Epilogue: Brown Eyed Girl
Later that first evening, the day of the phone call, after Benny was long gone and Andrew had fallen back asleep on the couch following a bowl of chicken nuggets and fries, I sat at the kitchen table and watched Logan rinse the dishes at the sink.
I’d offered to do them. He’d waved me off.
“Sit down, Mom. You worked half a double.”
So I sat.
He stood at the sink with his sleeves pushed up, rinsing plates and stacking them in the drying rack. The window over the sink was dark. The kitchen smelled of chicken nuggets and dish soap.
And he was humming.
Low and easy, under his breath, while he worked. A song I half-recognized but couldn’t place.
I sat very still. Listening.
It hit me then that I hadn’t heard Logan hum in over a year. Maybe longer. Maybe since the funeral.
He used to hum all the time when he was little. In the bathtub. While he built Legos. At the dinner table, until Daniel and I told him to eat.
Somewhere in all the noise and exhaustion and worry, that small, ordinary thing had slipped away without my even noticing.
And now it was back. Quiet and easy, as if it had been waiting for the right moment to come home.
It took me a minute to work out what the song was.
Then I knew.
It was “Brown Eyed Girl.” Van Morrison.
Daniel used to hum it constantly. While he shaved. While he drove. While he built the swing set in the backyard with nails sticking out of his mouth. He hummed it to Logan as a baby, rocking him in the middle of the night. He hummed it to Andrew too, that first year, before he died.
He hummed it so often that I used to beg him to learn a second song.
“Rach,” he’d say. “Why would I need a second song? This one’s perfect.”
I sat at that kitchen table and listened to my son hum his father’s song while he rinsed the dishes.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to interrupt. I was afraid that if I said a word, he’d notice and stop.
So I just sat there.
I stayed at the table until the dishes were done, saying nothing at all.
When he finished, he dried his hands on the dish towel, turned around, and caught me watching him.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing, sweetie. Go to bed.”
He eyed me suspiciously. Then he leaned down and kissed the top of my head on his way past.
“Night, Mom.”
“Goodnight, baby.”
After he went upstairs, I sat alone in the kitchen for a long time.
After Daniel died, there were so many nights I sat right there and wondered how I was going to do this. How I was going to raise two boys on my own. Pay the mortgage. Work the doubles. Get Andrew to daycare and Logan through high school.
Whether I was enough. Whether I was doing any of it right.
For two years, all I could see was what might go wrong. All the ways I might fail. All the people Logan might become if I didn’t hold everything together tightly enough.
I thought I was the only thing holding this family up.
I was wrong.
That night, around eleven, I heard the back door open.
I lay in bed in the dark and listened.
Then I heard footsteps on the stairs. Coming up, not going down.
There was a soft knock on my door.
“Mom?” Logan’s voice. “You awake?”
I sat up. “I’m awake.”
The door opened a crack. He stood in the hallway in Daniel’s blue hoodie.
“I can’t sleep,” he said. “My head’s too loud.”
I pulled back the covers on Daniel’s side of the bed.
He hesitated. He’s seventeen. He’s taller than me. It’s not exactly cool.
Then he came in anyway and sat down on top of the blankets with his back against the headboard, the way he used to when he was eight and had a nightmare.
“I was going to go walk,” he said. “But you said to knock.”
“I did say that.”
“So I knocked.”
“I’m glad you did.”
We sat there in the dark for a while, saying nothing.
Then, after a few minutes, I heard him start to hum. Very quietly.
I closed my eyes and listened.
He fell asleep sitting up about twenty minutes later, his head tipping onto my shoulder.
I didn’t move. I didn’t want to wake him.
I sat there in the dark with my son’s head on my shoulder, and I thought about Walter Henson saying, I wasn’t alone. That’s what I remember.
And I thought about Daniel on the side of the road.
And I thought about Logan on that porch, his arms on fire, counting. Push, push, push. Refusing to stop. Refusing to let someone else be alone.
My boys are going to be fine.
More than fine.
I spent so long being afraid of who they might turn into. I spent so many nights doing the math, counting the hours, listening for the back door.
I never once stopped to look at who they already were.
They’re good. They’re kind. They’re braver than I am.
They’re going to make me proud.
They already do.
Note: This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance is coincidental. The author and publisher disclaim accuracy, liability, and responsibility for interpretations or reliance. All images are for illustration purposes only.
