XXII
LOGAN
When he was a boy, Logan’s grandmother used to tell him stories of a soldier she’d met during the war. “He was as smooth as malt,” she would say, grinning like a love-struck teenager. “I loved that boy, I really did. Some called me crazy as I barely knew a thing about him. But I knew our story would've been magic had it been another life and another time.”
When the war was over, his grandmother admitted he’d written to her, but after finding herself pregnant and engaged to another man, the letters went unanswered.
“Still,” she’d say, “it took him over a decade to give up.”
Logan never doubted whether his grandmother loved his grandfather. They were the best of friends, always laughing overa glass of sherry and dancing to Billy Joel, but it was clear that whatever she felt for the mystery man was different.
She would speak about him often, her face always lighting up when she did. Sometimes, Logan would catch her swaying to Vera Lynn, a wistful smile pulling at the corners of her lips, lost in a memory time could never touch and age could never change.
It wasn’t until after she died that Logan’s mother found the letters she’d never sent. Bundled together in a ribbon so old it was fraying at the edges, each envelope was addressed to the man, but none had ever left the safety of her bedside drawer. Some were brief, little more than a paragraph, as if she’d simply wanted to feel close to him again. Others were pages long, pouring out thoughts and feelings disguised in unspoken words. What surprised him most, though, was that the last letter was dated a month before she passed.
“After my father died, I tried to find him for her,” his mother murmured, gazing down at the letters. “Call me a cynic, but I never truly believed in love.” She hesitated, her fingers brushing over the ribbon. “Whatever she had with him…it makes me believe.”
He wondered as he crossed the hospital car park in the rain if the same curse had struck twice. There were no words that could explain the way Daisy made him feel, and he’d seen it in her eyes that she felt it too. But she had a life, a husband, and now a baby. She never was and never would be his.
The drive home was a blur, his mind too tangled in the chaos of the last twenty-four hours. From Daisy's frantic call, the rush to the hospital, and the uncertainty. Then there was Callan; thatwas the part that wouldn't settle, the part that gnawed at the edges of his thoughts, demanding attention.
Whether she knew it or not, the man who'd left Daisy all those months ago wasn’t the one who'd come back. Brain injuries were complicated, and from what he knew about blast injuries, the full impact of the damage could take months to unravel.
He pulled into his driveway but didn’t move to get out. Instead, he sat there, fingers gripping the steering wheel, rubbing his temples as though he could knead the growing tension from his skull. It wasn’t his place, and he knew that. He wasn’t family, a close friend, or anything more than a casual acquaintance to Daisy. And yet, despite his efforts, he couldn’t pretend it didn’t matter.
With a sigh, he reached for his phone, scrolling through his contacts until he found Simon's name.
Simon wasn’t your typical doctor. Born to a Palestinian artist and a fiery Irish author, he smoked large amounts of pot and swore like an inebriated sailor. But beneath all that was a mind sharper than most, one that’d been the envy of many at Cambridge. Logan knew that if there was anyone who could give him the blunt, untarnished truth, it was Simon.
It was a risk. He didn’t know if Simon would believe his lie that it was part of his research or whether he’d detect the hidden emotion in his tone. So, when he began telling him without so much as a second guess, Logan breathed a sigh of relief.
“This stays between us, but if you ask me,” Simon said, his voice turning clinically cold, “the most humane thing would be to let this man die. When and if he wakes up, with luck, he’ll have the mentality of a young child at best.”
Logan’s stomach twisted. “How certain of this are you?”
“If we were placing bets, I’d put down everything I own.”
A heavy silence settled between them, thick and suffocating, and Logan swallowed against the lump in his throat. His studieshad taught him there’s a fine line between genetics and roulette. You could live the most virtuous life, want for nothing, and live for all, and still find yourself in the firing line of medical cruelty. Then there were those, blessed with the wrong pairing of oncogenes. Callan was neither. He’d simply been in the wrong place at the right time.
“He has a newborn daughter,” he said, his voice quieter than before. “She was born yesterday.”
Simon hesitated, something in his tone softening slightly. “I didn’t realise you knew him like that.”
Logan exhaled hard and pressed a firm hand to his forehead. “I don’t, not really anyway. His wife works atThe Daily.I’ve met her a handful of times.”
Simon didn’t question it further, and after a brief discussion about meeting for a pint in the near future, they ended the call.
Logan sat there for a long time after that, his mind caught in a vicious churning cycle. He didn’t need to be a doctor to know it was bad—anyone with half a brain would’ve guessed that—but hearing it spelled out in black and white made it real.
Daisy would never be the same. Whether it was a week, a month, or a year from now, she’d need him. That was a given. And he couldn’t just walk away from that.
XXIII
LOGAN
In the days that followed, Logan found himself in a prison, unable to escape the relentless insomnia. He was filled with questions—questions he’d no right to ask or business knowing the answer to, and yet he couldn’t help it. Then, despite it going against every medical professional's responsibility or ethics, he decided to visit Callan.
It was notably quiet when he arrived, a dozen visitors and nurses all caught in their robotic morning routine. He kept his head low, careful to avoid the eye contact of anyone familiar and not too obvious to rouse suspicion.
