Chapter 193

Logan looked at himself in the mirror for the fifth time the next morning. He was dressed sharply as ever in his work clothes. Already he had tied and retied his tie three different times. This final time, he undid it and tossed it carelessly to the side. It fluttered down onto the floor of my bedroom.

“You look great,” I told him, leaning on the doorframe, looking in. “But even if you didn’t, your foster parents wouldn’t care.”

“Everything has to be perfect,” he said. He sounded more nervous than I had ever heard him before. Rarely was he ever anything but totally confident, especially in relation to his physical appearance.

“It is perfect,” I said. Stepping into the bathroom, I reached up and clasped his hand, the one that had been idly fixing and unfixing the top button of his white dress shirt. “It will be perfect.”

Looking at me, he seemed to return back to himself somewhat. He gave me a small smile as he leaned in and kissed me lightly on the lips.

“And if it isn’t?” he asked, his lips brushing against mine.

“I will be there every step,” I said. “If you get uncomfortable, or things go badly, we can just leave.”

He hummed, satisfied. My words seemed to placate him. “I’d hate to ruin your friendship with them…”

“If they aren’t the people I believe them to be, then I don’t want to be friends with them anymore, anyway,” I said. “But I think they will prove themselves trustworthy to both of us.”

“I hope so,” Logan said. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into a hug for a long moment.

Slowly, with some deep breathing, his body seemed to lose its tension and he relaxed against me.

An hour later, Logan parked in front of one of the local pizza shops. Together, he and I exited the car and started walking to the entrance of the old brick building.

Tammy had invited us over to her house for the lunch meeting, but Logan shied away from that, uncertain that he was ready to return to his childhood home. I suggested somewhere public instead, more neutral ground.

However, as we approached the building, Logan’s eyes became glossed-over and distant again. Looking at the building and the signage, he said, “This place hasn’t changed one bit.”

I wished he would have told me he had been here before. Maybe this wasn’t such neutral territory, after all.

“You sure you want to go in?” I asked to be sure.

He nodded. “Just brings back some memories, that’s all. Not bad ones either. I remember the pizza being delicious. I hope that’s still true.”

“It was good when I ate here last week,” I told him.

“Good,” he said. “I’d be mad if that changed.”

We walked inside and glanced around. Tammy and Frank weren’t here yet, though Logan and I were still ten minutes early.

We told the hostess we were expecting two more so she led us to a table that could fit four. The chairs were slightly rickety, the table somewhat wobbly. But these things were just part of the charm of the place.

She handed us menus that were so old and outdated, the numbers had been crossed out with a pen and new prices listed beside them.

“Everything is the same,” Logan said in wonder after the waitress walked away. He looked around with stars in his eyes, mouth open and smiling somewhat. I loved the confident and cool Logan, who always seemed in charge, but I loved this side of him too, his child-like wonder for nostalgia.

We ordered drinks. As they arrived, so too did Tammy and Frank, walking through the entrance at exactly the time we had decided upon.

When they spotted us, Tammy made a sharp cry that she immediately muffled with a hand over her mouth. Frank put his arm around her and they began coming over.

Logan stayed seating when they arrived at our table, so I did too. Tammy and Frank took the two open seats. They didn’t even try to hide that they were staring at Logan.

“Hello Frank, Tammy,” I said.

“Oh, Hazel. Thank you,” Tammy sniffled. “Logan, I…”

“Tammy,” Frank said. “Careful now. We don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”

“Right.” Tammy clutched her napkin in both hands. “Hello, Logan.”

Frank, satisfied, looked at Logan too. “Good to see you, son.” He cleared his throat when his voice broke. “How have you been?”

“Well,” Logan replied. He looked at them both only in quick glances now and then. Most of the time his attention was on the table directly in front of him.

The joy in Tammy’s face seeped away. She shrunk into herself as she glanced off to the side.

Frank looked between his foster son and wife with an uncertain expression on his face.

The misconceptions they’d been harboring for the past many years seemed like they would be more difficult to erase than Hazel had hoped. She’d imagined getting them in the same place alone would mend old burned bridges.

They’d need more than that, it seemed.

“Logan was telling me that he used to come here as a boy,” I said, to make conversation. Talking at all seemed like a good first step toward repair.

“Every other week, we’d come here,” Frank said. To Logan, he added, “Sal still works in the back.”

Logan glanced up. “Still? He was old then. He has to be 100 now.”

“97,” Frank said. “But you wouldn’t know it. He hasn’t lost a step.”

“I play bridge with his wife after church on Sundays,” Tammy added. “94 and still smart as a tack. They must have excellent genes.”

“Genes aren’t everything,” Frank said. His eyes went wide, likely realizing what he said. Still, he cleared his throat and pushed forward. “There are plenty of other things that contribute to a person’s well-being.”

“Like money?” Logan asked flatly, his smile fading.

Frank’s brow pulled together. “No. Like happiness.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Logan asked.

“No,” Frank said firmly.

“We never needed money to be happy,” Tammy said. “I have no shame living modestly.”

Logan looked at her. With uncertainty in his voice he asked, “Then what makes you happy, if not money?”

“Oh, lots of things,” Tammy said. “My bridge club. Crocheting. Frank. And… when we receive any news about you.”

Logan sat back on his chair. It creaked beneath him.

“We’ve tried reaching out over the years, son,” Frank said. “Just because you were taken away does not make you our child any less.” Frank lifted his hand and patted Logan’s shoulder. “We are proud of the man you have become Logan.”

“Grandfather told me that you only wanted the Hatfield money,” Logan said.

“To hell with that money,” Frank cursed. “And to hell with that old bastard Hatfield.”

“Frank,” Tammy scolded. “Logan is probably close with his grandfather…”

Frank sighed. “Sorry, son. I just get so angry… The way he talked about you after you went back… like you were a piece of property. He said you belonged to the Hatfield’s. He even tried to pay us off to go away and forget you.”

Logan and I glanced at each other in surprise.

“He did?” I prompted.

“We would never forget Logan is our son,” Tammy said. “Our adoption paperwork had been solid. We went to court for months, but our attorneys were no match for Mr. Hatfield’s. I cried for a full month when the judge came down against us.”

“She did,” Frank admitted. “I didn’t talk for a week myself.”

Logan sat a little straighter. Disbelief in his voice, he asked, “You… fought to keep me?”