“Of what?” Logan asked.
“You were everything I wasn’t yet. You were older, you were better looking, you had this confidence about you... I was scared that you’d take something away from our family, from my parents’ marriage. I thought that by not liking you, I was being loyal to our nuclear family.” He shrugged weakly. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” Logan said. “You know, our father messed up a lot of stuff, Junior. I tried so hard to connect with him. Do you know what he gave me for my birthday every year?”
“No.” Junior glanced over.
“Twenty bucks.”
Junior pressed his lips together. “I got a Nintendo system one year. A bike another year.”
“Yeah, I know.” Logan had known about the vast discrepancy between their gifts, the attention they received, their father’s love.
“Why did you stop trying?” Junior asked. “When you were an adult, I mean. It might have been different, then.”
“Because I called him when Graham was born, and he came down on me because Caroline and I weren’t married yet,” Logan replied. “And I just...saw red. I mean, he saw my son as some sort of failure on my part. My son! And he hadn’t married my mom, so I saw the connection. I was his failure, too. I was the kid born outside of wedlock. So I married Caroline, and I never contacted him again.”
“That’s awful,” Junior said. “I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t you.”
“Yeah, well, someone should be sorry, anyway,” Junior replied. “And I am.”
“Is that a therapy trick?” Logan asked.
“Not a trick, but yes, it’s something used in therapy,” Junior replied. “It helps people to feel heard.”
“Well, cut it out,” Logan said.
Junior’s face colored, and he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. From his position, Logan could see that Junior had missed a small patch when shaving that morning, and the whiskers shone golden.
“Do you have any good memories of our dad?” Junior asked, looking up.
Logan had been ready for a fight just now—proof that he’d been treated unfairly, pushed aside, neglected by their shared father—and he felt the adrenaline drain out of him. Our dad...
“He gave me a pair of boxing gloves one year for Christmas,” Logan said, a lump rising in his throat. “Mom said no, but Dad gave them to me, anyway.”
“Yeah?” Junior smiled at that. “He never would let me have boxing gloves. He said I wouldn’t like being punched, and you couldn’t throw a punch without getting it back.”
Logan shrugged. “I guess he wasn’t so worried about that with me.”
“I asked Dad about you quite a few times when I was growing up,” Junior said quietly. “And Dad said that you were strong and smart, and that he wasn’t worried about you. He also said you had a really good mom raising you...”
“He said that?” Logan rolled the words around in his mind. An excuse for his paltry offerings when it came to being a dad, or a sincere compliment to Elise. Maybe both.
“I knew better than to ask when my mom was there,” Junior added.
“Were they happy?” Logan asked.
Junior was silent for a while. “If you’d asked me this a week ago, I would have told you a different story. I’d have insisted that they were devoted and loving, truly meant for each other.”
“Not true?” Logan asked.
“Whether they were meant for each other or not, I have no idea.” Junior sighed. “Maybe that was why I kept trying to protect the family—their marriage wasn’t that strong. Mom was jealous. And Dad had a couple of affairs over the years, and that changed them...changed her.”
“Oh...” Logan swallowed.
“Yeah.” Junior met his gaze for a moment, then looked away. “He wasn’t the perfect family man, Logan. But I loved him, anyway.”
Tears welled in Junior’s eyes, and Logan reached out and awkwardly patted his brother’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, and they both sat there with the morning sun warming them through the windows.
“I married Caroline because of Dad,” Logan said at last.
“That’s a good thing, then,” Junior replied, his voice thick with emotion.
“I don’t know if it was,” Logan replied. “But because Dad came down on me for having a child out of wedlock, I bought Caroline a ring and we got married a few months later. After she’d recovered from the delivery. It was my silent jab at dad. I’d married her. He couldn’t hold that against us.”
“You weren’t happy?” Junior asked.
“Are you asking as my brother, or as a shrink?” Logan asked.
“As your brother.”
Logan sighed. “I was happy. I was really happy. I loved her, and I loved my son, and I liked being married. I liked the solidity of it. It felt safe and secure—everything I’d lacked growing up. And my mom loved Caroline, too.”
“What was the problem?” Junior asked.
“Caroline wasn’t quite so happy,” Logan replied.
“What made you feel that way?”
There was something in Junior’s tone that had shifted, and Logan slowly shook his head.
“Nope, that was the shrink asking,” Logan said.
Junior smiled wryly. “Maybe. Sorry. It’s hard to shake. My wife hates it when I sound like a shrink with her, too.”
“I’ll bet...”
Junior sighed. “It’s not easy being the husband, the provider, the dad, the font of half the wisdom in the house... It’s a lot of pressure.”
That was something Logan could finally agree with. “Yeah, it is.”
“At the funeral, I was wondering if you wanted to say something,” Junior said quietly.
“When is it?” Logan asked.
“We’ve settled on Saturday. Noon. At the big Anglican church downtown.”
“Is that why you came today? To ask me to speak at the funeral?” Logan asked.
Junior shook his head. “No. But I’m asking now. I think you deserve to be a part of it. He was your father, too.”
“You trust me to say something nice?” Logan asked.
Junior eyed him for a moment, then laughed bitterly. “I do. You’re a father, too. And my kids are going to be there, and whatever he was to us, however he messed up, he was their grandfather, and they adored
