Apples Never Fall

“Mum loves him,” said Logan. She could sense him trying not to sound accusatory, but it was as if Brooke had broken one of their mother’s favorite belongings and he didn’t want her to feel bad about it, but he felt bad for their mother.

It was true that Joy and her only son-in-law seemed to have a special connection, and that Grant made a point of being especially charming with Joy, and Joy went along with it, but Brooke had always wondered how much her mother was truly falling for Grant’s charm offensive. Her mother, unlike Brooke, was a fine actress. She’d had all those years dealing with the parents of the tennis students, making them feel like their children were all remarkable.

Brooke put the salad and gift down on the hood of her car so she could irritably scratch her nose. “It’s only a trial separation. We might get back together, so I’m not telling anyone yet. I don’t want to upset Mum and Dad unnecessarily.”

“Good idea.” Logan shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, chewing on the inside of his mouth, like he used to do before a match.

“How’s Indira?” asked Brooke.

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” said Logan uneasily.

“What do you mean, ‘that’s the thing’?”

She squinted at him. Then it hit her. They all should have seen it coming. Five years was about right. Long enough for the family to forget Logan’s track record of serial monogamy, long enough for the girl to become part of the family, and his girlfriends were always so lovely.

This was why he was so upset about her and Grant. He didn’t want their mother to have to deal with simultaneous breakups. All her children would be single. All possible grandchildren swept off the table in one fell swoop. It would knock her for six, as their father would say. He hated cricket, but liked that particular sporting colloquialism.

“Oh, Logan,” she said. “For God’s sake.”

“Well, you can’t talk,” said Logan.

“I can so talk, I’ve been with Grant for ten years. We got married.”

“Exactly,” said Logan. “So that makes it worse. You made a proper commitment.”

“And you didn’t,” said Brooke. “Is that what Indira wanted? Was she waiting for you to propose?”

“I don’t think so,” said Logan. “I asked her once if she wanted me to propose and she just laughed.”

“You’re not meant to propose to propose, you should just propose.”

“She’s a feminist.”

“So what? Did she want babies?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Brooke threw up her arms. “I bet she wanted something you weren’t giving her.”

Logan gave his infuriating right-shouldered shrug.

You could never argue properly with Logan because he didn’t care. The angrier you got the calmer he’d become. His laid-back philosophy probably charmed his partners for the first five years and then one day they lost their minds.

Brooke’s eyes filled with stupid tears. “She did all that beautiful graphic design work for me and didn’t let me pay a cent.” She should have insisted she pay her.

“She was happy to do it,” said Logan. The shrug. Again.

“That’s not the point, Logan.” She surprised herself by suddenly shoving him, quite hard, in the center of his chest with the heel of her hand, like she was a little kid again. He didn’t budge. His core strength was excellent, even though he never worked out. Maybe he’d known it was coming, even if she hadn’t.

“That all you got?” he said. It seemed to have cheered him up.

“I’m sad,” she said. “I’m really sad about Indira.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sad about Indira too, and I’m sad about Grant. But life goes on. We live to play another day.”

That’s what their father used to say when they lost. Nobody found it especially motivational.

Logan lifted his keys to go and then stopped as he remembered something. “So, guess what Savannah baked for today.”