Them (Him #3) (9 page)

“He’s a reservist. If you won’t talk to me, can you talk to someone from the military?” I ask, frustration evident in my tone.

That seems to trigger something and she picks up her phone. She didn’t ask me to leave, so even if it’s rude I listen to her call, my stomach dropping when she tells them arrangements need to be made to inform the next of kin.

When she hangs up, her expression softens as she turns back to me.

“Is Logan. .?” I can’t finish my sentence.

She slowly shakes her head, and I cover my mouth with my hand. “Oh, God, his dad?”

She doesn’t confirm but in doing so, I know it’s true.

“What will happen to Logan? Can you tell me if he’s hurt or not? Will Social Services be called?”

She doesn’t answer any of my questions, just directs me back to the waiting room to sit until someone else can speak to me.

I call Sarah as I wait. Hearing her voice calms me, and I regret declining her offer to come with me. Sarah is the one person in the world I trust more than anything else. She gasps when I tell her I believe Logan’s father may have passed away.

“What about Logan?”

“They won’t tell me how he is or let me see him,” I groan.

I don’t hear what she says in reply as a nurse approaches me. “Honey, I have to go.”

“Are you here for Logan Turner?”

“Yes.” I stand.

“Someone from Social Services is here and wanted to speak with you.”

In a daze, I follow her.

Logan regained consciousness the morning after the car accident. He had a broken arm and a concussion. I sat with him as his social worker told him his father had passed away. When the social worker explained he would be moved into a group home as his grandmother was not well enough to care for him and he had no other living relatives, I stepped in.

Sarah and I have been his foster parents since that night, three weeks ago. To say he’s withdrawn is a gross understatement. We do our best to draw him out, but Rascal seems to have the most success. She now sleeps in his room and when we get home from school, he walks her.

One small blessing in all of this is Sarah is too busy to stress about getting or not getting pregnant. After my sperm count came back normal, she went and saw her doctor again. That same week, they performed an outpatient procedure to remove the polyp discovered during her ultrasound.

Logan rides to and from school with me, and still eats lunch in my classroom every day. He misses his dad. To go so long waiting for him to come home only to lose him is a tragedy I can’t imagine. Every week, I bring him to see a grief counselor, and we visit his grandmother afterward. News of her son’s passing, so soon after losing her husband, has taken its toll.

Logan seems hesitant to see her, but I don’t want him to regret time lost with his last remaining blood relative before she passes. This kid has had to deal with more loss than anyone should in his thirteen years on this Earth.

Today, he asked me to take him to go see his dad. I glance over at his quiet profile as I drive to the cemetery. He was so strong, helping to plan his own father’s funeral. There was some money, life insurance that came to him. He wanted to pay for everything himself, but Sarah and I wouldn’t let him.

Brian drew up trust paperwork and once Logan agreed, those funds, all of them, are now waiting for him once he’s eighteen. The cemetery his father rests in isn’t a far drive.

After I park, I ask, “Do you want me to wait in the car?”

He shakes his head so I get out and walk next to him as we follow the now-familiar path to his father’s grave. I never had an opportunity to meet his father before his passing, and I can only hope he died knowing how special his son was. There are days after Logan meets with the counselor where Logan will talk about his dad. Those days neither Sarah nor I can get a word in edgewise as Logan almost manically tells us one story after another.

It’s as if he fears his father will be forgotten if there isn’t anyone other than him who knew his life. Other days, more recently, he’s silent, keeping everything tucked inside. That was why I gave him the option of me waiting in the car. I don’t know if he wants to talk to his dad, and I don’t want to intrude on that.

Being here at the cemetery brings his funeral fresh to the forefront of my mind. The day was blessedly dry, but the two days of straight rain prior had saturated the grounds. Logan looked so small and alone as he stood in a new suit and watched his father’s coffin being lowered into the ground.

He had no family members to rely on. His grandmother wasn’t well enough to leave the nursing home. There were some of his other teachers and a few of his neighbors who came, and a group of five soldiers from his father’s reserve unit came to pay their respects and offer their condolences to Logan. None of them knew Logan or had known his father directly, though, so the meeting was awkward at best.

Logan didn’t cry, but watching as his mouth tensed with emotion over and over that day is scarred on my soul. All I wanted to do was tell him to let it all out, that it was okay to cry. That wasn’t my place, though. All I was at that point was a teacher turned unexpected foster parent. I was out of my depths and unsure of how to give him the support he needed.

Sarah wasn’t, though. She saw his pain and curled her love around him. It wasn’t until after everyone else had left that he turned into her embrace and sobbed. The force of his pain made her take a step back to hold them both upright. I moved behind her and held them both as he finally cried.

His tears spurred our own. It was gut-wrenching and a pain I had not experienced since the moment I first thought I had lost Sarah. Death has an uncanny way of reminding us how temporary our lives are. Almost three weeks ago, three of us stood and mourned as one in this cemetery.

“Am I cursed, Mr. Price?”

His heartbreaking question pulls me from my thoughts. “Why would you think that?”

There are tears in his eyes as he turns to look at me. “Everyone around me dies. I don’t want you or Mrs. Price to die, too.”

I tug him to my chest and hold him as he sobs. The pain, his emotion and fear so powerful, I get choked up.

“You are not cursed, Logan.”

His voice is muffled as he responds, “How do you know?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you. When I was younger than you, my older sister died, and a few years back my dad died, too. Life isn’t always fair. It is hard and painful, but there are good things, too. You are having a lot thrown at you right now, but you are not the cause or reason for any of it. You are not cursed.”

“Promise?” he cries.

I pull back so I can look him in the eyes. “I promise.”

He nods, his hand jerking up to wipe his face. “Is it okay if I talk to my dad alone for a minute?”

I rest my hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Of course. I’ll wait for you in the car.”

As I walk back toward the parking lot, I worry if I am capable of helping Logan get through this. I would never abandon him; I only worry I’m not good enough. Cursed? I shake my head, wondering where he could have picked that up from. He’s been dealt a rougher hand than most kids but from what I can tell at school, he isn’t being targeted by any bullies.

We have a zero-tolerance policy on that shit. I don’t know why kids start acting all ‘Lord of The Flies’ from time to time, but we try to keep an eye out to make sure our kids feel safe at school. It seems like every single week, I’m seeing something on the news about a teenager taking their own life as a way to escape the torment of being bullied.

I’m not waiting in the car long when Logan walks back up and gets in. His cheeks are wet, so it’s clear he cried again while he talked to his dad. Even though his dad was stationed overseas a couple of times while Logan was growing up, it’s clear they were close.

Before I shift out of park, I turn to him. “Where’d this cursed idea come from?”

He shrugs.

“Any of the kids at school put that in your head?”

He shakes his head.

“You’d tell me if anyone was bothering you, right?”

He nods.

I don’t know what’s worse: him not talking at all or him asking me if he’s cursed. I don’t know him well enough to be able to tell if he’s lying to me. I’ll ask Christine to pay extra attention to him the next time he’s in her class. I can discretely ask some of his other teachers to do the same.

“Coffee?”

This kid loves Starbucks coffee. Since it supposedly stunts your growth, we don’t let him have it all the time, though.

He nods.

“Want to text Sarah and see if she wants us to get her something?”

He nods again, pulling out his phone. The bill for his phone and his dad’s now come to our house. It’d be cheaper to turn off his dad’s phone and add his phone to our plan, but we haven’t done that because Logan likes to call and text his dad even though he’s gone. In my eyes, whatever little amount of peace that brings him is worth the added expense.

His phone chirps with Sarah’s reply.

“What does she want?”

“An eggnog latte.”

I crinkle my nose. “That sounds disgusting.”

He laughs and given our earlier conversation, that sounds like music to my ears.

Sarah is waiting inside the door with Rascal when we get home. Her eyes light up as Logan passes her coffee to her, and she gives him the puppy in exchange. Logan snuggles her to his chest and heads off toward the den. Once he’s out of sight, I motion for Sarah to follow me upstairs to our room.

I close the door behind her and lean my back against it.

“How’d it go?” she asks, taking a sip of her drink.

“He asked me if he’s cursed.”

Her eyes round as her mouth falls open. “Why would he think that?”

I shake my head. “I asked him if any of the kids from school said anything but he said no.”

She presses her hand to her chest. “That breaks my heart that he would even ask such a thing.”

Taking her drink from her, I place both of our cups on the dresser next to the door before tugging her into my arms. “I know.”

“Should we call his counselor?”

I kiss the side of her head, comforted by the fruity smell of her conditioner. “That’s not a bad idea.”

She presses closer to me. “You are a good man, Will Price.”

“Hush, darling.”

She pulls back, her eyes flashing. “I mean it. I was scared when you asked if Logan could come live with us. I know nothing about taking care of a kid, and even less about a teenage boy. I knew we could do it, though, because I’d have you and you’d know what to do.”

I slip my hand behind her neck and pull her closer, tucking her face into my neck until I could feel her breath on my skin. “I have no clue what I’m doing.”

She kisses my neck. “Well, you must be doing something right for him to confide in you like that.”

“Thank you for saying that.”

We grab our drinks and make our way into the den where Logan is playing a game called Minecraft. He’s tried to show me how to play a couple of times. I have to be missing the point because as far as I can tell, it’s nothing more than a glorified set of virtual building blocks. He’s mentioned being able to interact with other players, but so far he hasn’t.

As long as he doesn’t have the volume up too loud, Sarah and I like to hang out in the room while he plays. Sarah reads on her e-reader and I play on the floor with Rascal, and Logan abandons that game not long after to play with the dog and me.

“Hey,” Sarah says, making both of us look up. “Should we go get a Christmas tree tonight?”

Logan shrugs but doesn’t say no, which is the same thing as saying yes, as far as Sarah is concerned.

Standing, she asks, “Do we want a fake tree or a real tree this year?”

I’ve been trying to talk her into getting a fake tree since we bought this house. Sure, a real tree smells nice and is more authentic, but I’m the one who ends up cleaning up all the needles and having to keep it watered. Plus, the fake ones can come pre-lit. All I want for Christmas is Sarah wearing a bow (and nothing else) and a pre-lit fake tree.

She looks at Logan, clearly not interested in what I want.

He looks back and forth between the both of us before speaking. “I’ve never had a real tree.”

Real tree it is. Sarah beams at me.

“Someone put Rascal in her crate,” I grumble, walking toward the front door.

The local YMCA is where we’ve bought our last couple trees from. They have a decent selection and the proceeds go to charity. We each get a cup of hot cocoa before walking into the lot, and Sarah deputizes Logan to be the official tree-picker-outer. He takes his position more seriously than either of us could have predicted and has to look at every single tree on the lot before he’ll make up his mind.

Sarah and I patiently follow him. He decides on a Douglas fir, asking for my help to see if there are any bald spots. Once he’s confident that this tree is the perfect one for us, we have a little bit taken off the bottom to level it off and the staff from the lot tie it down to the top of my car.

Logan helps me carry it inside while Sarah scurries up to the attic to find our tree stand. He goes to let Rascal out back before coming to help me with the tree, and we set it up in the front window of our living room. Sarah shows Logan where the water goes as I head up to the attic to grab the rest of the Christmas decorations. Once I’m back downstairs, I notice Sarah has holiday music playing.