Page 118 of Here We Go Again
Logan thinks about Joe and his detours to see cool shit and hisTuesdays with Morrieadvice. She thinks about him returning to Remy, even when it was hard.
She thinks about Remy and his open heart, about what it would feel to love like she’s never been hurt, even when she’s secretly hurting.
She thinks about Rosemary and…
And it hurts too much. The way Rosemary looked standing onthe porch yesterday when she said she wanted to keep the cottage—the way she looked when she told Logan she loved her. She wasrelaxed. Her mouth wasn’t puckered and her jaw wasn’t clenched and her neck tendon wasn’t bulging. Her face was open, soft, and easy. Her body moved elegantly, like every part of her was in harmony.
Maybe for the first time ever, Rosemary looked completely at peace with herself.
But Logan. She poked, like she always does. She used her prickliness to keep Rosemary at bay, even as her heart bloomed inside her chest like flowers on a cactus. No matter how much she wanted to, Logan couldn’t let Rosemary get close, because all she ever does is hurt people.
Rosemary said she loves her, but how could anyone ever love someone as damaged as Logan?
It’s a little before noon when she reaches Burlington. The sky is marble-blue, and she follows North Avenue out along Lake Champlain. Logan has had the address memorized since she was fourteen, back when she always hoped to see it stamped in the upper-left-hand corner of every piece of mail.
She’s not sure what she expects to find at the address, but she isn’t prepared for a mansion on the lake near an expansive green park. Trees and water and sky.
It never occurred to Logan that maybe her love of wide-open spaces is genetic.
She doesn’t hesitate once she arrives. She’s out of the car and ringing the doorbell before she can second-guess her impulsivity. Jumping in with both feet.
An old Greek man in pristine tennis whites answers the door. Logan recognizes him from Facebook photos. Yiannis Doukas: CEO of Doukas Beverages and her stepfather. A man she’s never met.
Despite Logan’s unshowered, caffeine-fueled state of grief andexhaustion, Yiannis clearly recognizes her, too. His expression shifts from overt surprise, to understanding, to sadness.
“Is she here?” Logan blurts. It’s only as the words come out that she remembers it’s a Thursday, and her mom could be at work. Or, judging by the size of this house, at one of her various nonpaid positions on the boards of local charities. Or pilates.
“She is, but—” Yiannis starts. At the same moment, a voice calls out, “Is that my Amazon delivery?” and Logan is shocked to discover she recognizes it from late-night lullabies and even later-night screaming matches with Antonio.
And then Logan sees her over Yiannis’s shoulder, rounding a corner into the foyer. She’s dressed in expensive-looking athleisure wear, her dark brown hair streaked with caramel highlights that cascade down her back in perfect barrel curls. Even at almost-sixty, she’s as beautiful as Logan remembers, getting tucked into bed at night, gazing up at that face.
“Hi, Mom,” Logan says from the front porch.
Sophie looks horrified at the sight of her daughter, and whatever hope Logan harbored during her seven-hour drive here, crumbles at her feet. Sophie’s eyes dart around the foyer like she’s searching for an escape hatch, andthatLogan absolutely inherited. Her need to avoid feelings, to duck out of every serious conversation before it starts, must be halfway coded into her DNA.
“Why don’t you come inside?” Yiannis offers with a friendly smile, opening the door wider. Logan steps inside, and Sophie shakes herself out of shock.
“Is everything okay, Logan?” she asks with some semblance of maternal instinct.
“Yes,” she answers automatically. Then, she laughs at the absurdity of it. “Actually, no. Nothing is okay. Someone very important to me is dying, but that’s not why I’m here.”
Sophie struggles to look natural in her own home. “Then why are you here?”
The walls of the opulent foyer are lined with photos of her half-siblings, and Logan can’t stop staring at the two statuesque teens with her olive complexion and her sharklike eyes and her pouty mouth, assuming she’d had access to orthodontia. Her siblings are carbon copies of her, but with a different socioeconomic status. She presses her finger to a photo of them on a sailboat. “I don’t even know how old they are,” she says.
Yiannis answers. “John just turned twenty, and he’s a sophomore at Amherst. Phoebe is eighteen and graduated from high school in June. She’s off to MIT here in a few weeks.”
Two perfect, academic superstars. Logan drops her hand from the frame.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Yiannis offers. “We have sparkling water, seltzer water, tonic water, wine—”
“Why are you here, Logan?” her mom interrupts. And Logan sees herself in her mother’s utter lack of tact.
“I just want to talk, Mom.”
Sophie blinks erratically like she’s still searching for a way out.
“And wine sounds great.”
