Her Secret Son

by Hannah Mary McKinnon

  The worst thing was my eyes, which Grace had always said were her favorite feature. They’d morphed from an amber-come-chestnut color, to watery, bloodshot spheres. It was a wonder Logan hadn’t darted out of the house yet, yelling at the top of his lungs that he was living with the bogeyman.

  “Hey,” Lisa said. “Are you sure you don’t want to lie down?”

  “I can’t,” I said. “If I do, I won’t stop thinking about stuff. I...I just don’t know how I’m going to cope. What’s going to happen to us now and... I’m sorry I—”

  “Don’t apologize,” she whispered. “Really, I mean it.”

  “I need a bit of air,” I muttered and pushed past her, escaping outside through the back door. I closed my eyes, filled my lungs with the crisp, mid-March breeze, silently pleading with Grace to appear, tell me what to do, and an instant later, a familiar hand slipped into mine.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Logan.” I knelt down and put my arms around all forty-five pounds of him—he’d always been on the skinny side—and squeezed hard. He smelled of gummy bears and cupcakes, with a tiny hint of dirt, in my mind exactly how a seven-year-old boy should. When I let him go, his bottom lip wobbled, stretching across his teeth as he spoke.

  “I want Mom back.”

  I pulled him closer, worried we’d shatter into pieces if I hugged him any harder, bounce off the deck like marbles, scatter all over the backyard and disappear into the frozen grass.

  “I know, kiddo,” I whispered as I stroked his hair. “I want her back, too.”

  The pain rushing through me and the need to appear strong fought one another as if they were a pair of heavyweight champions. Thankfully, this time, the latter won. I rubbed his arms with my hands. “Why didn’t you put on a jacket? Aren’t you cold?” Stupid, irrelevant questions, all things considered, but Logan was gallant in his response.

  “Not much,” he said quietly, shaking his head and shivering all the same. “I don’t want to be inside anymore. Everyone keeps asking if I’m okay and they pat my head. I’m not a German shepherd, or a Great Dane, or—”

  “A poodle?” I offered.

  He sighed. “Definitely not a poodle. Mom thinks they look weird.”

  I managed half a smile, my mouth still not quite getting there. “People do it to me, too.”

  Logan’s smooth forehead turned into a crinkly frown. “They pat your head?”

  This time a small laugh made it all the way out from between my lips, a sound I’d all but forgotten. “No, they keep asking if I’m okay.” I shrugged. “I tell them I’m fine...”

  “But it’s a lie?” Logan’s eyes went wide with mutual conspiracy.

  “A complete lie.”

  “I lie to them, too,” he whispered, dropping his chin to his chest, crossing his arms tight. If he made himself any smaller, he’d risk falling through the cracks in the deck. “But you and Mom said I shouldn’t. You said it’s bad.”

  “I don’t think she’d mind about that little fib, though,” I said as he burrowed under my arm and snuggled up to my chest. “I don’t think she’d be mad at all.”

  “Do you think she’s mad because I ran away?” he said. “When you came to get me?”

  I kissed the top of his head. “Nope. I told you, it’s all forgotten. It’s fine.”

  Not a little fib, because it hadn’t been fine at all. After Grace’s accident I’d driven to Logan’s school, fighting back the urge to scream and shout in the truck, trying to calm myself and prepare what I’d say, rehearse it in my mind. Pitiful, because how the hell do you prepare for that? My adult brain could barely comprehend what had happened, and now I had to tell a child? There was nothing I could possibly say to make the situation any better, and with a glance in the rearview mirror I’d taken in my blotchy face that had aged ten years in about an hour. Logan was a smart kid. One look at me and he’d know.

  I’d pulled up at the school, rang the obligatory front entrance buzzer and waited, my fingers tapping an indecipherable rhythm on my thighs. The first snowflakes fell as the wind lashed my body, blew my jacket open, which I made no attempt to close. Glacial temperatures had little effect on the grieving. I was already numb from the inside.

  “Hello, Josh.” Vickey with an e Longo, the formidable school secretary, greeted me with a smile when I walked in, but it soon withered when she took a second look at my face. “Are you alright? My goodness, what’s wrong?”

  She cried when I told her, fat drops spilling over her immaculately made-up cheeks as she whispered how she’d talked to Grace just the other day about helping out with the upcoming book fair, and how Grace, as always, had been happy to oblige. “You know how she loves volunteering here, and her books,” Vickey said, and cried some more.

  The principal came out of his office, too, Mr. Searle, an impossibly tall, skinny, bald man, with an Adam’s apple you could cut yourself on. Soon more people surrounded us, telling me how sorry they were. The only thing I could say in return was, “Can you please call Logan?”

  “Dad!” He ran up and threw his arms around my waist when he arrived in the office, knocking the wind out of me as his head thudded into my belly. He didn’t notice the small crowd standing around. Didn’t detect what I knew they were all silently thinking, what I’d thought whenever I’d read about similar tragedies, or seen them on the news. Thank God that’s not us. They’d all hug their loved ones longer that night, maybe not argue about whose turn it was to set the table, or who’d forgotten to pick up their socks.

  “Am I going home already?” Logan’s eyes lit up. “Mom didn’t say. Are you taking me for ice cream?” He’d have eaten frozen treats while sitting at the North Pole on an iceberg if given the chance. I’d joked about him being half bear, called him “my little cub,” and he’d replied, if anything, he was half dog. I swallowed hard as I remembered Grace laughing, saying, “In that case I’ll put some dog treats in your lunch bag tomorrow.”

  After Vickey had ushered us into her office and left us alone, I knelt in front of Logan and opened my mouth. All my words stubbornly remained at the back of my throat, bashful children refusing to come out, so I pulled him in for another hug.

  “Da-aad. What’s wrong?” Logan tugged my sleeve when I let him go, poked my chest with a fingertip, pushing harder when I didn’t answer, his voice going up a notch. “Dad? Dad?”

  I told him. Watched as his young brain connected the dots, his eyes widening at first, then his brow knitting together as he listened. The pain carved itself into his face, like nails into soft wood, and I couldn’t breathe as I watched the transformation from happy and innocent to grieving and despairing child. Logan threw his arms around me and sobbed, quietly at first, his desperate howls becoming louder, his words an indecipherable jumble of syllables and tears.

  I held him, whispered “Everything’s going to be okay, I promise Logan, shh, shh, I promise, I’ve got you, I’ve got you” over and over until he pushed me away, bolted out of Vickey’s office, down the corridor and out of a side door, with me following behind. For a skinny seven-year-old he was fast, had already been hailed one to watch in track and field, and by the time I got outside, he’d disappeared.

  We’d searched for ten minutes, yelling his name, shouting for him to come out. Vickey, Mr. Searle and some teachers went through the classrooms in case he’d sneaked back inside, while another group of us hunted the playground.

  Finally I located Logan underneath a bush at the far end of the grounds, his lips and fingertips a slight shade of blue. It took me five minutes to talk him into taking my coat, and another five until he came inside, by which time our teeth played their own clattering symphony, and we were too exhausted to do anything but go home.

  Logan slept in my bed for over a week, wouldn’t leave my side, but then he’d insisted on going back to school the day before the funeral. I’d told him he could stay home as long as h
e wanted, although secretly I’d been a little relieved. I was ashamed to admit I couldn’t afford to take much more time off; we needed the money. Lunch made, bag packed, and he’d got on the bus before turning around and asking me if I was sure I’d be okay at home alone. In my book, that made him the bravest person I knew.

  “Want a hot chocolate?” I said to him now, pulling him close.

  “If I have one,” Logan said, his huge eyes reminding me so much of Grace’s it almost took my breath away, “will it make me feel better?”

  “For a moment, perhaps,” I said. “Maybe if I add marshmallows and chocolate sprinkles. And if you go to the den and close the door, you can watch TV and avoid more head patting. I’ll come and find you when it’s ready.”

  Logan hugged me and whispered a thank you in my ear, before disappearing into the house. I gave myself a few seconds, walked around to the front door, buying time to prepare myself to face everyone inside. It turned out people were ready to leave, so I saw everyone out, repeating thank you, thank you for coming, yes, she was a wonderful person, yes, it’s such a tragedy, until it made me want to yell at them to get the fuck out of my sodding house. The advantage of everybody’s pity was that I could be the rudest wanker on the planet, and it was perfectly acceptable. At least today. What happened tomorrow, and every day after, would be a different story.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ronnie patted my shoulder on his way out, but his sister, Leila, who everyone knew was the real boss of their company, wasn’t quite ready to leave. “Again, we’re so sorry for your loss,” she said, half a beat later adding, “Can we have a quick talk about Monday’s project?”

  “I don’t think we should do this now, Leila,” Ronnie muttered, shooting me an apologetic look before feigning an interest in his shoes. Not his usual pair of mud-encrusted, steel-toed American Worker boots, but shiny brown loafers that made me wonder if he might try to sell me insurance. “Can’t it wait?”

  “We’re already behind schedule,” she said, and I almost expected her to chastise me for the inconvenience of Grace’s death, but she smiled tightly, adjusting the cuffs of her navy blue suit. She didn’t look comfortable out of her work jeans, either. “Ronnie will text you the details of where we need you Monday morning, okay? It’s a straightforward job, but I need to know if I can count on you. Otherwise I’ll get someone else.”

  By now I was used to Leila and Ronnie Thompson, twins and owners of L&R Homebuilding & Landscaping Services. When I’d joined their team as a general laborer a few years ago, I’d asked why they hadn’t called their company Thompson Twins in honor of the ’80s pop group. Even hummed a few bars of “Hold Me Now.” Ronnie had laughed, Leila hadn’t. Later, after she’d left, he swore she’d ripped any sense of humor clean out of herself while they were still “womb mates,” before trying to get to his, too. As far as dominant twin theories went, Leila took hers to beyond another level.

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said.

  “Great, I’ll text you tomorrow.” Ronnie clapped me on the shoulder again and scooted his sister out the door, closing it behind them.

  The living room was empty now, and I took a few moments to savor the peace and quiet before remembering why everybody had been there in the first place. I made my way to the kitchen, and heard Mrs. Banks’s voice as I got closer. She was a sweet lady, but had a tendency to overstay her welcome and break into rambling monologues if she had a drink and the chance, and even though Grace and I hadn’t seen her much lately, she always knew our business, anyway.

  I stopped outside the doorway and peered in, trying to get a glimpse of the victims Mrs. Banks had managed to corner. One of them was Ivan, who stood right next to Lisa, a sure indication of how miserable she felt. Under normal circumstances she’d never have let him anywhere near her. Ever since I’d introduced them she thought he was, and I quote, “A bigheaded Scandinavian tree who thinks he’s a Nordic god.”

  As I watched them leaning against the kitchen counter with generously filled glasses of wine and juice in their hands, a surge of anger shot from my toes right up to my crown, red-hot lightning flowing through my veins. I’d been to a few wakes in my time, enough to know people ate and drank as a way to celebrate a life. But it felt inappropriate. The bottles of cheap wine I’d vowed I wouldn’t touch a sign of disrespect toward Grace. She deserved champagne, barrels of Veuve Clicquot, not the low-cost pseudo-plonk I’d bought in bulk despite my sister offering to pay for something fancier, and the promise she’d take what was left with her when she went home.

  I tried to clear my mind, thought about disappearing upstairs as Lisa had suggested, but remembered my promise of a hot chocolate.

  “Well, I think he’s a marvelous man,” I heard Mrs. Banks say, and I leaned in.

  “He most definitely is,” Ivan replied, his entire body, all six foot six of pure muscle, nodding in agreement.

  “He was outside for hours with Logan last fall,” Mrs. Banks continued. “Taught him how to fly his big kite. It was such a pleasure to watch.”

  Ah, so I was the “marvelous man.” I remembered the day clearly, Logan running as fast as his toothpick legs would carry him. Up and down the street, over and over, until Mother Nature herself had rolled her eyes and taken pity on us, sending a gust of wind, pulling Logan’s purple-and-white-checkered kite so hard, he’d almost become airborne. It was one of my favorite memories, another I’d stuffed into my full-to-the-brim, but now shattered heart.

  “You’d never know he isn’t Logan’s father,” Mrs. Banks said, her voice low.

  It was something she’d commented on before, to Grace and myself, probably anyone who’d listen. I knew she meant it as a compliment. Mrs. Banks wouldn’t have been capable of saying anything nasty if she’d jabbed herself in the eye with a pointy poker.

  “He really is a marvelous man,” she said again, her head bobbing. “They were such a wonderful couple.”

  “The very best,” Lisa said, and I suddenly recalled Grace joking about Mrs. Banks fancying me, how she’d looked at my butt as I’d reached for the pasta when we ran into her at the grocery store one day. I had to say, the flattery had been relative.

  “Did I tell you about when I first met Grace?” Mrs. Banks said, her cheeks flushed, her eyes slightly glazed. She didn’t wait for an answer, and I stayed hidden in case she stopped talking about Grace if she saw me. “It was November... Which day was it? Let me think... It was...hmm...never mind. But the weather was horrific. Rain for weeks on end, the kind where you wonder if you’ll wake up with your bed floating down the river.” She chuckled briefly, pressed on. “I knew someone was moving in because the girl who lived here was subletting cheap as chips to a friend of a friend of a friend while she went backpacking around Australia.”

  “That’s nice...” Lisa said, but her expression told me she was wishing Mrs. Banks would get to the point. It had been a long day for all of us, and from the bags under her eyes, Lisa looked about ready to collapse.

  “You think so?” Mrs. Banks said. “Never saw the appeal myself. Too many creepy-crawlies.” Ivan and Lisa nodded politely, and she continued, “She never came back, the girl who lived here, I mean. Met a German fella at Ayers Rock so Grace took over the lease in the end. Anyway...” She finished her wine and held the glass out to Ivan, who dutifully refilled it, but only quarter-way. I licked my lips, closed my eyes for a moment, reminding myself of my long-standing promise not to do something stupid.

  “November eighteenth,” Mrs. Banks said with a snap of her fingers. “That’s when it was. My grandson’s fifth birthday. How could I forget? I’d finished speaking with him on the phone when I saw Grace. Poor girl was drenched trying to get something out of her car.”

  Lisa fake-coughed, glanced at her watch. “Well, I think it’s time to—”

  “When I rushed outside to help, I realized she couldn’t get the baby seat out,” Mrs. Banks said, as i
f she hadn’t heard, or decided to ignore Lisa’s objection. “We didn’t know the new tenant had a baby, but I didn’t mind. This old street needed some youth and, my goodness, was he ever cute. All chubby cheeks and big eyes, so adorable. But Grace seemed lost. My gosh, she held Logan as if he were a bag of boiled potatoes.”

  She must have seen Lisa’s and Ivan’s raised eyebrows because she quickly added, “Some of us take to motherhood instantly, you see, and with Grace, well, there was a little delay, is all, it happens sometimes. And she was a wonderful mother. Truly.”

  I’d heard enough, was about to step inside the kitchen, but Mrs. Banks’s next question hit me as if it were a torpedo. “What do you suppose will happen to Logan now?”

  “What do you mean?” Lisa said.

  “Well, I wonder about Logan’s real father. Won’t he—”

  “Josh is Logan’s father, Mrs. Banks,” Ivan said. “He’s—”

  “I mean biologically,” she replied, “because—”

  Within a heartbeat I was in the room. The three of them froze before they looked at each other—not me—the guilt of gossiper’s tongue spreading across their faces in various shades of red and pink.

  “Need to get Logan a drink.” I crossed over to the cupboard and pulled out his favorite mug, a puppy face complete with pointy ears and shiny black nose. As I dug around for the cocoa, Mrs. Banks broke the stifling silence by mentioning something about the weather.

  I turned around, slammed the tin on the counter. “To ensure there’s no doubt in anybody’s mind,” I said as the flush on Mrs. Banks’s cheeks deepened. “Logan’s my son.”