivory seat of her bicycle and hiked up her calf-length skirt. The Hunts lived on the opposite side of Irvington, in the swampy land near Calf Pasture Cove, and Jack would have to travel through Irvington to get there. She kicked off the ground and pedaled down the main cobblestone street, narrowly dodging a pair of donkeys hauling a load of corn in a wooden wagon. The donkeys hee-hawed as Jack swerved around them, dinging the bell on her handlebar in warning.

Ellis Robertson, the owner of the general store, frowned disapprovingly at the Jack as she passed the general store, his hands at his portly waist over the top of a striped apron. He glanced at Jack's skirt, hiked above her knees, and Jack could almost hear his disapprobation.

"That Jack Harrison, she's a wild woman. Did you hear about the time she climbed a tree in the middle of winter to save a bird? Or the time she wore pants to a banquet hosted by the mayor?"

Jack offered snotty Mr. Robertson a saucy wink as she rode by and dinged her bell again, but he only harrumphed and waddled back into his store, greasy fingers clutching at his apron. She pedaled through the rest of Irvington, her bike jarring and jumping over the mismatched cobblestones. A few women walked down the sidewalks, pressing their fine hats to their heads to protect their pale complexions and calling after their precocious children. A man in a soiled vest and holey pants stumbled out of the town saloon and nearly collided with Jack's bike, cursing at her as she dodged him and continued on her mission.

She rode past the medical practice of Dr. Alexander Benjamin, her niece's newly acquired husband, but she didn't dare to stop. At least Corrie, her eldest niece, must remember something of Jack's relationship with Roy, and she was not prepared to recall the past as of yet.

Jack was nearly out of Irvington when she was hailed by the town preacher, Reverend Jeremy Smalley. He stood outside the brick Methodist church, and as Jack passed by, the kindly man offered her a friendly smile. Jack jerked her brakes and squealed to a stop in front of him. She slung her messenger bag over the bike's handlebar and tried to give Reverend Smalley a convincing grin.

"Why, good afternoon, Miss Harrison!" Reverend Smalley exclaimed, pumping her hand.

"You should call me Jack like everyone else in town, Reverend," Jack said with a smile. "Or Jacqueline, as my sister prefers."

"Jack, then. Are you off another mission from the angel of death?" he inquired, gesturing to her discarded bag.

A frown grew over Jack's face as she thought about Roy's letter. "I'm afraid so. I-"

"Reverend Smalley!"

The crackled exclamation interrupted Jack's conversation with the preacher, and old Matilda Tuttlebrook approached out of nowhere, leaning heavily on her ivory tipped cane. Jack fought off a groan. Not this old hag. Matilda was one of the most renowned gossips in all of Irvington, and she had a penchant for appearing when and where she was least wanted.

"And Jacqueline, our faithful postmistress," she cackled, directing her beady eyes to Jack's bag. "To whom are you delivering bad news today?"

Jack hesitated, knowing that rumors of her tryst with Roy still lingered in the minds of Irvington's most faithful busybodies. "The Hunts."

Reverend Smalley balked, his eyes widening. "Roy Hunt?"

Jack nodded, swallowing back the wave of nostalgia. "That's the one."

Matilda harrumphed, crossing her arms over her ample girth. "Roy Hunt was the best of the Hunt family, or perhaps I should say the least despicable. I wouldn't want to be the bearer of such dismal news. That Margaret Hunt might shoot you between the eyes before you get close enough to drop off the letter."

"That is dreadful news," Reverend Smalley interjected, eying Jack with concern. "Does it ail you to hear of it, Jack?"

"Why should it ail her?" Matilda interjected. "She was the one who ended the engagement! And threw such a tizzy about it, as I recall."

Jack spared a glare for the old witch. "Thank goodness I did, or I'd be nothing but an old widow!"

Mrs. Tuttlebrook gasped, covering her heavily powdered face with one hand. Her husband had died decades before, leaving her with no occupation but pandering secrets through Irvington. Reverend Smalley repressed a grin, but Jack didn't even try. The woman deserved the admonition for her nosy prattling.

"You are alright, though, Jack?" Reverend Smalley persisted.

"I'll be fine, Reverend. There's nothing to be done, and I can't afford to simper about in grief," Jack declared. "This is my job to deliver the mail, and nothing more, I reckon."

"I reckon so," the Reverend echoed, his eyes still on Jack's. "But I suppose you must continue on your errand. Matilda and I will release you to your duty."

"I'm much obliged," Jack said, nodding at them both. "And Matilda, I'm sure you'll be faithful to disseminate the news to all interested parties, as usual?"

Jack gave the woman a flippant smile as she pedaled away, and she heard the cry of indignation a few seconds later when Matilda recognized the insult. Some things in Irvington would never change--Matilda's gossip, Reverend Smalley's kindness, and Jack's spinsterhood. Recollections of a time when Jack nearly escaped spinsterhood would be better off forgotten by everyone.

With the whir of her bicycle wheels, Jack escaped Irvington and took the dirt road riddled with mud puddles to the home of the Hunts. As she rode, memories of the last time she'd visited their home returned. It was early spring of Jack's twenty second year, a decade ago exactly, when Jack decided she'd had enough.

It wasn't for lack of love that she had broken Roy Hunt's heart--of this fact Jack had always been adamant. Rather, she simply found that love was not enough for her. There were a thousand things she wished and longed for, and she refused to surrender her dreams for the love of a boy. Perhaps she had imagined that someday another fellow would come along and fancy her, but instead Jack's spinsterhood solidified and Jack became content with the freedom and independence her unmarried status allowed. She had few regrets about Roy Hunt, but today, she wished she'd had the chance to say goodbye though she wasn't sure what words would suffice. Jack was no poet, and better with her hands than her words. Perhaps she could have parted with a final handshake, a final embrace, a final expression of gratitude for the years they had together.

There's no space in my life for regrets, Jack reminded herself as her bike splashed through a puddle, staining her cream skirt and plastering her bare legs with mud. She pedaled onward, recognizing the rundown one-story house at the periphery of her vision, overgrown with ragged grass and untrimmed bushes. Roy's father, Ellis, died a few years ago, leaving behind a reputation as an infamous gambler and thief and a wife and daughter shadowed in notoriety. In recent years, Roy had chosen to follow in his father's footsteps, and some suspected that he was responsible for the robbing of the Irvington bank two years ago though Jack had her doubts.

As Jack approached the house, she slowed her bike, finally leaping off of it and into a giant puddle. Mud splattered all over her dress once again, her boots sinking into the slime, but Jack shook them off and kept walking, laughing to herself at her own clumsiness. Jack reached into her bag and pulled out the letter, an unfamiliar heaviness of heart returning to her.

Ten years ago, she had walked this very road to end the year-long engagement between her and Roy. Now, she would deliver his final goodbye.

"Don't you dare walk another step," a voice yelled in Jack's direction and she froze, gazing at the front door of the dilapidated house. A girl stood in the doorway, holding a shotgun aimed at Jack's head.

Welcome to the first chapter of Dishonoring Jack! For those of you who were faithful readers of Sharing Corrie, I think you'll love hearing from Jack's perspective. Much like Jack, this story will be filled with lots of action, fight, and perhaps a little love, and you'll get to catch up with our other friends from Irvington!

If you're new to this story, welcome! I hope you enjoy reading Jack's story! Be sure to leave me a comment to let me know what you think and please vote on the chapters you enjoy. :)

~ Hannah