“Obviously,” my oldest sister, Eva, says as she and her boyfriend, Roy, join our trio. She jerks her thumb toward me. “If it can be built, this one’ll do it.”
“You start your own carpentry business yet, or what?” Roy asks me.
“Logan just made head carpenter on Broadway,” Mom says proudly as she emphasizes her last word. “He’s very busy.”
“Head carpenter already?” Tina, my stepbrother Joe’s girlfriend, asks. “Did I miss this announcement?”
“I didn’t make one,” I tell her.
Roy makes a show of blowing out a big breath of air. “You’re living the dream,” he says. “I don’t know how you do it on a carpenter’s salary. I wish I could live in the city.”
“We talking about Logan?” Joe asks, a half-eaten whoopie pie in hand. “I need some of your luck, man. I’m up for a promotion at work.”
I shift uncomfortably at this, but no one seems to notice. Except Hazel. She puts her hand on my lower back and rubs it in small, slow circles.
At this point, everyone’s gathered around, so I introduce them to Hazel.
“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend, Logan!” Jane, my younger sister, says, oblivious to the fact I haven’t actually labeled her as such.
Hazel doesn’t correct Jane. Neither do I. We talked about our future but not what we officially are to each other. It’s not something we anticipated having to address, which, looking back now, was a big oversight. What else was my family going to think about me bringing someone home?
But this isn’t just someone.
“Guess Logan’s not big on sharing much these days,” Eva says.
Mom sets the tongs and plate down and picks up a ceramic jar. “Has everyone entered the raffle? Warren, make sure your colleagues have put their names in, will you please?”
Warren sets off as my siblings groan. There’s always some sort of annual competition, but today’s sounds less involved than usual.
“Why even go through the effort? Logan’s gonna win, like always,” my other stepbrother, Nick, teases.
Bruce, Nick’s husband, nudges him and shoots me an apologetic look.
“Think positive, Nick,” Mom says. “Maybe then you’ll win this year.”
“Remember that one year we had to whittle?” Jane asks Nick. “That competition was rigged.”
Eva laughs. “Lucky Logan never misses.”
If only they knew. Though if I lose this competition, there will be questions. In years prior, I’ve won pumpkin carving, soufflé baking, lobster roll cook-off, and, as mentioned, whittling.
If this were any other time, if I weren’t so shaky in my luck, I’d laugh at this comment. I’d joke that Nick’s just jealous. That I can’t help that I’m naturally good at these random skills.
Today, though, my siblings’ comments nag at me.Easily?Besides the whittling, which took me years to learn how to do well, those competitions weren’t easy. Nor did they come naturally to me. But while everyone else either gave up halfway through or half-assed it, I took it seriously.
Maxwell’s words replay in my mind.Once you moved beyond ‘no,’ were you in the right mindset?
Has it been luck, then, like everyone’s always told me? Like I’ve always thought?
This is too much to process right now, especially with a group of people irritated at my winning streak. But for the first time, a surge of self-compassion trickles through me.
My shoulders drop as I relax a little. Maybe I’ll lose and break my streak this year.
Maybe that’s okay.
I push down my annoyance and focus on Hazel. My family’s always seen me in a certain lucky light, while Hazel’s alwaysdoubted that part of me. For the first time, it strikes me how freeing it is to not be viewed like that by her.
“There will be more than one winner,” Mom says. “Just look at all those prizes!”
