Page 37 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

I blink. “What do you think he meant by that?”

“I don’t know. I tried to ask and he shook his head.”

My mouth goes dry. I have way too much experience with a parent shutting down for that not to hit hard. And here Logan experienced it with both of them.

“Hey, I think we should read the journals again. Maybe Uncle Martin wrote something that can give us a clue of what happened to your mom. I think we’ll find something. We just have to look harder.”

He stays quiet for a moment, and then one side of his mouth twitches—not quite a smile, more like he’s noticing me.

“What?” I ask.

“You have the same look you got when Martin told you he’d need to pull up that old tree.”

My lips lift as I remember the one: planted by my great-grandfather, which made it older than color television and the microwave oven, with the perfect central branch for climbing. “I told him I’d tie myself to it to keep him from cutting it down. Dramatic, I know. But he relented. Let it hold on another year.”

Logan’s eyes flick back and forth between mine. “I’ve always liked that about you.”

“That I’m optimistic?”

“That you hold on so tight.”

My stomach backflips, betraying me before my mind can shut it down. Then I swallow because, even though Logan’s gaze is heavy and certain in a way that feels almost like physical touch, I can’t help but think about my mom’s purse-lipped stare.

“That tree died a few years later. I didn’t save it in the end.”

He lets my words hang in the space between us, one of his deliberate pauses. Then he says, “When you care about something, you hold on to it. Even if it doesn’t ultimately work out, you don’t abandon what’s important.”

I’m not sure what he means by that. I don’t think he’s talking about me, or us as teenagers, but I still can’t help but think about our phone calls that faded into silence. The end that I hastened along when I stopped returning his messages. The timing of it all.

“You, uh…” I busy myself by stacking up some five-gallon buckets, buying time to find the right phrasing. “I guess your mom must have left around the time we stopped talking.”

“A bit before but yeah.”

“Is that…” I fiddle with the handle on one of the buckets. “I’m sorry. I should have been there for you. Helped somehow.”

“You didn’t know,” he says. “I didn’t tell you, and I’m sorry for that.”

I hesitate before asking, “Why didn’t you? Tell me.”

He frowns. “I didn’t know how to talk about it, to be honest. I was young and everything was changing so fast and…I barely knew how to handle any of it.”

I nod because I get it. Probably more than he knows.

“Thanks for telling me now.” I stack my pile of buckets onto a crate and squat to lift the tower, tall enough that it obscures most of my field of vision. “I can understand why being here is complicated for you.”

Arms loaded, I waddle toward the open door. My pile teeters, buckets rolling precariously. I stop short just as Logan materializes to steady us both.

He lifts my stack of buckets, revealing his face, closer than I was expecting. Darkened eyes. Firm mouth. That jaw. “I said it was ‘complicated’ to be here because it’s not all bad.”

Oh. “It’s not?”

“I would say I’m glad I came.”

I fidget by rubbing a finger against the corner of my crate. “We do have a nice view of the mountain. There’s that creek. And it’s quiet. No screaming baby, I guess.”

Logan’s lips hitch, carving out that now familiar half smile. “I think you know that none of those are the reason.”

“I do?”