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The nickname has a tingle fluttering low in my belly. I’m sure I look far from pretty at this hour. I can practically feel the bags under my eyes.
“Hannah had a nightmare,” I admit as he eases back on the step, his presence a silent beacon in the shadowy night. He remains quiet as I continue, “She had a dream about her father… and the fire.” My voice is barely audible, the words catching in my throat as I fight back tears.
He bristles next to me. “Fire? But I thought you weren’t in the house when it burned down.”
I look at him. “Iwasn’t.” The confession is a mere whisper, a ghost of a sentence that carries the weight of a thousand unspoken horrors.
A tense silence envelops us, Logan seemingly at a loss for words. I can’t blame him; there’s a lot he doesn’t know about me, about the demons from my past that continue to cast long shadows over my present.
“How much did Claire and Jake tell you about me?”
“Not a lot. I knew something happened two years ago. I knew how Rob died. I didn’t know you were his wife.” Something terrifying flashes in his eyes before it disappears. “I didn’t ask for details. It’s only my business if you want it to be.”
With a deep breath, I turn away, fiddling with an imaginary string in my pajama top. I don’t know why, but I can’t look at him when I tell him.
And with the memories, the words tumble out, unfiltered, raw, and clawing at old wounds until I bleed.
“The day after I had Isabel, I was supposed to go back to the shelter, but there were some minor complications doctors wanted to keep an eye on,” I begin. “Claire was looking after Hannah. I asked her to come to the hospital so Hannah could meet her baby sister. Rob found out. He tried to muscle his way into the hospital earlier that day, but security shut him down hard.”
My eyes are trained to the ground, unable to meet Logan’s gaze. I’m terrified of what I might see. “Once Claire and Hannah left, Rob was in the parking lot… waiting. I don’t know, I think he thought I was coming home too. In some delusion, he thought he could bring his family home again. I remember holding Isabel and feeling so much love, but something else sank in my gut. And I knew… I just knew something wasn’t right.”
Swallowing back a sob, I push forward. “Thirty minutes later, there was a cop standing at the end of my bed. Claire and Hannah hadn’t made it back to the shelter. Rob had taken her. She thought they were going for ice-cream.”
I bite down on my lip hard enough to taste copper on my tongue. “I wasn’t sure of a lot in my marriage, but I was sure of how much he loved his little girl. I didn’t realize his selfishness was stronger. Something made him snap that day.”
I find myself pinching the skin of my ring finger where a gold band once fit perfectly. I had the indent of the shape for months. Right now, I think I can still see it.
Dropping my hands to my lap, I stare at the grass and listen to the birdsong in the trees as the creatures come to life in the morning glow. I concentrate on that when I say, “She didn’t see it because she was playing in her room, but he set the house on fire with her still inside.”
His touch keeps me in the present as his thumb collects a tear from my cheek. “Jake and Claire got her out in time. She only remembers the smoke. She remembers she was scared, but she doesn’t know the real story. She doesn’t know how her father was willing to hurt her, to take her life. How he put a gun to his head and fired while letting the house burn down around him rather than face the consequences.”
A wave of sorrow washes over me, my words coming out in broken fragments. “I failed her. All those years I tried to shield her from the man her father really was… a man who was supposed to protect her, not put her in harm’s way. I left to keep her safe, and I couldn’t even do that.”
The words hang in the air, their true meaning doing little to set me free. Instead, it burrows into my veins, poisoning my blood. “There will come a day when she remembers more, when she starts asking questions. And when she does, how do I tell her? How do I explain to her what her father did, why I couldn’t stop him?”
His answer is gentle even when there’s so much anger setting his jaw tight. “You do what you’ve always done,” he says, his words a soothing balm to my frayed nerves. “You love her. You guide her. And most importantly, you remind her every day that she’s safe. The past doesn’t define her, or you. Remember that.”
“Is that what you did?”
I don’t know why I ask or even if I have a right. It’s a selfish thought, but I don’t want to be alone here.
He gazes at me for a moment, his elbows on his thighs, as if considering his answer. Then he sighs and leans forward. “I suppose I didn’t really have a choice,” he finally says, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. It’s a mouth I can’t help but stare at. “You learn to adapt, to push through, to survive… because you have to. The alternative is slipping back into darkness.”
“Where is your father now?” I venture, the question slipping out before I can think about it.
“Prison,” he answers. “Drugs and assault. He’s a real diamond, my father.”
There’s an intense sadness in his eyes that makes my heart ache for him. But then he blinks, and it’s gone, replaced by that same calm resilience.
“Did you ever forgive him?” I’ve been told I need to forgive, but I’m finding it real hard right now.
Logan laughs, but it’s humorless. He looks at me, and I’m trapped again in emerald eyes. “You know, I used to think it was about forgiveness. I used to think that if I could forgive him, then I could move on. Then I realized that’s a lot of effort and focus on a man who doesn’t deserve it. It wasn’t about forgiveness. Not for me. It’s not about him at all. It was about how I coped, how I chose to live my life despite everything.”
His fingers drum softly on his knee as he continues. “We’re all dealt a hand in life, some of us better than others. It’s how we play the cards… that’s what matters.”
His words ring with such clarity, such conviction, it’s as if I can feel my own strength growing. I draw in a deep breath as he traces the dried tears away with his thumb, cupping my face and drawing me until I’m breathless from just a simple touch.
With the first light of dawn playing hide and seek with the morning mist, we stay seated on the porch steps, cocooned in a comforting silence. Our shoulders brush slightly, grounding me, reminding me that he’s here, willingly sharing this moment with me. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something about him that makes the shadows of the past a little less daunting, the present a little more bearable.
