Sierra
The next day, Logan looks nervous when I ask if he wants to go climbing again.
“Actually,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, “it’s Dad’s birthday. He’s having a big party with all the family. A cookout. Will you come with me? I’d…I’d like to reintroduce you to everyone. As my girlfriend.”
Oh, Logan. Can you go an hour without saying or doing something that makes my heart feel like it’s going to burst? He looks so cautiously hopeful again that I can’t bear to deny him. Logan’s family means everything to him. I have to face the music at some point if I intend to stay.
He deserves it.
“I want to go,” I say firmly, but inside my guts are playing a game of cat’s cradle at the thought of facing Logan’s mom.
Logan gives me such a breathtakingly happy, relieved smile that I almost don’t immediately regret my decision. Almost.
It’s been years since I’ve been to Logan’s parents’ house, but it feels just as it did before. It is a chaotic and happy place, with a sagging trampoline in the middle of the yard, clucking, often-escaping chickens in their henhouse, and bushy, fragrant citrus trees and magenta bougainvillea lining the property.
Dozens of people wander around in front of the ranch-style house decorated with a simple Happy Birthday sign. The smell of sunscreen, chlorine, and grilled meat wafts over to us as soon as we step out of Logan’s truck. Pleasant smells that I would usually enjoy, or at least tolerate, but I’m so nervous, they make me want to puke.
Logan told me it’s supposed to be a casual gathering. And it is casual—for the men and kids, at least. The guys are in shorts, old band t-shirts, and loafers, while kids run around in various states of undress and bare feet, splashing in the pool and chasing each other with squirt guns.
The women, however, wear flowy maxi dresses or white chinos with silk blouses. I should have listened to my instincts and dressed up. I feel sloppy in my plain t-shirt and cutoffs. I feel like a teenage dirtbag.
Logan leads me by the hand into the fray. His introduction of me is far too eager as he greets his relatives one by one, as if forgetting that most of these people have known me my entire life. “You remember Sierra, my girlfriend,” he tells his Aunt Lydia before she has a chance to greet me.
“Yes, I remember you.” Lydia pauses. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
The hesitancy in her tone says more than the words.Have you matured and grown into an upstanding citizen,it asks,or are you still a little troublemaker?
I can still hear her voice from years ago, drifting from thekitchen when she thought I couldn’t hear:I can’t believe you’re letting your boys hang out with that girl. You know what they say about her and her mother.
I hurried back into the living room before I could hear Logan’s mom’s response. I didn’t want to know if she chose not to defend me.
“Why are you being so intense?” I ask Logan after he shared my new title with his Uncle Bryan. “At least let me contribute to your over-the-top proclamation with a ‘hear ye, hear ye’ and a blast on my trumpet first.”
“That would certainly match the festive vibe,” he says. I give him a look, and he holds up his hands. “I just…don’t want it to seem like… I mean, not that I am or would be, because I’m not…”
“Just spit it out.”
“If any of them feel like Caitlin does, I want them to know I’m not ashamed to claim you as mine,” he mutters at last.
Oof. I’m not ready to process all the mixed emotions that come with that admission. “I see. Is there alcohol at this party?”
“Sorry. Dad’s a bit of a teetotaler.” Logan gestures towarda group gathered around the grill. “Let’s go say hi to my dad. You ready?”
No!I want to cry, but I let him steer me over to them anyway.
“Dad, happy birthday,” he says, pulling his father into a hug that warms me. Logan always loves so deeply, so easily.
Logan hands over the gift he brought with him. His dad blusters about not needing a gift from his kids until he opens it and sees a new grilling set. He drapes an affectionate arm around Logan’s shoulders.
Scott still has that perpetually overwhelmed look, like he can’t quite believe this loud, happy house overrun with five children belongs to him, but he’s grateful and willing to step up to the challenge all the same. He was a very involved father and even adopted the two eldest, Ethan and Cole, and raised them as his own sons.
“Good to see you, good to see you,” he says with an awkward side hug for me. “I have to go check on the grill. Hamburger sound good to you?”
I nod, and he returns to his post, new tongs in hand. The grill was his pride and joy when we were kids; it always seemed like he was out there grilling and tinkering with it. Nearby, one of the uncles brushes sauce onto ribs while smoke curls up, sweet and sticky, from the charcoal grate.
“Mom!” Logan calls.
I can’t help the way my body seizes up. I watch as he wraps his mother in a gentle bear hug, towering over her petite frame. I wonder, distractedly, how it must feel to have given birth to five children who now far outstrip her in height and weight.
