40. The Loss

Logan

“Mr. Parker … Mr. Parker, where would you like us to place this lovely arrangement?”

“I dunno. The back?” Logan said, looking off into the distance. It had been a few years since he had been back home in Indiana.

“Place them beside the casket, on the right, please,” Stacy instructed the assistant director at the funeral parlor. Stacy sat beside Logan and turned her knees toward him. “You have to get it together. Mom needs you right now. You don’t know how hard it was to get her out of bed this morning. Dad’s dead, and you’re the one acting like a ghost, so man the fuck up!” she gritted between her teeth. He sighed, ignoring her.

“Would you like an open or closed casket?” the attendant asked.

“Open,” Logan said.

“Closed,” Stacy said, almost in unison. “I thought I discussed this with you,” Stacy yelled, and then turned to her phone. “No, it’s a funeral, not a wedding. It better be on that table by two o’clock, or you can forget the rest of the payment … Logan, let’s go. God, I hate being here. Town is full of fucking idiots.” She grabbed her purse furiously and stormed out the door.

On the car ride back to the house, Stacy went through a list of all the things that needed to be done that day.

“Remember when Dad had us help decorate the house for Christmas one year and assigned us the shed because he figured we couldn’t mess it up too bad and then the shed caught on fire?” Logan reminisced, looking out the window. Every place they passed reminded him of his father.

“Logan, what the fuck? I’m trying to talk to you,” Stacy said. She pulled out a cigarette at the next red light and lit it with one hand while on her cell phone with the other.

“Don’t smoke in my car,” he said as he drove.

Her left thumb swiped the phone while her right hand trembled as she took a puff. “How do people still need directions? It was on the goddamn invite.”

“Stacy, put the cigarette out!”

“Logan, fuck off. I need this right now. Besides, we’ll be home in three minutes,” she hissed at him.

“Throw the fucking cigarette out, now!” he roared, scaring her.

She tossed the cigarette out the window, mouth hanging open. Her face pinched in, and tears flooded her eyes. “I lost my fucking dad, too! I lost him, too, Logan. It’s not fucking fair. I didn’t even come home last Christmas. I was such a bitch to him about it, too.” She continued to sob and didn’t seem to notice her phone falling onto the floor. Logan suppressed the urge to cry, having cried three times that morning, and it wasn’t even ten.

When he pulled into their driveway, they sat in silence as Stacy wiped away the last of her tears, mascara running down her face. He wished he could reach over to give her a hug, but he knew Stacy wouldn’t want that. She checked herself in the mirror, making a few more wipes before leaving Logan alone in the car. “Mom can’t see me like this,” she said, hanging off the passenger door. “Ready?”

“Give me a sec.” He pulled out his phone and looked at the last conversation he had with Hunter from the time he visited New York during the seminar. It had been nearly five years since they’d seen each other. He wanted to speak to him and tell him how much he needed him and his strength.

Hey, he typed but didn’t send. He closed his eyes for a second, took in a breath, and then exhaled, swallowing a lump in his throat before heading inside.

“Your mother has been cleaning since you left,” Amber said as soon as he walked through the door.

“Where is Stacy?”

“She took your mom upstairs to get dressed. I’ve been trying all morning. She hasn’t eaten anything. I’m worried about her.”

“We’re all worried about her, Amber,” he said, with a hint of frustration in his voice.

“Don’t snap at me. I’m trying to help you.”

“Look, I wasn’t snapping. I’m sorry. Where is Emma?”

“She’s upstairs.”

Logan went upstairs to his parents’ bedroom to find his mother in bed on her side, his five-year-old daughter hovering over her. Emma had long dark hair down her back and big, hazel eyes like her mother.

“Grandma, you’re sad? … It’s okay, Grandma … Do you want my Mommy to get you ice cream? … It’s okay.” She stroked her face sweetly.

“Here, Mom.” Stacy walked out of her closet with a black dress on a hanger. “Put this on.”

“Why is she this calm?” Logan asked.

“I gave her a Xanax.”

“Is she going to be awake enough for the service?”

“Yes, she’ll be fine … Come on, Mom.” She pulled her mother up by her arm.

“Aunt Stacy, she wants some ice cream, with sprinkles, right Grandma?” little Emma informed her busy aunt.

“Get down from there! Go with your mom,” Stacy snapped at Emma.

“We’ll get ice cream later, baby. Come with Daddy.” Logan reached over the bed, and she jumped into his arms, wrapping herself around his neck.

“Aunt Stacy is mean,” she whispered to him, not so quietly.

“I know, baby.” He chuckled as he walked out of the room with his daughter.

“Where are your stockings? Get your stockings on!” Amber fussed when they entered the guest room that was once Logan’s room.

“They scratch me!” Emma cried.

“They don’t scratch you, they itch you,” Amber corrected her, picking up the stockings.

“No!” Emma screamed and held onto Logan more tightly. “Daddy!”

“Does she have to wear the stockings?”

“You always do this in front of her and undermine my authority. This is why she’s like this.”

“What are you talking about? She’s five, it’s stockings.”

“You take her side every time she comes crying to you and it leaves me being the bad guy. She’s wearing stockings because it’s cold out and she’s in a dress,” Amber shouted, coming over and pulling Emma off Logan’s chest.

“Daddy! Daddy! … No!” She kicked and screamed at her mother. “They scratch me!”

“I swear, these are the softest stockings I’ve ever felt in my life. They can’t possibly itch,” Amber argued with the five-year-old.

“You’re going to add this to the list of shit we have to deal with today?” Logan asked her.

“What I’m not going to deal with is a five-year-old having a meltdown in front of two hundred people because her legs are too cold.” Amber grabbed the white stockings and Emma screamed. Amber grabbed Emma and tried to force her foot into the stocking while she tossed and turned.

“Do you have to do it like that?” Logan asked her, annoyed.

“Fine. You do it,” Amber yelled and stormed out of the room, tossing the stockings on the bed. “I’m taking a shower.”

“Hey, Emma, are you okay?”

“Mommy is being mean to me.”

“She wants you to wear your stockings because it’s cold outside. Can I help you put them on?”

“Daddy, they scratch me.” She wiped tears from her eyes.

“Alright. Would you mind if we try together and when they scratch you tell me, okay? Can you do that?”

Logan got on one knee beside the bed and had Emma stick out one leg as he rolled the stocking up her small foot and up to her thigh.

“Is it scratching you?” he asked. She shook her head. He wondered if she was trying to give her mother a hard time. When he placed the stocking on her other foot, Emma let out a whimper and pulled her foot back.

“It’s scratching me, Daddy,” she whined. Logan felt around the outside of the stocking and placed his hand inside and felt a light prick on his finger. He turned it inside out to find the other side of the plastic tag holder lodged between the fibers of the sock seam near the toes. “Found it, baby.” He pulled it out and placed it on the bed. Emma took it in her hand and felt it in her fingers. “It won’t scratch you anymore.”

“Can we get ice cream for Grandma? She’s sad. I saw her cry,” Emma said jumping to her feet.

“Why do you think she was crying?”

“I think she has a tummy ache.”

“Yeah? And ice cream will make her feel better?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Logan.” His mother appeared at the door with a sad look in her eyes in her zombie-like state. “I have to call the cleaners and tell them that your father can’t come by to pick up the quilts your grandmother sent us.”

“Mom, don’t worry about that, please,” Logan said to her.

“But I have to—”

“I’ll call them. The ones near the square, right? I’ll call them right now.”

“Mom, please,” Stacy called out to her from down the hall. “Let’s get your hair and makeup at least halfway decent.”

Logan wished his dad were there to offset the house full of women. “Ready to go downstairs for a video and some snacks while Daddy gets ready?” They passed Amber on the way as she left the bathroom.

“Of course, she puts her stockings on for you,” his wife hissed.

After a lovely funeral service where Mr. Parker’s best friend, brother, and Stacy said a few words, guests lined up to pay respects to the Parkers before breaking for refreshments before the burial.

“You know, my sister needs to focus on herself now that he’s gone,” a heavy-set woman told Logan and Stacy before giving them both a hug, one on each shoulder. “Who picked out this tacky place?”

“Why is Patty here?” Stacy mumbled under her breath at Logan. “Dad would’ve never wanted her here. I hope he haunts her.” Her comment made Logan chuckle, making him forget for a second where he was and the state his mother was in on the other side of Stacy.

“I’m sorry for your loss … He was such a great man … He was so proud of you … We’re here for you if you need anything …” were the words they heard over and over again, shaking the hand of person after person in line to pay their respects.

“Who is that lovely floral arrangement from?” he heard his mother ask one of the attendants as they moved the arrangement to a transport van.

“The Richardsons.”

Logan knew that meant they wouldn’t come. After they’d divorced and sold their house in town, no one had seen or heard from them.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” a deep, familiar voice said in front of Logan with an extended hand near his chest. Logan felt his heart skip a beat and the blood drained from his face. Hunter stood in front of him with broad shoulders and slicked-back light hair. They held eye contact for a few seconds, but to Logan, it felt like an eternity. Time seemed to have slowed down and sped up all at once.

“Thank you,” was all Logan could think to say. Hunter slid a piece of paper into Logan’s palm before moving on to Stacy and then Mrs. Parker.

“Hunter!” Logan heard his mother cry, followed by loud sobs. Witnessing Hunter hugging his mother in his peripheral vision, he felt a loss of strength in his knees. Breathe, breathe. He couldn’t fall apart now; he had more hands to shake.

Amber watched Hunter like a hawk as he walked out of the room.

“Is that him? Why is he here?” Amber whispered to Logan a couple of hours later during the burial.

“Who?” Logan played dumb.

“Stop acting stupid.”

Logan carried his sleeping daughter in his arms. He was careful not to look at Hunter but couldn’t help but think back to the time they’d shared. There, at his father’s burial, as he watched him being lowered into the ground, all he thought about was Hunter.