Chapter 143
Chapter 142: Logan Breaks The Silencè
Catherine POV
Clam
I’d found her at the charity luncheon eleven days after Logan had left for Seattle, which was a genuine coincidence that I’d turned into something deliberate, because Logan had stopped picking my calls after telling me he was going to find Sedona and I had to act like a concerned friend who wished him the best of his adventure. She’d been in the corner of the room with her second glass of wine at eleven-thirty in the morning, which was information about the mind pace she had been in and looked like she needed the right person to talk to about what was going on in her head.
I’d been the right person. I was good at being the right person.
She’d talked about Sedona, the guilt she had been carrying on her that her son made her see. She may not like Sedona but still Sedona was a human with feelings and she had trampled all over them. She talked about the cancer report that Logan had told her, she also talked about the things she’d said to her when she’d come home from the hospital that day. She wasn’t a woman who processed guilt easily, Sherry. She’d built her life around being right, and the particular time of being the one in the wrong was something
that she was not used to.
I listened carefully to her.
I’d said the things that helped-not dismissing her fears nor excusing her actions, but reframing in the specific way that allowed her to keep most of her integrity intact while acknowledging that one thing had gone wrong. It was a precise operation. Too much forgiveness and she’d feel condescended to. Too little and she’d close.
I’d calibrated
And then I’d driven her home, and she’d invited me in for tea, and I’d said yes, and that had been the beginning of Sherry calling me when she needed to talk.
Through Sherry, Nick.
Nick had been hostile initially in the specific way of a child who’d absorbed adult dynamics. He’d looked at me with Sedona’s eyes and said things that were polite on the surface and entirely unwelcoming underneath which was a skill I recognized because Sedona had subjected it to me when she was still here.
I hadn’t tried to show outwardly that I was returning to replace her.
That had been the key decision. Replacement was the wrong play-Nick would resist it, like he did the first time and the resistance would harden, instead I had done the exact opposite which my friends would have called me a fool and demanded that I put nick in a boarding school, but without being married to Logan I had no say in great decisions involving Nick. Not even Sherry would help me with something this significant so I started slow. Instead I’d talked about her. Named her. Referenced her. Made her real in the room rather than pretending she wasn’t the person he was thinking about when he looked at me.
1/3
Logan Breake Silence
Claim
*Your mom used to do it this way. Your mom showed me where the spare inhaler is. Your mom’s recipe-1 Tried to make it. I didn’t get it exactly right but I’m working on it p>
Positioning myself as someone who respected her, who’d learned from her, who was working to help remember her, just like nick was trying by preserving the routines that she had made for him.
It was working. Slowly, incrementally, in the way that things worked when you were patient and precise.
Nick’s phone lit up. The tablet, actually, as he turned to looked at it, his attention already torn between both things.
“Homework first,” I said.
He looked at me. Looked at the tablet. Returned to the worksheet, which was the response of a child who understood the rule even when he didn’t prefer it.
My phone lit up on the counter again.
Logan’s name.
I looked at it.
He was calling me. After eleven days of voicemail, he was calling, which meant something had changed, and I had no idea what this meant for me. Was it a good thing or a bad thing?
I let it ring twice while I thought.
Then I answered because ignoring Logan wasn’t something that I could do.
“Logan,” I said.
“I need you to do something.” His voice was different from the last time I heard it. He sounded more exhausted and resigned.
“Of course,” I said. “What do you need p>
“Mum told me that you have been coming over some days in a week to help keep things stable at the house,” he said. “Nick, the routine. I’m calling you to let you know that I am not angry and I want to thank you for being selfless like this and I would have to trouble you to come more often because I am going to be in Seattle longer than I planned p>
“How much longer p>
“I don’t know yet.” A pause. “There are things I’m working through. I need the house to stay consistent p>
“I can do that,” I said.
“I know you can.” Another pause, shorter. “Thank you, Catherine. For being there p>
He ended the call.
I put the phone down on the counter and looked at Nick, who had finished the last problem and was reviewing his work with the careful quality he brought, his eyes cross-checking them over and over again until he was satisfied.
213
Logan Breaks Snience
“Is that Dad?” he asked, without looking up. He’d heard the call. He always heard.
“Yes, I said.
He looked up. “Why didn’t he answer before p>
Claim
I constructed the answer with the speed of someone who had been lying to him, he knew that Logan had not been calling and I had been giving generic answers to him.q
“He’s been very busy,” I said. “Work has been demanding. He’s dealing with something complicated and he needed to focus before he could call p>
Nick looked at me seriously, studying my face for a moment before nodding his head.
“Is he coming home?” he asked.
“Soon,” I said. “He’ll be home soon p>
He looked at his worksheet. At the answers he’d checked and rechecked. Then at me, one more time.
“Okay,” he said, in the tone of a child who had accepted something without being entirely satisfied with it.
I picked up the phone.
Called Sherry.
She answered on the second ring.
“Catherine,” she said. “I was just thinking about you p>
“Were you,” I said. “I thought we might have lunch tomorrow. There are some things I’d like to talk through p>
“Of course,” she said. “The usual place p>
“The usual place,” I said.
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Florence
A passionate storyteller who brings emotions to life through her words. When she’s not writing, she finds peace nurturing her garden.