“Adam is coming for Tilly on Saturday evening,” she said when he hadn’t answered. “If she’s back... I don’t know what he’s planning on doing. Anyway, the point is I can make it to the funeral. There is plenty of time.”
Logan hesitated. “You sure?”
“Yeah. I can be there.”
It made him feel stronger to think of having her there. She was the only one in this town who understood him, it seemed. Whatever they’d had in their youth had sparked up again, and he found himself opening up to her...
Except she’d already told him that he hadn’t opened up quite as much as he thought. He ran his hand over the box.
“I...uh... I thought I might open the box here,” he said, “and see what my mother put inside.”
“With me?” Melanie’s expression softened.
“Yeah. You okay with that?”
She nodded, and Logan fished in his pocket and pulled out the key, then he picked up the box and looked around.
“Come to the living room,” Melanie said.
She’d moved things around again—the TV in one corner, a couch opposite it, two single chairs positioned on the other side of the room facing the wide window overlooking the lake. He sank into one of the chairs and put the box down on an ottoman.
“I don’t know what she would have sent him,” Logan murmured. “She didn’t think much of him. She never had anything good to say about him. She hated that he held me at arm’s length.”
“But kids don’t get an inside view of their parents’ relationships, either,” Melanie countered.
Logan fit the key into the lock. It didn’t turn easily, and he had to jiggle the key and put a hand on top of the box to keep it still as the lock finally clicked open. Then he lifted the lid.
There was a mishmash of items inside, but no envelope or letter containing an explanation. Logan picked up a program from his university graduation. He opened it and found his name circled in the list of graduates. There was a picture of him at high school grad—standing there in his blue robe, his mortarboard on his head and squinting into the sunlight. He handed the items over to Melanie as he sorted through them—his birth announcement, a hospital bracelet from when he had his appendix removed as a teenager, a scattering of pictures from his childhood, including one of him and his father standing together. Logan picked up that photo and looked down at it.
Logan was about ten, and he stood there so tall and proud. His father had his hand awkwardly on Logan’s shoulder, and he looked less confident in that photo.
“It’s a box of...me,” Logan said softly.
“She wanted you to deliver it,” Melanie said. “Maybe she was hoping you two would have more of a relationship.”
“Talking points?” he asked, lifting up a collection of school photos from the first grade to the twelfth.
“Why not?” Melanie took the photos. “I’ve never seen these. You were adorable.”
“Yeah...” He looked down at the familiar photos, then turned back to the box. There were a few more items—a little car he used to play with as a boy. He remembered this specific car. It was a favorite.
“My mother never asked me if I wanted her to connect me with Dad again,” he said, flipping through a few pictures he’d drawn as a kid. There was a series of comics he’d made, his age recorded in his mother’s neat handwriting on the back of each. There was a step-by-step set of instructions for how to build a Lego spaceship that he’d designed himself—the instructions drawn in the careful imitation of the company’s booklets.
“Wow...” Melanie picked up the instructions, flipping through it. “You were a really bright kid, Logan.”
“I think most kids try their hand at that, at some point,” he said.
“No, they don’t,” she replied.
Graham hadn’t, but then he’d been creative in different ways. He’d been a whiz in the kitchen since he was eight or nine. But the intimate nature of the contents of this box started closing doors inside of him. His mother had crossed a line here.
“I didn’t ask for her to try to meddle,” he repeated, and Melanie looked up, meeting his gaze.
“She meant well,” Melanie said.
“So what did she expect, that he’d open this box, see all he’d missed and change who he was as a human being?” he said, anger burbling up inside of him. “My mother cared about this stuff. She’s the one who collected it all, not him. If anything, he’d only feel some moderate guilt, and close me out even further.”
Melanie didn’t answer.
“I didn’t want this,” Logan said, his voice shaking with emotion. “I spent my life begging that man for some sort of relationship, and my mother figured she’d lend a hand at the end? I was tired of the begging! I’d given up!”
Logan tossed the papers and photos back into the box. These mementos encapsulated his childhood. These were the moments that he remembered, and maybe he didn’t want to share them with the father who’d never cared enough. “You know, if she really wanted my dad and me to connect, she could have done something about it while she was alive.”
Like Caroline—she could have said something while there was still time. Like anyone—they only had so many years to work with, and copping out with some instructions in a will was cowardly.
MELANIE HANDED BACK the intricate bundle of Lego instructions. Logan’s expression had cooled, and his lips were pressed in a thin line. She knew that look—this was what he was like when he retreated emotionally, normally in delicate situations when opening up mattered most.
“She was proud of you, Logan,” Melanie said quietly. “Maybe you were the best thing she ever did. Maybe this wasn’t about giving up your personal memories without your permission. It could have been her own personal affirmation—she raised you!”
Logan looked over at her, and for just a split second, emotion swam in his dark eyes, giving her a hint at
