by Carter Ashby
So Logan stood, too.
Frank stared into his eyes, then looked down at his feet. When he did that, it was as though he’d shrunk several inches. Logan suddenly noticed how white his hair was, how frail his shoulders. Frank had always seemed so big. Now he looked small. And harmless.
“She told me I hurt her,” Frank said.
Logan frowned, not sure what he was getting at.
“She said, by not treating you like my own son…it hurt her. Broke her heart. Put a sadness in her all her life. She told me that right before you came here. And then I got mad all over again. Blamed you all over again. Here was just another way you were coming between me and my girl. But it ain’t your fault, is it? No more than when you were a baby. Ain’t your fault you exist. Ain’t your fault you got stuck with me as a stepdad. You didn’t cause every bad thing that happened with me and Eleanor. I did. I caused it all. Then I blamed you and that put even more of a wedge between me and her. You weren’t the problem…I was. Me trying to cut you out of our lives was what put you between us. ’Cause of course your momma is a good momma. And a good momma wouldn’t ever cut off her child.”
Logan felt tears sting his eyes. He willed them back. Took a deep, shaking breath. Let it out slowly.
“What I’m trying to say,” Frank said, “is I’m sorry. I’m sorry, kid. I’m glad you came here to be with her. Makes her happy. The day you called to say you were coming down…I don’t believe I ever saw her that happy in her life. I want her to be happy. That means you ain’t my enemy. You’re my ally.”
“Jesus,” Logan said, pacing away and leaning on the porch rail. He gripped it until his knuckles turned white. Squeezed his eyes shut and just breathed.
“I don’t suppose it’s fair of me to ask for forgiveness—”
“For an entire lifetime of abuse and neglect?” Logan said, turning to face him. “No. It’s not fair.”
The old man hung his head.
Logan’s heart raced. His head spun. He paced the width of the porch from rail to wall and back again. “I don’t want to forgive you. I shouldn’t have to.”
“You don’t, Son.”
“No. No fucking way do you ever get to call me that.”
Frank looked up at him sadly.
Logan stared at him and felt more than thirty years’ worth of anger and rage and sorrow and hurt and all those bad things. He held them all at the surface now, his skin hot and his eyes spilling unwanted tears. “Do you know how much of my life I spent wanting this moment?” Logan asked. “I wasn’t angry with you the first twelve or thirteen years. I was confused, and hurt. And I’d have given anything for some approval or a kind word from you. You were my goddamn hero, you know that? You saved my mom. You saved me. And I spent so many years truly—no really—truly believing you when you told me how I’d ruined my mom’s life. Do you have any clue how confusing and upsetting that is? I loved her so much, and here you were, my fucking hero, telling me that my existence was actually hurting her.”
Logan stopped pacing and faced him. “How could you do that to a kid? How?”
A couple of tears spilled down Frank’s craggy face as he shook his head.
“I look at Nate and I wonder if anything could ever happen to make me treat that boy with hate. What if he did something terrible by accident? What if he…if he actually hurt Maggie? Could I hate him, then? No! No, Frank. Because he’s an innocent kid. I could see getting mad at him once in a while, but a lifetime of hatred? No way. No goddamn way.”
Frank watched him in silence.
Logan felt his anger drain out of him. It was like he’d uncorked the bottle, and now the pressure inside the bottle was gone. “I don’t know what forgiveness looks like in this situation, Frank. I don’t know what you want.”
“I want this family to be whole,” Frank said. “I want to build a relationship with you so my whole family can be strong.”
Logan unclenched his fists. The muscles in his shoulders relaxed. “I’m…overwhelmed. But I can try. Because Mom deserves my best. And because Maggie—” He stopped, not sure whether the old man would be up for a conversation like that.
“I don’t want to lose Maggie and the kids,” Frank said. “And I can see plain as day she’d follow you wherever you go. We gotta come together on this, Logan. Please.”
Logan watched as the old man raised and extended his hand. He stared at it for a long moment before reaching out and shaking it. “For Mom and Maggie.”
“For Eleanor and Maggie. And for that little kid who deserved better’n what he got.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LOGAN LIFTED HIS knuckles to rap on Maggie’s back door.
She slid it open before he could knock. “Why don’t you quit knocking and just come in?” she asked. Then, she saw the flowers he was holding. “Oh, thank you! These are gorgeous!”
She took them, turned, and went straight to the kitchen for a Mason jar to use as a vase.
She was in her jeans and work shirt. She must’ve just gotten back from dropping the kids off at school. “How’s your mama this morning?” she asked as she arranged the flowers.
“Staying in bed.”
“Oh?” She turned with a lovely crease of concern between her brows. “She feeling okay?”
“I think she’s tired.” He looked away, not wanting to say more. “You ready to tackle that front porch?”
“Yeah. Sure. Should we check on her first?”
“I already did. Frank’s with her. Let’s just go on with our day.”
“Okay.”
He followed her out her front door. Felt a little warm inside at the familiarity of her movements. The way she always stopped at the little table by the front door to grab her purse. The way she looked inside to double check her essentials were all there. The way her ponytail whipped around when she turned to open the door.
They got in his truck and went to the hardware store. He’d hitched a trailer to the back so they could pick up their lumber order. Once again, Maggie led the way on this project. He’d never built anything as large as a front porch—but she had.
After picking up their lumber, they went to the house. The old porch was gone. They’d spent last week demolishing it and cleaning up the mess. They’d put in the main posts set in concrete. Now was the “fun part” as Maggie called it.
She did most of the directing. He did any exceptionally heavy lifting. They had the framework up by lunch time.
They stood back and admired their work while cooling down.
“You hungry?” she asked.
He turned to look at her. Sawdust all over her shirt, sweat on her forehead. “I like working with you, Maggie. I like building stuff with you.”
She looked up and smiled at him. “Me, too. It’s been fun. Maybe we can find another project after this. A house to flip, this time.”
“Yeah,” he said, thinking how it wouldn’t be a bad business to get into. “I’d like that.”
“So…are you hungry?”
He studied her beautiful face. Leaned down and lightly kissed her lips. “I wanna tell you something, first,” he said.
“Sure. Then lunch?”
“Yeah. First, the thing I wanna tell you…then lunch.”
“Okay. Hit it.”
He couldn’t help but smile at her. “You’re so beautiful.”
She blushed. Nodded. “Thank you.”
“And…I wanna always be working with you. This has been the best. And I’ve learned a lot from you. So…I definitely want to keep working together.”
“Okay,” she said with a giggle. She reached out and intertwined her fingers with his.
He inhaled and tried to slow his racing heart. “I think…I mean…it’s maybe a little presumptuous of me…but maybe by the time we get the house move-in ready... When do you think that’ll be, by the way?”
“When will the house be move-in ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I really just need to fin
ish out the bathroom in the master bedroom. Then I’m good. So, a week.”
“Oh,” he said. A week. That wasn’t very long. “Well, then, maybe not that soon.”
“Not that soon for what?”
He stared into her eyes, crinkled around the corners—she always looked like she was holding back laughter. She looked like that now…like she thought something about this situation was funny. “I feel like you know exactly what I’m trying to say, and you’re just laughing at me,” he said.
“No! Of course not. I mean, I am laughing at you because you won’t just get to the point. But I don’t know what you’re going to say.”
He sucked in a breath and blew it out. “Okay, then, I’ll try again. I think, being that we get along so well, and…I mean…we’ve worked on this house together, and if two people can renovate a whole house together without killing each other, then that probably means they can get through anything together, right?”
“Sure,” she said, not bothering to hide her laughter.
“You’re not going to help me at all, are you?”
“No. Be a man, Logan.”
“I am. I’m trying. Okay,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “I want to move in together. When you’re ready. If you’re ready… If we’re on the same page with this thing.”
Her laughter faded. She smiled softly and took his other hand, moving in closer. “That’s the page I’m on. I wasn’t sure you were on it.”
“I am. For sure.”
“Not going back to Montana?”
“Not unless that’s where you’re going.”
She blushed and smiled down at her feet. Then she looked back up at him. “I’m really excited to hear you say that. I thought we were at least months away from talking about moving in together, if at all. So I’m happy this is where you are. It’s what I want. But it’s not what I thought you were going to say to me. There’s still one thing I need to hear.”
His heart thundered. Her eyes were all big and round and hopeful. He said, “One thing?”
“Yeah. It’s really important.”
“Right. The one thing I’ve never said to anyone except my ma… That one thing?”
She smiled. “You sort of said it once before. But you were very upset at the time, so I’m not sure you meant it.”
“When was that?”
“We were fighting about something.”
“Huh.”
Maggie sighed. “If you don’t feel it, don’t say it. But I can’t move in with you if you don’t.”
“I feel it, Maggie. It’s no problem for me to say it to you.” He swallowed, not because it was a problem for him to say it…but because it scared him, too. But a good kind of scared. The kind of scared when you take a drastic step like signing on the dotted line to buy your first house, or going into the recruiting office to join the Army, or packing up your things and moving out of your parents’ house. The kind of scared you get when your life is about to change. “I only didn’t say it because I thought asking to move in together seemed like the thing, you know? The thing that would set us in stone. Make us a partnership.”
“Yeah. That was a big deal. But I just can’t, you know? Not until I know.”
“Well, sure. Of course. You do know, though. I love you, Maggie. Probably didn’t really understand what the word meant until I met you. But I sure do, now. I love you.”
She threw herself into him. He held her, smiling the whole time. “I love you, too,” she said softly. He could hear the tears in her voice.
She was right. Saying those words made it all real. Saying those words was like making a promise and building a foundation. They would forever be rooted in this moment. Everything good they made in life would come from this place.
He pushed away from her just enough so that he could kiss her. She kissed him back, and they ended up smiling with their faces pressed together.
He took her to lunch, after that.
“I prayed to the Lord he wouldn’t make this be our first Christmas without her,” Frank said. He stood in his winter coat, shivering while Logan chopped firewood. They only needed enough for the day.
“Glad He answered,” Logan said, swinging the axe.
“Appreciate you doing this. We ain’t used that fireplace in so long, I’m not sure what’ll happen when we do. But Ellie wants a fire, she gets a fire.”
“That’s right.”
Logan heard the sound of the back door of the main house slide open and shut. He glanced back to see Nate, all bundled up, jogging toward them.
“Told Mom I wanted to help you,” Nate said. “She said I was too little, and I said no I ain’t, and she said fine, go out and let Logan deal with you.” He recited it all matter-of-factly.
“You can help,” Logan said. He swung and split a hunk of wood in two. “You can carry that piece on up to the porch and set it next to the door. And the rest of that pile, if you want.”
Nate didn’t hesitate. He went straight to the piece of wood and carried it up the porch, hurried back down for two more chunks, and carried them up. Logan kept chopping.
“Good kid,” Frank said.
“Yep.”
“You’re a lucky man.”
“Yep.”
Nate finished carrying the logs up as Logan decided he’d chopped enough for the day. Nate stood with his feet apart, hands on hips, and said, “Yep. That should do it.”
Logan shared a smile with Frank. “You were a big help, buddy,” Logan said.
“No problem.” Nate extended his hand. He’d been doing that a lot, lately. Logan asked Maggie about it. She said she’d noticed that Logan and Frank ended a lot of their conversations with a handshake, and maybe Nate was doing the same. It was cute, but Logan and Maggie were living together, now. Figuring out how they should all relate to each other was challenging. But Logan knew he wanted this kid to feel loved.
So he opened his arms. Nate grinned and ran into them. Logan hugged him, lifting Nate off his feet. “You’re getting strong, huh?”
“Almost as strong as you.”
“Almost.” He set Nate down. Nate took his hand and they headed toward the house, Frank trailing a little behind.
“Hey, Dad, can I have coffee with the grown-ups since I helped with the firewood?” Nate asked.
Logan somehow managed to get up the porch steps, but he was a little out of breath for answering. Dad. Nate had never called him that. They hadn’t discussed it. Maggie hadn’t brought it up. He wasn’t prepared, and he didn’t know how she would feel. “That’s up to your mama. But I’m guessing it’ll be a no.”
“She says anything I ask her I can ask you. She says you have authority in the house, too.”
“Oh, does she?”
“Yeah. So if you say it’s okay if I drink coffee like you, then she’ll have to agree.” He shrugged. “And I just figure if I’m gonna work like a man, I ought to be able to drink like a man. Right?”
Logan glanced at Frank, who was frowning thoughtfully. Logan knelt in front of Nate. “Seems like good logic…but I don’t know enough about the effects of coffee on kids. And being as you gotta sleep tonight so Santa will come, I don’t think now’s the time to start experimenting.”
Nate twisted his lips in thought. “I guess that makes sense. But maybe you’re just trying to find a nice way to tell me no.”
“Maybe. Know what, though?”
“What?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Nate grinned and hugged him before running back inside.
Logan stood and took a breath.
“He calls you ‘Dad’ now?” Frank said.
“Uh, no. That was the first time.”
“Maggie okay with it?”
“We haven’t talked about it. I don’t really want to talk about it with you right now, either, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” Frank started to go inside. He glanced back. “I think it’s good, though. I think it’s real nice.”
Logan took another deep breath before following Frank inside.
Maggie sat on the edge of the sofa closest to the recliner where Eleanor sat, so frail, a colorful wrap around her head and a smile on her lips. Frank was at the fireplace working on starting a flame. There were kids playing everywhere, running around the house. They were supposed to stay in the basement, but of course they didn’t.
Levi toddled upstairs and climbed into Maggie’s lap.
Logan sat next to Maggie and gave little Levi’s curly blond hair a stroke. The boy turned and crawled into Logan’s arms.
They hadn’t talked about more kids. Maggie said she was open to the conversation, but sometimes Logan would bury his face in Levi’s curls and feel very deeply that the four they had were enough. Of course, other times he would smell that baby shampoo and wonder about having one of his own from scratch. Either way, he was happy, and that was the main thing.
“What a beautiful family,” Eleanor said.
Maggie reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. “Thank you, Eleanor.”
Logan leaned in to Maggie. “Nate accidentally called me Dad, just now.”
“Oh? How did that feel?”
“Amazing. How does it feel to you?”
“Well, first of all it wasn’t an accident. He and I have been talking about it for a couple of weeks now.”
“Oh.” Logan thought about that. It somehow seemed even more special that the boy had chosen to call him Dad. “Which one of you wanted it?”
“Him. He said he wanted to call you Dad because he’d almost done it on accident and was starting to forget not to…or something like that. I don’t always follow his logic train.”
“And you were okay with it?”
“Honestly, it was difficult at first. For so many reasons. But most of all because of fear of something happening. Like if you go…away.”
He slid his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her close. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “I believe you.”
He kissed her on the cheek and sank into the sofa while she curled up closer to him.
