Reason and Rhyme

Jack Shephard is a busy man. He juggles a full-time job, a marriage to a harried entrepreneur, and a significant drinking habit, leaving him struggling to keep up with the demands that he shoulders. The recent addition of his mother-in-law to his household, a stroke victim with communication deficiencies, has added another layer of stress and responsibility, leaving Jack overwhelmed. He finds himself living a life he had never planned for, one he is ill-prepared and unsuited for, and the cracks are beginning to show. When two separate surprises materialize at the same time, Jack finds himself spread nearly to the breaking point in his efforts to hold all the threads of his life together. Elton Shaw is Jack’s brother-in-law. Freshly released from another stint in prison, he finds the world he thought was waiting for him no longer exists and before long, trouble finds him once again. Looking for a new start in a place where his personal history isn’t local folklore, he invades Jack’s home, a thousand miles away in Boston. He is welcomed in and with some help, he finds himself set on the road to respectability. Old habits die hard however, and before long, he finds his way back into the grimy underworld he was born into, bringing Jack along for the ride. When his enterprise draws the attention of a local biker gang, his carefully laid plans spin out of control and the threats begin to mount. The pressure to keep up with his many new demands builds, and Jack finds himself confronted with moral dilemmas he had never expected to face. He finds himself at a crossroads, torn between two paths that he isn’t sure how to navigate, with neither option presenting an easy way forward. When the stakes are ratcheted up to unprecedented levels, he finds himself presented with a choice, one that will have ramifications that will reverberate far into the future. As Elton scrambles to create his new empire, he finds that his plans aren’t as foolproof as he once thought. Old sins rise to the surface and new foes make themselves known, threatening to undo all that he has managed to build. When the repercussions of his illicit activities hit close to home, he loses something he hadn’t even known was at risk, and the world he is building is threatened. It is only when he is forced to choose between himself and a loved one that he is able to make a stand and possibly find the redemption he had always considered out of reach.