“From what I know, my mom had me as a teen. Left home. Died in a car accident when I was a toddler. No one claimed me, so I went into the system.”
“Logan.” She breathes out my name like her heart is breaking for me, but of all the things I’d love her to feel, sympathy is at the bottom of the list.
“It was a long time ago.”
“You’ve never tried to find any of them?”
“No.”
“You’re not curious?”
“I’m famous enough now that, if they wanted to know me, they’d reach out.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can. As soon as I signed my big fat WHL contract, the tabloids were all over my story. My fucking first foster family still had things I arrived with after my mom died. Instead of reaching out to me, they sold my shit to the press. My history. My only connection to my mother.” I hate how angry and distraught I still sound about how that all went down.
When I was moved from the first foster home, everything that wasmineshould have gone with me. In any other circumstance, I’d tell whoever I was talking to that I was over the betrayal. Deep down, I know that isn’t accurate, but this conversation with Sawyer is driving that truth home.
“That’s awful.” Her hand is on my leg, and when I put my hand on top to cover hers, she spreads her fingers to cradle mine. Her skin is soft along my calloused fingers. “Did you ever get any of it back?”
“Had my agent call the tabloid and offer to buy everything. Some of it was junk, but that quilt in my spare room—the one you slept under—my mom made that.”
She gets off the couch and keeps our hands locked, tugging me toward the room again. We stand in the doorway, and then she draws me over to the bed, running her hand along the multicolored fabric.
“She worked at a craft store,” I say. “Made this from odds and ends, I guess. She was killed driving home from work.”
“And where were you?”
“At the elderly neighbor’s in the apartment complex. I got hold of the police report. She watched me so my mom could keep the rent paid, food on the table. Mom had a diary too. I read a few pages when I first got it, but…” I let go of Sawyer’s hand and tug open the drawer to one of the nightstands, drawing out the book, flipping the pages of neat handwriting without reading anything. When I left California to come here, I kept my apartment mostly as it was, but I couldn’t leave my mom’s things behind again. “Too hard to read, I guess.” My voice is gruff with the emotion I’m working hard to keep in check.
“Have you ever tried to find the neighbor?”
“No,” I admit.
“You don’t think it might help? To talk to someone who knew her?”
“She might not even be alive.”
“Or your extended family?”
“If they wanted to know me, they would.”
“Because you’re hockey-famous?”
“Yeah. I’m not invisible.”
“But they’d have to follow hockey to know about you, Logan. Right? You’re not the Dennis Rodman of hockey, going to Hollywood parties, walking red carpets, putting yourselfoutthere. You play the game, and you go home. The most low-key form of famous.”
She’s come to stand beside me, and I catch another whiff of her perfume. It’s a stupid time to think about it, but the desire to slide my hands into her hair, kiss her, and forget this conversation rises up so strongly that I clench and unclench my hand to keep myself in check. I want to drown in her. Sink so far under that every time I inhale, all I breathe in is her.
“I just don’t see the point,” I say, struggling to keep focused on the conversation.
“I don’t think you’ll know if there’s a point until you try. With all these ancestry databases nowadays, you probably wouldn’t even have to work that hard to find someone related to you.”
I tug open the drawer and put the diary back inside. It’s possible there are family clues in the diary, but I can’t stomach reading it. It feels like an unnecessary invasion of my mom’s privacy. Having it makes me feel connected to her, reading it drives home the realization that I don’t remember her at all.
“Movie time,” I say, taking Sawyer’s hand and drawing her back into the living room where I’ve already cued up the film on the television.
