Chapter Six
L ogan finished the repair, told the skipper he had warned the coast guard about him, then went to the grocery store. He picked up a call from his mother while he was walking home.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“I’m just wondering how everything is going with Emma’s family.”
If that was true, she would have called Emma, but he played along.
“Good. Reid drove them around the island today.” There were only a handful of logging roads so it hadn’t taken more than an hour.
“When do they leave on their cruise with Trystan?”
“Wednesday, back Sunday.” The tours were staggered so the other one left Saturday and returned Wednesday.
“Have they decided whether they’ll take Storm?”
“They’re not.” Emma was reluctant to leave her again, but everyone agreed that an infant on a boat could be less than ideal. Storm wasn’t crawling, but she would still need a life preserver. “In a small space like that, if she isn’t happy, everyone will know it. Reid offered to stay home with her, but I told him to go. It’s not exactly a honeymoon, but it’s the best we can do for now.”
“I agree. And Emma’s mother will want to get to know him.”
“Exactly.” Also, Emma could use a wingman. She hadn’t said anything, but she had looked relieved when Reid had agreed to come with her. Logan only knew a little about the way her family had walked all over her in the past but wasn’t prepared to let it happen again if he could help it.
“That leaves you with Storm and work, though. How will you manage that?”
“Storm’s a Fraser. Crew not cargo. She comes to work with me.”
“You have her scraping barnacles already? Your father would be so proud.”
“She actually runs the place. I wish I was joking,” he added as she chuckled.
“Be serious now. That’s not ideal. You trying to work while you have her full-time? My real reason for calling—”
Here we go. He’d known she would have an ulterior motive.
“—is to say I’ll come up. I want to meet Emma’s family anyway. I was waiting to find out when the children’s end of year assembly will be held.” She was very involved with her husband Tan’s grandkids, which was a boon for Logan. It kept the pressure off him to provide her with any. “That’s Wednesday so I can come on the Thursday ferry. I’ll stay the night at Barb’s and come over in the morning.”
Barb lived close to the ferry slip in Bella Bella and ran aB andB. She picked up and delivered guests all through the summer so it didn’t bother her that the ferry landed at midnight. It was just a fact of life here so it wasn’t the reason Logan protested, either.
“Mom, I’ve got it.” He was still stinging from Sophie’s lecture about three men and a nanny. “I’m given to understand that single parents handle their own shit without help all the time.”
I don’t have the luxury of trusting that someone else is doing anything.
He had wanted to make some caustic remark about, Whose fault is that? seeing as she had been so reluctant to let him do anything.
“Also, I’m staying with Art and Sophie. There isn’t actually a bed for you, not once Reid and Emma get back from the cruise.”
He waited for her to take issue with his staying at Sophie’s, but she only said, “There’s always a bed for me. Biyen will be camping with Nolan. I’ll sleep in his.”
How many spies did she have on this island?
“Are you coming to check on me and Storm? Or me and Sophie?” he asked with suspicion.
“Do you need to be checked on?”
“No.”
“Then I’m coming to visit my son and offering to help with the baby.”
“You know you don’t have to keep taking care of Dad’s kids, right?” Wilf’s marriage to Reid’s mom had fallen apart because of his affair with Glenda, but when Miriam hadn’t been able to keep Reid, Glenda had insisted Reid come live with them. Seeing as she already had Wilf’s third son from yet another affair in her house, that had seemed like a perfectly rational solution to everyone except Logan.
“You know you don’t have to stay angry with me for wanting to, don’t you?” his mother said mildly.
“I’m not.” He was so angry with her for it.
The sound of a mower started up in the distance. He set his grocery bag beside the washtub at the end of Art’s driveway where the deer had chewed the flowers down to green stubble.
“I shouldn’t have become involved with your father. Is that what you need to hear?” His mother said in his ear. “I was wrong to sleep with a married man who had a new baby at home. God knows Miriam was set up for failure, dragged into isolation with a newborn. You have a taste of parenting now so you can begin to understand how much stress that puts on a person.”
Miriam’s mental health struggles hadn’t been properly diagnosed yet, either. Everyone had more compassion for her these days, but thirty years ago, the prevailing opinion had been that Wilf was the victim, married to an unreasonable woman. His affair with Glenda had been shrugged off as justified.
“I should have supported Miriam, not him,” his mother continued. “But I refuse to say I regret having you. Or that I regret staying married to him as long as I did. I loved him, Logan.”
“I know.” Maybe he did, too, beneath his resentment.
“And Pauline, goodness, she was a child,” she said, mentioning Trystan’s mother. “I could have killed him for taking advantage of her, but I couldn’t judge her for being the other woman, could I? Not when I’d been one myself. Trystan deserved to know his father and brother, same as you. His living with us while Pauline finished her degree made perfect sense.”
It made for a cheap soap opera, in Logan’s opinion, but one of his earliest memories was crying in Trystan’s bed because Trystan had left for Christmas with his mom. He had never admitted that to anyone and never would.
“And Reid? What was I supposed to do? Let him go into foster care when Miriam was so unwell? I was the reason for their divorce. I contributed to her troubles. He needed stability so I did what I could to provide it for him.”
“I know, Mom.” Logan looked to the sky, having heard all of this before, but for the first time, he saw the decisions she had made through a different lens—that of a pseudo parent.
He understood how she could feel an obligation to a child she hadn’t made because he hadn’t made his little sister, yet felt responsible for her. Storm was so freaking helpless. She hadn’t asked for her mom and dad to die. She couldn’t speak or walk or even feed herself. Someone had to look out for her.
Much as it sounded like a convenient solution for Tiffany’s sister to swoop in and take her, Logan couldn’t stomach it. How would he know whether Storm was clean and dry and fed unless he was there to ensure it?
“I’m not mad, Mom,” he said on a sigh. “Really.”
There would always be this jagged hole of disillusion behind his breastbone, one formed by his father’s behavior, but he couldn’t blame Glenda for it. She had only done what she thought was right.
Reid had come to live with them when Logan was seven. He’d been a year older than Logan, sullen, and had brought a PlayStation he very begrudgingly shared. The tougher adjustment for Logan had been the way their off-beat blended family had become the talk of the town. That’s when Logan had learned his mother was a home-wrecker, his father a cheat.
Why did she stay with him? had been the question that had dogged him through his teens, especially when his father was so hard on all of them.
She had done it for them, was what she had always said. For him, he realized now. So he would grow up with his brothers, little as he had appreciated that.
Turning her away right now, when she was only trying to be herself—supportive and maternal—would be ungrateful in the extreme. God knew Sophie would have nothing but contempt for him if he refused to see his mother.
Hell, his mother would mother her while she was here, which was reason enough to accept her offer.
“If you really want to come, I’d appreciate it,” he said. “Art would like to see you, I’m sure.”
“Good. I’ll see you Friday, then. I love you.”
“Love you, too, Mom.” He ended the call and picked up his groceries to continue walking toward the house.
Sophie was pushing the mower and Biyen was raking. He waved at Logan and Logan waved back.
What kind of person would Biyen be if Logan had been his father, Logan couldn’t help wondering. What kind of life would they all have?
The question hit him with a lash of shame. There was nothing wrong with this life Sophie and Biyen were living. Its location in untouched rainforest made it pretty damned special, but it was modest. If Sophie had come with him when she’d wanted to, would he have still gone to Italy? Would she have become one of those rich, high-maintenance wives he’d met on Florida’s party circuit, the ones with fake boobs and fake nails?
He couldn’t see it. And kids? He had never wanted any. Would she have buckled to his wishes? Because she was a great mom. He had no doubt she’d been through hard times as a single, working parent, but he could tell she wouldn’t trade Biyen for anything. Not even a life with him.
That caused a weird pang inside him. He ought to be thinking he’d done her a favor, but he felt pushed out. Unnecessary and forgotten.
As he should be. He’d been deeply self-involved when he had come back to help Glenda leave Wilf. Reid and Trystan hadn’t been here. His mother hadn’t asked for help from any of them and none had wanted to see their dad. Logan had barely spoken to him, mostly showing up as a giant fuck-you to his old man.
But there had been Sophie, stepping out of the gangly teenager she’d been and into the confidence of young adulthood. She’d been starry-eyed for her future, funny as ever, and just as quick to build up his ego.
He was three years older than her. At the time, that might as well have been decades. When she had asked him to be her first, he should have said no. He had rationalized it as a favor to a friend. Who else would be so careful with her? Who else would stop if she changed her mind?
Who else would he want it to be?
No one. He wanted it to be him.
He really was a selfish prick exactly like his father. He had definitely suffered the same delusion that sex didn’t have consequences. That it didn’t mean anything if you didn’t want it to.
Maybe it didn’t. Maybe he was still full of himself, thinking Sophie becoming pregnant right after he left had something to do with him. He didn’t slut-shame. She’d been a very passionate person. He had left days after their affair started. He had no right to feel kicked in the gut by her moving on to someone else so quickly.
She obviously still blamed him to some extent, though. Why? He wasn’t the only reason her life had been turned upside down. She had dropped out of school to nurse her sick Mom, then moved back here to look after her grandfather. Those things had nothing to do with him. She had had choices.
Hadn’t she?
He walked into the kitchen to see dinner dishes in the sink. Art was snoring in his recliner. There was a packet of birthday invitations on the kitchen table, waiting to be addressed. When he put the groceries away, he found a wrapped plate of food in the refrigerator with his name written on it in Biyen’s uneven scrawl.
Logan had missed lunch and was starving, but he went to look at the fan in the bathroom first.
*
Perversely, when Logan moved back to the Fraser house to look after Storm, Sophie missed him.
He’d only been here three days. Like at work, they did their best to stay out of each other’s way. They crossed paths in the morning as they all used the bathroom and walked with Biyen into the village. They put in their time, then Logan had a beer with Gramps when he got home, before helping with whatever chores needed doing. After his shower, she listened to his floor creaking overhead. She tried not to think about whether he slept naked when she was in her own bed.
No, it was her son she missed, she insisted to herself. Biyen had left with Nolan this morning, grinning ear to ear over his new sleeping bag with dinosaurs on it.
“They glow in the dark ?” He’d been agog with excitement.
Glenda was arriving tomorrow so it wasn’t as though this house would be quiet for long. Sophie ought to be enjoying the peace, but she was lying here awake, mentally running through her day tomorrow. She had to strip and wash Biyen’s sheets before Glenda got here. She would count the canning jars while she was down in the basement. Gramps had been freezing salmon, anticipating they would can it. Maybe Glenda would help with that. Sophie would buy lids tomorrow. Oh. And paint for the porch. Gramps wanted to—
The phone rang, startling her into sitting up.
It wouldn’t be Nolan. There was no service on that side of the island. Not many sailed at night so it wouldn’t be a work call.
On the second ring, she threw off her sheet and padded down to the kitchen, snatching up the landline from its cradle on the wall.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” Logan said over a crying Storm. “Can you come over?”
“What? No. Why? I’m in bed.” She folded one bare foot over the other.
“Storm’s sick. I thought she was missing Emma, but she’s hot and threw up her bottle.” She’d never heard him so anxious. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll be right there.” She hung up and got herself into jeans with a long-sleeved shirt, then shook Gramps awake enough to say, “Storm’s sick. I’m going over to help Logan.”
“All right.” He rolled over and probably wouldn’t remember. He was snoring again by the time she found the flashlight and her shoes.
The moon was waning, the sky was clear. She arrived at the house breathless from jogging up the hill.
Logan opened the door before she knocked, obviously watching for her flashlight. He was shirtless, wearing only trackpants hanging low on his hips. His hair was mussed, his cheeks stubbled, his brows glued together with worry.
“Hey, sweet pea,” Sophie said, touching the back of Storm’s neck.
She turned her face away, crying wretchedly into Logan’s shoulder.
“Did you take her temperature?”
“The thermometer is there.” He pointed to the kitchen island. “I didn’t know how to do it.” He grimaced.
“You put it in her armpit.”
“Oh shit. Yeah, I thought I had to—This is why I called you.”
She hid her smile at how discomfited he was and set her box of supplies on the counter. It was full of all the things she reached for when Biyen was sick, but Emma was equally prepared. There was already a plastic tub with a thermometer and teething gel along with a bottle of infant Tylenol and a dosing syringe.
Logan shifted Storm so he could tug open the snaps of her sleeper and bared her arm. She wasn’t having it. She cried even harder when he gently pinned her arm down for the minute the thermometer needed to get its reading.
It finally beeped and Sophie read, “A smidge over one hundred. Let’s see if this brings it down.” She gave the grape flavored medication a shake, then read the dosage schedule. “How much does she weigh?”
They double-checked the concentration and each other’s math, finally squirting a small measure of the syrup into Storm’s mouth.
She stopped crying as she decided whether she liked the taste or not, then fell back onto Logan, crying it out again.
“Let’s get a damp cloth and cool her off a little. Oh! Em has Popsicles for the kids, doesn’t she?” They had all had one the other night. Sophie opened the freezer. “They’re not ideal for rehydration, but it might calm her down and cool her off.”
It helped. Storm knew exactly what it was and reached for Sophie when she saw it.
“Do you mind holding her?” Logan asked. “I still smell like barf and have to clean her crib.”
“Of course. Come on, pumpkin.” Sophie carried her to the couch and sat with Storm sniffling in her lap. Storm kept one hand on Sophie’s to keep the orange Popsicle against her unhappy mouth.
Logan went up the stairs, then came back a few minutes later to carry a basket down to the basement. He returned wearing a blue T-shirt and brought a damp cloth.
Storm didn’t like the cloth on her hair. She promptly rejected Sophie with a wail and a reach for big brother.
“All right,” Logan murmured as he gathered her up. He paced and rubbed her back. “This is what happens when you get into Dad’s rye. I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
“Something all the Fraser children learn the hard way, I presume,” Sophie said, setting the melting Popsicle on its wrapper.
“Oh, we never learn. We got into it a couple of weeks ago like a bunch of amateurs.” He touched his lips and dipped his chin to indicate Storm’s eyelids were drooping.
Sophie sat quietly, lulled by the sight of him soothing Storm to sleep.
The handful of times Sophie had played What-if with herself, wondering how Logan would have handled fatherhood, she had taken a dark comfort in believing he would have been terrible at it. He was as selfish as Nolan, but in different ways. He wouldn’t have left the payment of rent up to her, but he would have been single-minded about his own pursuits, not generous with himself or his time.
At least, that’s what she had always believed. Now, she wasn’t as sure. He was capable of holding a baby with tenderness and waiting patiently while she drifted off. He cupped Storm’s neck, set the backs of his fingers against her cheeks, and seemed satisfied that her temperature had come down.
He slipped upstairs and came back with a baby monitor.
“Where’s that Popsicle?” He looked around.
“I put it in the sink.”
“I would have finished it.”
“Do you want Storm’s plague?”
“Good point. You want one?” He went to the freezer for a fresh one.
“I’ll have an ice cream bar.” She’d seen the high-grade dark chocolate and almond-coated treats when she had retrieved the Popsicle.
He brought it to her and unwrapped a green Popsicle for himself.
“Thanks for coming. She had a fever after her shots, but it wasn’t serious, and Em handled it. I was ready to call a medivac.”
“I don’t think you’re there yet. If she gets worse or she’s still feverish in the morning, call across to the clinic in Bella Bella. See what they say.”
“What do you think it is? Flu?”
“She’s a baby. It could be anything. A virus or something she ate. She’s at an age where she’s putting everything she touches into her mouth. When Biyen was one, I caught him chewing a slug. He was mad as hell when I pried his teeth open and got it out.”
“That is the grossest story I have ever heard. And I’ve watched my brother eat bugs on his show.” He pointed his Popsicle at her.
“Toughen up. Parenting is not for the squeamish.”
“Exactly why I don’t want to be one.”
Well, that certainly slammed a door on this conversation.
She dropped her gaze and focused on finishing the ice cream she no longer wanted. She used the damp cloth to wipe her fingers when she was done.
“I’ll—”
“How did you do it?” he asked at the same time, voice pitched quiet enough she had to say, “What?”
“This.” He waved at the house. “Juggling a baby and work. How did you do it with your mom and everything?”
She couldn’t take that near awe in his gaze. She dropped her attention to a bruise on her knuckle she couldn’t remember getting. A pipe wrench in a small engine room, probably.
“I wasn’t working while she was sick. I should have found a job as soon as I realized I was pregnant. Then I would have been eligible for maternity benefits, but I stuck out my second semester at school. Mom didn’t have much left of the settlement from losing my dad, but it was enough for her to live on while she was in treatment. She left me what she could, and I lived off that until Biyen was a year old.”
“I guess Biyen’s father was there to take him when you needed to be with your mom.”
“Not really.” She felt the shakiness of emotion that entered her voice when she revisited that time. “Biyen didn’t take a bottle so I couldn’t leave him with anyone. Sometimes I wonder how he turned out so easygoing when he was drinking pure anxiety as an infant,” she joked faintly. “I’ll always be happy I was able to share him with her, though. We had so many laughs over my new mom adventures.” Her throat was growing raw. So was her chest.
“Janine was very funny. I always remember that about her. Whenever I was sent to the store for milk or whatever, she would make some crack about something, and I’d leave chuckling. I know Mom really misses her.”
“Me, too.” Seven years later, the grief could still rise up so intensely it threatened to swallow her whole. But wallowing in her private agony had been yet another luxury she hadn’t been able to afford. “Having Biyen forced me to get on with things after she was gone. It probably could have gone either way, but he kept me from sinking into depression. He’s so delighted by simple things. I miss him when he’s with Nolan, but he’ll come home in a week and tell me with great pride that he pooped in a hole he dug himself. It puts all of my agonies and aspirations into perspective.”
He snorted. “No kidding. Hashtag mental health hack.”
“Right?” She chuckled, embracing her love of her son to ward off all those other, difficult to bear emotions.
“Is his dad like that?” Logan asked curiously. “Is that why you fell for him?”
“Nolan keeps his life very simple, yes.” She cautioned herself not to be bitter with disappointment. “But I didn’t love him. He’s a guy I brought home from the bar because he seemed harmless, and things got complicated when I became pregnant.” She closed the wrapper from her ice cream bar over the sticky stick.
“Since when did you bring home men from the bar?” Logan’s brows crashed together.
“That smells a lot like judgment when I know for a fact that at nineteen, you spent your weekends in the bar, picking up girls. Trystan told me that’s what you told him you were doing when I asked him if you were enjoying university. Sauce for the goose.”
“ Trying is the operative word that he missed when he relayed that information,” Logan said through his teeth.
Trystan had been trying to help her shake off her long and useless crush. She had not appreciated him for it.
“Either way, I’m guessing that behavior continued more or less nonstop until you got the call that Wilf was gone and had to leave your condoms on your yacht while you moved in with your brothers. So I’ll say a polite fuck-you and fuck your double standards.” She rose. “What did you want me to do, Logan? Sit here and pine for you some more?”
“No.” His jaw was locked, his mouth grim. “I’m saying it seems out of character to the woman I knew.”
The one who had saved herself for him. As if he had ever really known her or cared one way or another what she did.
“I was getting over you, Logan.” Screw him and his stirring up of all her old baggage. Now her tortured, angry emotions were leaking everywhere, especially out of her mouth. “I fucked around in empty hookups because I thought that’s how I deserved to be treated. Because that’s how you treated me.”
“Sophie.” He pressed back in his chair with shock.
“I hate you for the way you treated me,” she spat, letting the poison squeeze out at last. “But I hate myself more for allowing it. For spending so many years waiting for you. For not seeing that you never actually gave a shit about me.”
“That is not true.” He shot to his feet. “I gave a shit. I have always cared about you.”
“Oh fuck off.” She shook her head and flung out a hand, rejecting his bullshit. “You didn’t care about anyone but yourself, but I don’t care about that. I’m furious with myself because I treated myself badly. I punished myself for being stupid over you, and I wound up derailing my future. That’s not your fault. I did that to myself.” She tapped her breastbone where it was throbbing as though fractured all the way through. “But I won’t do it again, Logan. I won’t do this.” She motioned between them. “I won’t have cozy chats with you where I share my feelings and you convince me I matter. Never again. Understand?”
He stood very still, fists clenched as though he were withstanding something unbearable.
“We work together. For Storm’s sake, I’ll help you with her if you need it. Stay in my house and wash my dishes and give Gramps a laugh. He needs it. But we both know you’re leaving as soon as you can. We are not friends. We never were and we never will be.”