Chapter 19 Logan
LOGAN
The second half of the drive is scenic. We pass houses that look like boats, inflatable lobsters on top of restaurants, and in one person’s yard, a moss-covered stone well so picturesque that Hazel insisted I pull over so we could make a wish in it.
We get to Mom’s in the late afternoon without getting a flat tire, running out of gas, or getting into any accidents, though I do somehow manage to run over a few pots of mums lining the driveway.
Hazel and I walk around the house and up to the deck, where all the noise is coming from.
I point out everyone I know to Hazel: my mom, my stepfather, my older sister and her boyfriend, my younger sister, my oldest stepbrother and his husband, my other stepbrother and his girlfriend.
Everyone else must be friends and coworkers.
They’re all paired off in conversation, warming themselves next to space heaters and the fire pit.
We meet Mom at the outdoor dining table that’s covered in bowls filled with chives, sour cream, cheddar cheese, diced bacon, and butter balls.
My stepfather, Warren, sets a giant silver tub of foil-wrapped potatoes onto the end of the table, completing the baked potato bar.
When he sees us, he doesn’t bother taking off his oven mitts before wrapping Hazel and me into a group hug.
Originally from Canada, Warren was transferred to a hospital in our town in Washington.
That’s where he and Mom met as nurses after my parents had divorced.
After a couple years of dating, they got married.
Warren’s kids were also in their teens and twenties, so we were all off doing our own thing.
We mostly get to know each other at holidays and gatherings.
“Thanks for coming,” Warren says to us. “You really didn’t have to go to the trouble.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I say. “This one’s for real?”
“You can only retire so many times, I suppose,” he says, clasping his mitt-covered hands together. Warren has retired about four times at this point. He never sets an end date, which means he keeps showing up to work.
“Have you had your last day yet?” I ask Warren.
“Last Friday. I had to make sure my patients were in a good spot,” he says, eyeing my mom. “Your mother is happy.”
“It’s going to be great!” Mom says, overhearing our conversation and meeting us at the head of the table. “We’ll have more time for traveling. We can seriously think about that boat you’ve always wanted.”
Warren nods. “It’ll be great,” he echoes.
Mom has tongs in one hand, an empty plate in the other. It takes her a second to notice my arm. “Oh my god, Logan!”
“This? It’s nothing,” I say, giving her a hug. “Just a scratch. Mom, meet Haze—”
“It’s clearly not. What happened?” Mom asks. She’s wild-eyed, her tone coated in concern.
“I fell down a few stairs.” I shrug.
She gives my shoulder a shake. “Oh, honey, this could’ve been so much worse. You could’ve broken your whole arm.”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “Phew.”
Mom glances over to Hazel. “Honey, it’s so wonderful to meet you!” she says, sweeping her into a hug.
“Your house is… wow. It’s beautiful,” a wide-eyed Hazel tells Mom. “I love the scallop siding. Was that part of the original house?”
Mom looks delighted, her worry no longer present. “Thank you for noticing,” she says. “Logan did that. A house on the coastline needs pizzazz.”
“It looks like a mermaid’s house,” Hazel says, staring up at the 2,800-square-foot house painted a sea foam green behind us. “I mean that as a compliment.”
Mom beams. “I take it as one!”
Hazel looks like she’s lost in a daydream. “I’d love to do something similar with my grandparents’ house. I’m taking notes.”
Mom’s house is perched on the rocky coastline overlooking Penobscot Bay.
It’s an unobstructed view with endless blue water in the distance, trees flanking the house on both sides.
At this time of year, the leaves are painted every shade in the warm color palette.
Set against the bright bay and sparsely clouded sky, it’s practically a fall paradise.
Mom points to the round windows built into the dining room nook and on the second floor.
“Logan added those, as well as the cabinetry in the kitchen. Oh! And that entire setup,” she says, directing Hazel’s attention to the long dining table and benches I built.
“Obviously, the backs of the benches needed to look like shells.”
“Obviously,” my oldest sister, Eva, says as she and her boyfriend, Roy, join our trio. She jerks her thumb toward me. “If it can be built, this one’ll do it.”
“You start your own carpentry business yet, or what?” Roy asks me.
“Logan just made head carpenter on Broadway,” Mom says proudly as she emphasizes her last word. “He’s very busy.”
“Head carpenter already?” Tina, my stepbrother Joe’s girlfriend, asks. “Did I miss this announcement?”
“I didn’t make one,” I tell her.
Roy makes a show of blowing out a big breath of air. “You’re living the dream,” he says. “I don’t know how you do it on a carpenter’s salary. I wish I could live in the city.”
“We talking about Logan?” Joe asks, a half-eaten whoopie pie in hand. “I need some of your luck, man. I’m up for a promotion at work.”
I shift uncomfortably at this, but no one seems to notice. Except Hazel. She puts her hand on my lower back and rubs it in small, slow circles.
At this point, everyone’s gathered around, so I introduce them to Hazel.
“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend, Logan!” Jane, my younger sister, says, oblivious to the fact I haven’t actually labeled her as such.
Hazel doesn’t correct Jane. Neither do I. We talked about our future but not what we officially are to each other. It’s not something we anticipated having to address, which, looking back now, was a big oversight. What else was my family going to think about me bringing someone home?
But this isn’t just someone.
“Guess Logan’s not big on sharing much these days,” Eva says.
Mom sets the tongs and plate down and picks up a ceramic jar. “Has everyone entered the raffle? Warren, make sure your colleagues have put their names in, will you please?”
Warren sets off as my siblings groan. There’s always some sort of annual competition, but today’s sounds less involved than usual.
“Why even go through the effort? Logan’s gonna win, like always,” my other stepbrother, Nick, teases.
Bruce, Nick’s husband, nudges him and shoots me an apologetic look.
“Think positive, Nick,” Mom says. “Maybe then you’ll win this year.”
“Remember that one year we had to whittle?” Jane asks Nick. “That competition was rigged.”
Eva laughs. “Lucky Logan never misses.”
If only they knew. Though if I lose this competition, there will be questions. In years prior, I’ve won pumpkin carving, soufflé baking, lobster roll cook-off, and, as mentioned, whittling.
If this were any other time, if I weren’t so shaky in my luck, I’d laugh at this comment. I’d joke that Nick’s just jealous. That I can’t help that I’m naturally good at these random skills.
Today, though, my siblings’ comments nag at me. Easily? Besides the whittling, which took me years to learn how to do well, those competitions weren’t easy. Nor did they come naturally to me. But while everyone else either gave up halfway through or half-assed it, I took it seriously.
Maxwell’s words replay in my mind. Once you moved beyond ‘no,’ were you in the right mindset?
Has it been luck, then, like everyone’s always told me? Like I’ve always thought?
This is too much to process right now, especially with a group of people irritated at my winning streak. But for the first time, a surge of self-compassion trickles through me.
My shoulders drop as I relax a little. Maybe I’ll lose and break my streak this year.
Maybe that’s okay.
I push down my annoyance and focus on Hazel. My family’s always seen me in a certain lucky light, while Hazel’s always doubted that part of me. For the first time, it strikes me how freeing it is to not be viewed like that by her.
“There will be more than one winner,” Mom says. “Just look at all those prizes!”
On another table, closer to the house, there’s an assortment of items: bottles of wine, a basket of cookies shaped and iced to look like fish and fly rods, a few gift cards, and golf ball boxes tied with ribbon.
“Whatever the biggest prize is, Logan will get it. I’d put money on it,” Jane says. Nick takes her up on her offer.
I don’t bother trying to convince Jane otherwise.
Those of us who haven’t entered write our names down and drop the slips into the jar. Then we eat.
“I’m obsessed with this baked potato bar,” Hazel says flatly, and mostly to herself. I wouldn’t have been able to tell she was into it if she hadn’t said so. Then she looks up at me, and there’s the tell: a slight crinkle in her eyes, a glimmer of excitement. “The red onion is a great touch.”
Hazel may have learned to dampen her expectations for good things and to keep her reactions under wraps, but they’re still there when you really pay attention. With time, I want to learn all her tells.
“Let’s go! The butter’s melting,” Jane sarcastically says behind me, nudging my back.
I take my time putting a potato on my plate, just to mess with her. The weather’s in the fifties. The butter’s not melting anytime soon. I cut down the middle of the potato, a curl of steam escaping. I scoot forward toward Hazel before Jane makes comments about the bacon.
Ahead of me, Hazel’s eyebrows are furrowed slightly as she considers how much sour cream she wants. The tip of her tongue pokes out the side of her mouth as she thinks. It’s the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen.
“I can feel you watching me,” she whispers, landing on two scoops of sour cream.
“I could watch you do this all day.”
A smile plays on her lips as she blinks at me through her long eyelashes.
“Logan, what the hell?” Jane says over my shoulder. “Seriously?”
“Oh my god, Jane. We’re getting chives, and then we’re done,” I tell her. What’s her problem today?