(Present)

Logan goes over to the monitor that displays what’s happing on the camera placed near the entryway. There’s a male figure in a truck but we can’t make out who it is. Logan tells me to get a gun out of the duffel bag. I hate guns and I always have. But after dating Logan, I am familiar enough with them that they don’t completely freak me out.

“You remember how to shoot?” he asks when I have the gun in hand.

“Yes,” I reply. There were a few handguns in the house, so Logan insisted I learn how to use guns so that they weren’t foreign to me. “Bathroom. Now. Anything comes through that door, you fire.”

I do as he says and get myself into the bathroom. My heart is in my throat. I am on high alert and every inch of me is both hot and cold. I hear voices at the front door but it’s hard to make out what’s being said. I do, however, hear the panic in the voices.

“Shay, it’s alright. Come out, weapon down,” Logan shouts. I do as he says and walk out. The man at the door is Henry and he’s brought Frankie with him. The kid clings to his grandfather.

“What’s going on?” I ask when I see the fear in Henry’s eyes.

“Helen had a heart attack. The ambulance took her to the hospital; I gotta get down there. Look I know we said that we’d leave you folks alone but is there any way you can watch Frankie, just for a few hours?”

“Yes, we’ll watch him,” I reply. Logan looks over at me and I shrug.

“Thank you. I put his things in here; I’m sure I’ve missed some stuff. Helen is the one that usually does this kind of thing,” he says, clearly beside himself as he checks the content of the kid’s backpack.

“You sure you want to trust him to us, despite the fact that we are clearly hiding from someone?” Logan warns.

“We don’t socialize much around here so there’s no neighbor to take him to. I called my daughter, but I can’t reach her. I don’t know anything about you but judging by the way you held that gun it’s easy to tell you can handle whatever might come your way. And if Banshee swears by you then so do I. I trust my gut and my gut says my grandson is safe with you,” Henry says. He then turns to me, “Am I right? Is this guy capable of watching over my family?” I nod without hesitation.

“Good. I’ll be back soon as soon as I can,” Henry says.

“Please call the house phone and let us know how your wife is doing,” I call out as he leaves.

“She’ll be just fine,” he says. He’s not replying to me, he’s reassuring himself. The fear and worry in his voice is unmistakable. Logan closes the door and turns to me.

“So, now we’re watching a two-year-old?” Logan says, disgruntled.

“Almost three!” Frankie says as he pouts and folds his arms across his tiny chest. Logan and I exchange a look.

I lower myself so that Frankie and I are at eye level. “Hi, Frankie, I’m Shay. And this is my friend Logan.” He looks over at Logan with a mix of fear and a determination to overcome that fear. Logan looks down at him and I know he’s thinking about the fact that he’s now accountable for an additional life.

“Is this your backpack?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he replies.

“So, I guess you like Batman a lot huh?” I ask.

“He has a car—the Batmobile. It goes really fast,” Frankie informs me.

“How fast?”

“Like um...” Frankie tilts his head to the side and looks up in the air as he tries to find a word that express just how fast Batman’s car can go. “It goes fast. Then fastfastfastfast,” he concludes in a rapid-fire pace.

“Nice! Can I take a look inside your backpack to see what you brought with you?” I reply.

“Okay,” he says. I unzip the bag and find activity books, snacks, clothes, a stuffed elephant, and a storybook.

“Do you think you can draw me a picture of Batman’s car? I’d love to see it.”

“Okay!” he says excitedly. I take him to the table and set him up with the crayons and paper that Henry packed. Frankie hops up on the chair and begins working on his masterpiece. Logan stands about the same place he’s been standing since Henry left.

I walk over to him and shake my head. “He’s not gonna bite, Logan. You can get near him.”

“First of all, some of them do bite. And second, I’m worried that he’s here at all,” he whispers.

“I get that this isn’t ideal. I do. But it’s the situation we have and we have to deal with it. We can do this.”

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s only for a few hours. I hope Helen will be okay. She seems like a nice lady,” he says.

“I know we just met Henry but something tells me, he’d be lost without her.”

“If the look on his face when he came in here is anything to go by, he’d lose his shit if his wife dies. I feel bad for him. He goes to bed and everything is fine and then in a matter of hours, everything he knows could get taken away,” he says, sounding distant. I can’t help but wonder if he’s still talking about Henry or himself.

***

The morning goes by and while Logan isn’t ignoring Frankie, he’s keeping a distance from him. Frankie will glance over at Logan as he’s tinkering with the surveillance equipment. When Logan turns around, Frankie will quickly look away. I spot Logan smiling to himself and I think he’ll start to warm up to the boy.

My suspicions are confirmed a few hours later when I place Frankie’s lunch in front of him. I made a turkey and cheese sandwich with the crust cut off. I slice some apples and steamed some veggies on the side. He eats the sandwich and apples. But getting him to eat the veggies is a different matter. I try to talk him into it, I beg him to just try one little piece, but he flat-out refuses. I swear it was easier to talk the woman out of shooting her husband than it is to get this kid to eat anything green.

Logan enters the kitchen and makes himself a plate full of veggies. He then walks up to the table and sits down right next to Frankie. And without cracking a smile, he places a piece of carrot on top of his head. Frankie begins to laugh and says, “What are you doing?!”

“I’m eating my carrots,” Logan replies in all seriousness.

“Not like that, like this,” Frankie says, placing a carrot into his mouth.

“No! It’s like this,” Logan replies, placing another vegetable slice on his head. Frankie places his hand on his forehead in the most dramatic fashion and shakes his head.

“No, not the head, the mouth!” Frankie says. I watch the two of them go back and forth until Frankie has eaten all his veggies. By the end of lunch the two of them are having a deep discussion about who is stronger: Batman or the Incredible Hulk. This discussion leads to what is happening now: Logan and Frankie are in the middle of a very intense wrestling match where he has taken on the role of the Hulk and Frankie is Batman. In the end, Hulk loses in a crushing defeat to the adorable redheaded Batman.

Logan asks Frankie if he wants to swim in the lake; Frankie’s eyes light up. We walk to the lake and Logan carries Frankie on his shoulders. They inform me that Logan is not Logan and that he’s now Frankie’s dinosaur. They play in the water until Frankie’s little fingers are wrinkled pale. I drag them both back to the house as night arrives.

Once inside, I tell Frankie how much I loved eggs for dinner when I was a kid. He looks at me, shocked. “Eggs for dinner!” he replies, at a loss. He’s never heard of that. So, that’s his dinner: eggs and toast. When I hand him a cup of milk, he won’t drink it until I get one for Logan. The two of them sip their drinks on the sofa and watched a cartoon.

I can’t help but feel pangs of guilt as I watch them interact. Logan and I never talked about having children. But maybe it could have happened for us. If I hadn’t made the choices I did, maybe things could have been different.

Frankie falls asleep and his head drifts onto Logan’s arm. He lays him down and covers him up with the throw. When Henry comes back, his grandson is sound asleep. He tells us that his wife is okay but needs to stay in the hospital. Logan picks Frankie up and says, “We can keep looking after him if you need us to, it’s no problem.”

“No, thank you. His mom is on her way to get him. Thanks again,” Henry says.

“We’re glad your wife is going to be okay,” Logan says.

“Yes, I second that. Please wish her well for us,” I reply.

“Will do,” he says as he scoops his grandson from Logan’s arms and walks out. All of a sudden the house feels really quiet. I guess that’s what happens after Batman leaves.

“You were really great with him,” Logan says with admiration in his eyes.

“Well you weren’t too bad yourself. Have you ever thought of having kids? We never discussed it,” I remark as I close the gap between us and place my hand against his chest.

“I figured we’d have time to talk about it down the line,” he says earnestly.

I whisper, “And now?”

He doesn’t reply but his lips twitch and his body stiffens. He walks away from me and heads for the small portable bar cart in the corner of the room.

“And now, I need a drink,” he says as he pours both of us a glass of whiskey. He downs his quickly and pours himself another. I sip mine and hope the uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach is unnecessary.

“I need to know something,” he says.

So for the record, uneasy feeling totally warranted…

“Sure, ask me,” I reply with false confidence.

“Shay, I get why you sent me away when you got sick—I don’t agree with it, but I get it. But why didn’t you reach out when you got better?”

***

He’s sitting next to me on the sofa, waiting for an answer. I swallow the last gulp of whiskey and hope it really is liquid courage. He’s owed an explanation, it’s true. But the question is, will mine be enough?

“I rarely dated over the past two years. In fact, I can count the number of dates on one hand. But all of those dates were awful for one reason or another. And when I got home, I would retreat to my favorite daydream—the one where I call you and you are happy to hear from me.

“In that daydream, I tell you what happened and you don’t hate me. We pick up right where we left off. That daydream was all I had. And I was afraid to ruin it. I was afraid that if I called you’d tell me off or I’d hear a woman laughing in the background,” I admit as I look down at the floor.

“So you protected your daydream and left the real version of us to rot?” he asks.

“I was wrong, Logan. I was too scared to seek you out again. I needed that fantasy version of us and I was terrified of losing it. I hope you can understand that,” I reply.

“Yeah, I guess,” he says, clearly not satisfied.

“Stay right here, I’ll be back,” I reply as I quickly enter the bedroom and grab my purse. When I get back to the sofa, I sit closer to him and take his hand in mine.

“I talked to your dad and he helped me see things I didn’t understand before,” I confess.

“What things?”

“I didn’t get how much pushing you away cost you, or how much it cost us. But after talking to your dad and seeing the way you were with Frankie, I realize I took away our future. You have been there for me in every way, and I should have been honest with you. In my eagerness to protect you, I ended up being the one that hurt you the most. I’m truly sorry about that. And unlike before, if I had a chance to do it over again, I wouldn’t make the same mistake. I’d tell you that I was sick and we’d face it together.”

“Are you sure? That means you can’t push me away, or build walls, none of that shit. If we are together, I need you to share your life with me. Losing you was pure hell but getting you back only to lose you again would be fucking unbearable. But that’s what would happen if we aren’t straight with each other. I need to know that you will not shut me out again. I need you to be honest with me, no matter what we’re facing. Are you ready to do that?”

“Yes, I am,” I reply. He’s unsure. I can tell by the way he can’t hold my gaze. I dig into my purse and take out a picture of me the day after I shaved off all my hair.

“I know I can’t give you the two years back but if you want, I’d love to share what those two years were like for me,” I reply as I hand him the picture.

“Babe, you look so sad,” he says.

“Yeah, the hair thing took longer to get over than I thought it would,” I admit. I look the picture over again. My stomach dips. I can feel the memory of that day washing over me. I felt so worthless and weak.

He must see it in my eyes because he places his hand on mine. “Are you sure you want to talk about this?”

“I’m sure that I want a future with you and to do that, we have to address the past. And this is part of the past,” I reply as I brace myself for the walk down memory lane...