And God, Logan…the thoughts I’ve been having terrify me. Sometimes, when he’s in that deep, unreachable place, I catch myself wondering if he would finally be at peace if he let go. Would we? And then the guilt swallows me whole. What kind of person thinks something like that? What kind of mother? I don’t even know what I’m asking for. But you always understood things that didn’t make sense to anyone else. So, I guess I’m asking for that. For understanding. I don’t know what to do, and I’m terrified.
“Fuck,” he whispered, over and over before impulse took over and he swiped everything from his desk to the floor.
He stood and began pacing, his mind at battle with his heart. He could finish this report tomorrow and book the next flight back to London. Maybe he would ask to meet her somewhere, they’d catch up, and the years would dissolve like they’d never existed at all. Perhaps they’d form some semblance of a friendship and go back to the way it was with sporadic emails and randomised encounters. Or he could ignore it, accept she’d made a choice and pushed him out of her life when it was convenient for her to do so, and now, she needed him back.
But if he did that, if he ignored the email and pretended she didn’t exist, it would go against everything he stood for as a man, professionally and morally.
So instead, he headed downstairs for a drink, knowing that in a few days, he’d be boarding a flight back to Heathrow for one more dalliance with the past.
XXXIV
DAISY
A week later, Daisy found herself scanning Hyde Park when she saw him seated at a bench, book in hand, and a scarf wrapped around his neck. For a while, she watched him, questioning if under his black wool coat, he was wearing an Iron Maiden shirt and a new tattoo or two, when he looked up and spotted her.
“Miss Daisy,” he called out, placing his book into his bag as she approached. “How lovely it is to see you.”
He stood, and for a moment, they stared at each other, unsure whether to hug when he extended his hand.
She shook it, unable to hide her smile. “Here I was expecting you to be in a T-shirt and jeans.”
“What can I say, I’m becoming refined in my old age. Come on, take a seat.”
They sat for a while, watching as strangers walked past deep in discussion, when he nudged her gently. She expected him to say something, but he didn’t. Instead, his eyes held hers a moment too long, and she felt the unexpected pull of nervousness take hold. He seemed more at ease with the silence between them than she was, and as her gaze shifted to the ground, she heard him inhale sharply.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“The email. I know it must have been hard for you to share all of that.”
She swallowed hard, unable to shake the guilt. It was as if everything good and kind that had ever existed in her—everything others believed she was—had been tainted by the part of her that, in the darkest corners of her mind, longed for a different reality.
“You must think I’m a monster.”
“You’re many things,” he said, nudging her again, “I wouldn’t classify a monster as one of them.”
A gentle breeze swept through, dusting them with a fine layer of snow from the trees, and Logan laughed, his gaze meeting hers once more.
He stared for a long minute, and Daisy wondered if he was trying to figure out if she’d left any words, buried inside. He’d admitted once that the quickest way to decipher someone was in the eyes, and she wondered then, what did he see in hers?
“You know,” he added, clearing his throat. “All these years later, and here we are.”
“I know,” Daisy said. “Ida is three now, and Callan, he just turned—” she cut herself off.
It didn’t feel right to talk about him; she’d already shared too much.
Logan shifted in his seat and brought his hands together. “Can I suggest something?” he paused, but didn’t wait for her to reply. “Get him a different therapist. Not some middle-aged woman who looks like she sends her kids to King's College and listens to Robbie Williams by choice. How could he relate to that? How could anyone?”
She couldn’t help herself. A laugh escaped her lips, and she covered her mouth. It was a stereotypical assumption, but true; Callan’s therapist, Jude, fit the bill. “A bit rich, don’t you think? Coming from someone who right now is wearing a coat that costs more than my whole month's mortgage?”
He grinned, raising his hands in mock defeat. “For the record, I didn’t buy this for myself.”
“Who did then? Let me guess, your girlfriend did?”
“There’s no girlfriend. Unlike you, I haven’t had much luck in that department.”
Caught off guard, Daisy stammered out an admittedly pathetic reply about how it was never too late when Logan stood up.
