The Family Man

“Brown,” she muttered as she moved into the shadowy living room. Brown hardwood floors, brown velour couches—brown, brown, brown, brown, brown. Not a bit of other color in the place. The same neatness and lack of knickknacks in the kitchen pervaded this room—nothing to indicate anything about the man who lived here, his family, his roots. No photos of smiling relatives and friends or mementos of any kind. With the blinds closed in every room, it was more sterile than the furnished apartment she and the twins had been evicted from. And, despite the neatness of the place, everything was coated with a layer of dust.

The house had seemed so promising from the outside. Thea wandered dejectedly down the dimly lit hallway toward the bathroom.

“Deb, is that you?” an elderly, shaky voice called out as Thea passed another dark room.

“It’s me, Thea.” Thea poked her head in the bedroom. Glen, Logan’s maiden aunt, a gray-haired beauty, was sitting in bed knitting something with dark brown yarn.

The coffee mug Thea had filled earlier and a half-eaten piece of apple pie rested on the nightstand.

“Do I know you, dear?” Glen asked in a tremulous voice that sounded close to an elderly Katharine Hepburn.

“I’m taking care of the twins until Logan comes back.”

Lexie had warned Thea that Glen’s short-term memory was unreliable. She might have said nonexistent. Glen didn’t seem to remember Thea at all.

“Now, my boy Logan, he’s a man you can rely on. Cares about folks, he does.” Glen’s blue eyes were dull, faded, and a bit lost. She sighed. “Have I ever told you that I raised Logan and Deb after my sister died?” Glen gestured to her bureau of dark wood. Several pictures blanketed in thick dust were displayed there. It was the first place in the house that Thea had seen pictures.

“No, you haven’t.” Thea stepped nearer for a closer look, carefully brushing away the dust on an old, square-framed picture of two similar-looking young women leaning close, with seventies beehive hairdos and psychedelic orange and lime-green dresses.

“That’s me and my sister, Meg.” Glen shuffled out of bed and stood next to Thea. She smelled of soiled clothing and sweet coffee. This close, Thea could see her complexion had the tawny hue of unwashed skin. “And this is Deb and Logan.”

Thea closed her eyes for a moment to collect herself as anger at the old woman’s neglect threatened to overwhelm her. Lexie, with her own family and responsibilities, couldn’t be blamed, but the absent Logan McCall could. Already, Thea was thinking about what needed to be done—linens washed, everything dusted, swept and vacuumed, and Glen needed a bath, along with a complete brushing of her hair and teeth.

Thea drew in a steadying breath before peering at the photo Glen indicated. Logan wore a tuxedo and Deb a princess-style wedding dress. Two impeccably groomed blond heads leaned close together, both sporting picture-perfect smiles. Their expressions were so alike…

“They’re twins,” Thea said, noting the resemblance.

“Yep,” Glen confirmed. “Runs in our family thicker than the plague. Meg was my twin.” Her hand stroked the picture of the two women, seeming to tremble more with each breath she took.

Thea took Glen’s arm in case she collapsed. “Are you all right?”

The old woman nodded with a sniff. “Doc says my asthma medication gives me the shakes. Can’t complain. Well, I could complain, but what good would it do me?” She returned to the bed.

Glen’s face seemed deathly pale in the shadowy bedroom. Thea thought Glen could use more than some occasional light. Giving in to impulse, Thea spun the plastic handle on the blinds to let sunshine stream through the window.

Glen frowned. “Logan doesn’t like them open.”

“Why not?” Thea couldn’t understand why Logan would want to keep this sweet old lady in the dark.

“Sometimes it’s easier not to look.” Glen waved a hand at the bureau again. “Those blond beauties in the back are Deb’s little girls—Tess and Hannah.”

When it seemed Glen was waiting for a reaction to the girls, Thea obligingly leaned in for a closer look. The twins were younger, sporting bright bathing suits and smiles. Everything about the girls in the picture sparkled with energy and happiness. Thea longed to see them that way again.

Glen settled back against the pillows. “They light up this house.”

It was comforting to know that the girls had been happy here. Thea hoped they would be again. “I’ll leave you to your crocheting and go check on the girls.”

“I may as well go with you, just in case their room’s not as clean as it should be. I wouldn’t want the girls to get into trouble.” Glen scooted back off the bed. She turned the handle on the blinds to bring the room back to shadows. “Logan prefers the house dark,” she explained again as she shuffled ahead of Thea down the hall.

“It’s neat as a pin,” Glen announced with apparent relief as she paused in the doorway.

Peeking around the door frame into the dimly lit bedroom, Thea had to agree. Like the girls’ room in Seattle, there were no stray shoes, no scattered scrunchies for that long blond hair, no half-dressed Barbies with hair that was frizzed from being carried about in backpacks, cars and pillowcases. The room was as impersonal as the rest of the house, from the quilted pink bedspreads to the white dressers each holding a lamp and a small clock radio.

Thea noticed untouched toys stacked neatly in the closet. Now Hannah sat on the floor playing quietly with Whizzer, while Tess lay on her bed staring at the ceiling.

Thea had hoped the girls would thrive in their uncle’s fairy-tale house. But now her heart filled with doubt.

How could she leave them here?

“WHO TAUGHT YOU HOW to make Barbie clothes?” Hannah asked, leaning over Thea’s shoulder while she sat in one of the dull living-room chairs creating a new wardrobe for the two Barbie dolls she’d found in the twins’ closet. “Did your mom teach you?”

Thea paused midstitch, staring into the fire. Her mom hadn’t been supportive of Thea learning any homemaking arts.

“My grandmother taught me. I’ve loved sewing since I was a kid.” Thea remembered her mother looking at her handiwork and saying how those neat stitches meant she’d be a wonderful surgeon one day. All Thea had wanted was for her mom to say her baby doll quilt was beautiful. Thea shied away from the memory. Her mother had never understood Thea, not that she’d had more than ten years to figure her daughter out. The painful memory had Thea reaching for a change of attitude.

“I once met a man who created Barbie ball gowns for a living,” Thea said, glancing at Hannah to gauge her interest in the story. The twins never watched television, which made for long nights. Thea had learned to rely on her knack for telling odd stories to engage the twins and help pass the time.

“A man?” Tess blurted. She sat in the corner of the dark couch, her limbs pulled up tight, her small forehead creased in disbelief.

Glen looked up from her crochet project. Thea had yet to figure out what the older woman was making. It was long and brown, every stitch making it longer and browner.

“A man,” Thea confirmed, wondering briefly when they’d see the elusive Uncle Logan and if he’d be good for the girls.

“Why would a man want to sew?” Hannah reached across Thea’s lap to finger the small red dress, until she saw Thea watching her. With a quick glance at Tess, Hannah drew her hand away, tucking it behind her back.

“People should pick jobs that make them happy,” Thea said, pretending to be intent on finishing Barbie’s hem, while trying to ignore the rising panic that she should be studying if she ever wanted to pass her exams. She couldn’t even propose a dissertation topic until she received a passing grade on both her written and oral exams. She shook her foot, eliciting a soft jingle. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Hannah?”

Hannah shrugged, looking at Tess, then stared at the fire. Thea was convinced that the two shared an unspoken bond. Neither would get over her grief without the other. And Tess wasn’t done grieving.

“I always wanted to be one of those secret agents, with the slinky dress, spiked heels and a real kick-ass gun,” Glen spoke up, rearranging her yarn chain in her lap. “Only Eldred came along and I didn’t think I could leave Silver Bend.”

Assuming Eldred had been Glen’s beau, Thea smiled. “It’s nice to dream big. How about you, Tess? Any plans for the future?”

Instead of answering, Tess got up and left the room.

AS HE DROVE HOME toward Silver Bend, Logan McCall ignored the streaks of golden light peeking over the horizon. A new day may be dawning, but it would be the same gray, colorless day that he’d faced yesterday and the day before that.

He drove in silence up the long, steep grade before he reached Silver Bend, passing the ramshackle, abandoned house where his parents had died. Where his father had killed his mother.

In that house, he’d learned how low a man could sink when ruled by a hot temper regularly fueled by alcohol. In that house, he’d learned that the only person he could depend on was his twin sister, Deb. Together, they’d survived the verbal abuse and physical beatings. When they’d left, Logan vowed he’d never have a family of his own.

Deb, lucky enough not to have the gene that carried their father’s destructive temper, had lived an almost normal life, married and produced two girls Logan adored, only to die much too soon. Burdened with his father’s shameful legacy—a fiery temper—Logan couldn’t trust himself to honor Deb’s request and be the girls’ guardian.

What if he lost his temper or did something stupid? Like go on a drunken binge. Or get so blitzed he wouldn’t know who he was hitting or why.

Logan wiped a hand over his face.

No. He didn’t know how to be a father. It was best that Tess and Hannah were being raised by someone else. Even if Wes wasn’t the best father around—he sure as hell hadn’t been the best husband—he had to be better at it than Logan.