Rick Mofina - Six Seconds

Whatever.

Why couldn’t Logan talk to his friends in California?

He didn’t understand it.

Once he secretly tried to e-mail his mother from a friend’s computer but he didn’t know her e-mail. Then they tried to reach her through the bookstore’s Web site but a thing popped up about credit-card security and Logan backed off.

What if what his dad said was true about there being some stupid mean law that he was not supposed to talk to his mom.

He yearned for her today as he got off the bus and walked down the long lane that cut across the flatland to their house, an ugly yellow square thing in the middle of nowhere.

Might as well be on Mars.

Logan saw his dad’s red rig parked under the tree where he was working on it.

“How was school?”

Logan shrugged.

“All the kids must be getting excited with the count down to the big day.”

“I think I’m going to be kicked off the choir.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The teacher says I’m not concentrating and gave me some extra work to do to prove that she should keep me on.”

“Then you’d better do it and focus, son. This is a big deal. Like meeting the president. You don’t want to blow it now. Samara worked hard to get you on the choir and you’ve put in the time.”

Logan looked out at the horizon and blinked at his problems.

“Want to tell me what’s on your mind, son?”

“Are you going to marry Samara?”

His father wiped his hands on a rag.

“I don’t know. We take things day by day, you know that.”

“Are you and Mom ever going to get back together?”

“We’ve been over that a thousand times, Logan.”

“How come if this pope thing’s such a big deal, I can’t call Mom and invite her? She would like to see this. Please.”

His dad sat on the truck’s step and pulled Logan closer.

“We’ve been through this. We can’t call her, ever, we can’t see each other. It’s over. It’s finished. We might not like it, but that’s the way it happened with the court stuff. We just moved on with our lives.”

“I tried to call her and e-mail her, Dad.”

“What? Dammit, Logan! When?”

“When we first moved here and a few times after.”

“I specifically told you never, ever try to call or contact her. Logan-” his dad looked away to soften another lie “-the court ordered us to do everything that we did. We are to have no contact with her, ever.”

“But I was really sad and you were gone. I tried to call but I couldn’t get through. It’s like our phone here won’t let me call our old number in California. Same with e-mails.”

His dad nodded and told him he had a block arranged with the phone and Internet companies. All part of the court’s rules, he said.

“Dad. I don’t understand. What happened?” Tears filled Logan’s eyes.

“We’ve talked about this, son. We’re just not part of her life anymore. That’s why we moved here. You’ve had friends whose parents got divorced. Well, it’s like that. People change. Mom changed. So we had to start over. Start a new life with new names in a new place.”

“But how can she just stop loving us? I don’t believe she did. I mean, that last day I saw her, she was hugging me. I told her I was worried that you might be getting a divorce. She said it wasn’t true, that she loved you and that she loved me.”

“Stop it, Logan.”

“How can she just not love me anymore? She’s my mom. She has to love me. I know she wouldn’t just stop loving me. I want to call her, Dad.”

His dad put his hands on Logan’s shoulders and looked him in the eye.

“I know this has been hard. But you’ve got to try not to think about the past. It’s not easy, I know. But we’ve got Samara, and believe me, son, after all we’ve both been through, she’s the right person in the world for both of us right now.”

A motor hummed as Samara’s van pulled up to the house.

“Hi, guys,” she called, smiling. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Logan said. “Can you make tacos?”

“Sure.” Samara looked at Jake then back at Logan. “Think you might give me a hand with some groceries in the van?”

That night, they ate a quiet dinner together.

Logan’s dad turned in early because he had to leave early in the morning for a job that would take him to Spokane, Salt Lake City, then Great Falls before he got back.

That evening after the dishes, Samara and Logan went outside to the chairs under the big tree. Under the brilliant stars, and to the sound of crickets, she helped him with his music. In the light that spilled from the kitchen window Logan saw concern on her face, as if something major was heavy on her mind.

“Logan,” she said. “I want you to know that no matter what you think about me, and no matter what anyone says, you and your dad are the two most impor tant people in the world to me.”

Logan said nothing as she gazed up at the Milky Way.

She seemed sad.

“Soon,” she said, “you’re going to be part of history. Soon, everything will be as it should be.”

The tear tracks running down her cheeks glistened in the starlight.

“The joy we crave will return for all of us, I promise you.”

Missoula, Montana

Jake drove west, hauling scrap metal and a load of grief about Logan.

The sudden move to Montana had been hard on his son. Seeing him struggling after all these months tore Jake up and he started asking himself if leaving every thing behind in California had been the right thing to do.

His hands tensed on the wheel.

Another headache was erupting, a real pile driver. He downed two pills then searched the plains and the Bit terroot Range, telling himself that moving here with Samara was not a mistake.

She had saved his life.

It was that simple.

But Maggie was his wife. They’d had Logan together. They’d had a life together.

How did they lose control of it all?

Jake blinked at the road markers and the memories flowing by: How he’d met Maggie in high school. Dancing together in the gym. How they’d drive to the beach in his old Ford pickup. How they’d talk for hours. Two lonely people who belonged together. She actually got him interested in books. He liked Joseph Conrad’s dark stuff. And he taught her how to drive a standard, at the price of a whiplash or two.

They’d shared dreams.

They got married.

Man, he was so happy. Then Logan came and life got even better. Jake felt lucky, took a calculated risk and got a loan on a bigger rig to earn more. Then on a run to Taos, New Mexico, his transmission blew at the worst time-when he was overextended. It cost him jobs and huge repairs. Gas prices soared. Bills piled up. Loan and mortgage payments became overdue.

It was desperation time.

The only way out was a contract job driving convoys in Iraq. It was risky. People got killed. But they needed the money. So he’d put his life on the line.

Then everything went to hell.

It started with the attack.

He never talked about it. Never told Maggie what happened. Dammit, even mentioning it to Logan was hard.

The attack.

Don’t think about it. Stop it.

His head began throbbing like a jackhammer drilling into his brain.

Stop.

All right. Be cool. Hang in there.

The trouble started after he got back from Iraq, with that day in the supermarket when they’d bumped into Ullman, Logan’s soccer coach. He was a good-looking guy. College grad. Smart. Smooth. Jake had heard the other moms talk about him.

It was the way Maggie smiled at Ullman.

He’d never seen her smile like that before.

Jake just knew.

She’d cheated on him with Ullman.