By Logan’s hands apparently.
But there was plenty to look at, even now, before the sun made an appearance. The air around them was a deep purple, the mountains a striking silhouette. The moon was still there, pale and fat, hanging on to its last moments.
And it still wasn’t as compelling as Logan’s hands.
“You’re awfully quiet,” he said.
“I’m not quiet,” she said.
But the feeling of speaking was a little bit foreign, because she had barely spoken twenty words in his presence, and she realized how ridiculous her objection was as soon as she made it.
“What are you thinking about?”
“My parents.” She went back to the earlier truth, not the present one.
A strange thing that it was easier to admit that than to admit that she was twisted up inside over what had happened the night before.
Either admission would’ve been true. But contrary to...every other moment in her life, talking about her parents felt preferable to talking about the other thing she was thinking of.
He understood, though.
And somehow, even in all the confusion between them, they still had that.
“What’s got you thinking about them?”
“It’s silly,” she said. “I just remembered... This morning I remembered my mom and I bringing coffee to my dad. I had forgotten we used to do that. It’s weird. Because I brought those same coffee cups and that same kettle outside for us a hundred times. And I haven’t thought of that. But this morning I did. I don’t know.”
“It’s not silly,” he said.
“Memories for me are really few and far between. I was just a kid when they died.”
“Yeah. But you know, they say all that formative years stuff is really important. So it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t very many, or that you were young. It mattered. It was important.”
“Yeah. I just... I don’t know why I was thinking of it today.”
Something shifted inside of her, a companion to the shifting that had occurred yesterday. The answer to the question she wasn’t asking.
Why was she thinking of it?
Because of the shifting. Because of the changing.
She gritted her teeth, grateful that Logan wasn’t looking at her.
Grateful that he couldn’t see the shifting.
“Do you remember my mom?”
The question was asked with a rough voice that made her heart twist.
He never talked about his mother. Not specifically. They all carried a shared grief. They didn’t have to talk about it. But he didn’t share memories. And when Christmas came around he retreated into himself, and he offered no explanations.
No one ever pushed, but she’d always suspected, always known that something about this time of year cut sharper and harder for him. She’d attributed it to his Christmas memories being different than theirs.
They were missing their parents at Christmas, it was true. But Christmas had been in the same house, with their siblings, and so that remained.
Logan’s Christmases had been in another house, with only his mother. And maybe for him Christmas without her was so removed from Christmas with her he couldn’t ever have it with enough joy to balance out the grief.
But he never offered, and she never asked.
She didn’t know why he was offering it now.
“Yes,” she said slowly.
Logan’s mom had sandy-blond hair, and green eyes. She’d had an easy smile, and a soft voice. Rose remembered, because it was so easy to tell the difference between her mother, who had a low, loud tone and a robust laugh that echoed through the house, and Jane Heath whose voice was like a whisper with a song in it, and whose laugh had a quiet burr in it.
“She was sweet,” Rose said. “And I remember that she made cookies. That was kind of her thing. When you guys would come over for dinner, she would always bring cookies.”
“Yeah,” he said. “She did.” The roughness in his voice scraped against her heart.
His shoulders moved up and down, a heavy breath causing the motion.
Maybe if he had something of his mother at Christmas it would be different for him? Those cookies. She’d always made cookies at Christmas.
“Do you have the recipe for her cookies?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “I have quite a lot of her things that I haven’t really... I had it all put in storage. Except for a few pictures and knickknacks, those I have in the house. But you know, I moved in with you all after she died, and there was nowhere really to put the things. We were renting the house. So it’s all in boxes in one of the barns, and I never really wanted to go through it.”
“We should see if we can find them. You know, not so I can cook them, but I bet Iris and Sammy would do a good job.”
He was silent for a long time. “That seems wrong somehow.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Just that... She’s gone. So, seems fair enough that I don’t get to have her cookies ever again.”
Her heart twisted. She saw him more clearly in that moment. And it hurt.
“Well, it won’t be the same,” she pointed out. “It’s just that it might make you feel a little bit closer to her. How could that be a bad thing? Seems like something she would have liked.”
That was another thing she remembered. That Logan’s mom had loved him. That she had been proud of him.
So proud. It had been obvious, even to a little kid. But she had understood, even then, that he had a very special bond with his mother. She had her mom and dad. He had her.
“Logan,” she said slowly. “That must’ve destroyed you. To lose her. I’m sorry about what I said last night.” It didn’t matter now. That he hadn’t been the one to bring it up. It didn’t matter because what she’d said to him had been
