#senator wright

Sen. Roderick Wright taking leave of absence while awaiting sentencing for perjury, voter fraud

South Bay state Sen. Rod Wright has taken an indefinite leave of absence from the Legislature until his May 16 sentencing on felony voter fraud charges in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Wright, whose district stretches from Inglewood to San Pedro, requested the leave during a meeting Tuesday with Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

“There are motions pending by Senator Wright’s…

Hi, Merry Christmas, so this story was based on one of my family moments from these past days, it was of my nephew playing with the newspaper and the first thing i thought of was Baby Logan. Mention of Jogan

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It was a quiet afternoon in the Wright house, the events of the night hell looked like a far nightmare that was fading away. It was a quite odd scene, the senator was sitting in the left end of the couch of the living room reading the newspaper and Logan was sitting on the other end, also reading the newspaper.

Their relationship had improved in the last months, after almost seeing his son die in the fire that consumed the Art Hall. He tried to be a better parent, he accepted the relationship his son had with the Hollywood star with less arguments.

From the corner of this eyes he saw how Logan was immersed in the newspaper, how his eyes moved from left to right with each line. The scene of him reading remembered him of a time when his life was simple.

…Logan was just 7 months old and he and Cordelia were happy. Mr. Wright was sitting on the same spot, on the same couch reading the newspaper. Cordelia came with Logan in her arms, he was wearing blue shorts and a little white baby shirt with squeaky shoes and his hair was untidy because he had just woke up from his nap. He was playing with Cordelia’s hair.

She set him in the couch in the middle where the newspaper was and she set on the other end, took a page and started to read. Logan instead, with his baby hands, started to move the papers in all directions. Mr. Wright took the newspaper from his son, “No Logan, you can’t play with the newspaper”. At that instant, both pair of green emerald eyes stared back at each other, but Logan’s eyes started to water and his lips shake. Mr. Wright knew that Logan was going to start crying and wouldn’t stop in a while. With a quick thought, he gave him the classified page, the part that they didn’t read.

Logan stopped his little tantrum and smiled, he took the page in his baby hands and tried to mimic his father and mother, frowning his forehead like they did. After a little while, Logan gave it up and started to play with the newspaper, he crushed it, he ripped it, and in the end the newspaper was turned into tiny pieces and he just kept staring at his hands that were cover with the black ink of the newspaper. Mr. Wright just stared at him, thinking ‘please don’t put it in your mouth, please’ over and over as if Logan could read his mind, but instead Logan started to rub his hands all of his face laughing and smiling at the same time.

Mr. Wright chuckled and Logan turned to look at his father, smiling he showed him his hands and Mr. Wright smiled back. Cordelia turned to see what had made his husband laugh and saw Logan. She sighed “Logan you’re all dirty, come on, lets go clean you up” she took her son and started to leave the room, when Logan looked over her mother’s shoulder and waved goodbye to his father, still with a smile on his face. Mr. Wright waved back and then looked at the mess his son had made thinking how happy he was…

Logan cleared his throat, snapping his father of his memories “Did you finish that section already? Can I borrow it?” the senator just stared at his son.

“Dad?”

“What? Mmm… yes, here take it” he handed the page to Logan.

So despite everything he's done, I've never been able to hate the guy.

Deep down, I think that he really does love Logan, it's just that so much as happened that it's not always easy to show it.

I mean I can't imagine being a senator to be an easy job. It's probably extremely demanding of him and unfortunately with jobs like that, the family suffers. Sure he could quit, but he would still have to have another job, something still probably in politics, which I think would still be demanding of him.

There's also the fact that he never physically abandoned Logan as a child. His wife left him and his child, but he still took on the responsibility of caring for Logan. He could have easily shipped him off somewhere else, but he didn't.

And honestly, I would imagine that the fact that his own child's mother abandoned him because of John really took a number on him. It's one thing to fall out of love and despise your ex but to the extent that you blame them for all that is wrong with your child and completely rid him from your life is unthinkable. Mother's are known for being overprotective and willing to kill for their children and yet Cordelia just left hers. 

I think that ways a lot on Senator Wright. He probably feels guilty and worthless as a father. Maybe he acts so aloof and uncaring because he thinks that if he actually tries with Logan and attempts to really be a parent with him, he'll just "screw" Logan up more than everyone already thinks he is.

A/N: I have one special anon to thank for this title. S/he is lurking somewhere and I would love it if s/he came out of hiding so I could lavish them with gifts. This part is officially dedicated to YOU, you special person out there who has relieved me of my woes. THANK. YOU. Anyway. Nothing really to say. Here's part 2. I shall upload it to fanfiction when I stop being lazy. /neglects fanfic very very very very badly.

Divorce.  It crushes him flat just five months after his birthday.  In retrospect, John could have seen it coming for over three years now, his relationship with his wife tumultuous even at the best of times, with her demanding more than he wanted to give.  The past year had been especially difficult.  He should have noticed her pulling away from not only him, but from Logan as well.  Even Heather the nanny is at the house more than she is.

When she slaps the papers on the table though, he cannot help but feel it rip through him, all his dreams in that second shattered.  Eight years of marriage.  Somehow they seem too short.

But his first thought is how the media will take this and his whole body is flooded with anger at his wife for being so inconsiderate of him and his career, for being so selfish and wanting a better life, and for having the chance to get that better life—she, after all, is not Senator Wright.  He is. And Senator wright is known as a good man, a Christian man, a man whom millions look up to, a man who doesn’t believe in  divorce and will now be judged for it.  She does not have the obligations he has, she does not have to worry about how this will reflect on her character.  She can disengage and disappear, becoming somebody else’s wife, while he remains stuck center-stage, spotlight blinding.  

“I met another man,” she tells him flatly, “and we’ve been seeing each other for over a year now.  I’m sick of playing pretend with you.”

His world is spinning, spinning, he’s falling down, down, down and he can’t find his footing.  His imagination turns on him, just as his wife has, and he imagines her in someone else’s house, eating someone else’s food, making love to another man, and then having the audacity to march back into his home and kiss his son on his forehead and sleep in the same bed as him.  For a whole year, she had deceived him. Another punch to the gut. He feels sick. He wants to vomit all over her.

And the media will gobble it up.  He can’t process it. He explodes, because it’s so much easier than crying.

He screams at her for everything that he is thinking, words tumbling out of his mouth, disgusting words that lay barren in the air.  He calls her a dirty whore and a thief, accusing her of using him for his money and his fame.  She screams back at him, and his dirty whore has always had claws (maybe he once liked that about her), and she digs them in deep now. He shakes her and she slaps him.  Blood rushes to his cheek.  Blood rushes and swirls inside him, and it feels like fire.  The air erupts with the sound of crying, but neither John or his wife is in tears.

The tears belong to their son. Logan, standing there. Logan, sobbing.

John grabs his wife by the wrist and shakes her again, as hard as he can. “Do you see—do you see what you’re doing—that is you fucking son!”

“So now you give two shits about him!” She screams at him.  “All these years acting like he’s a show dog you can use to win you trophies, taking him out now and again like that will fix things—he cries at night when you don’t come home--!”

“Shut up, you bitch, you can’t talk, you’re fucking some other man!”

“You’ve never been there for him!”

He slaps her hard.  As hard as he can. His temper makes him blind and his hand just moves, and it’s done. He’s hit his wife.  His body thunders and all he can register was how good that just felt. She crumples with an inhuman shriek. 

As fast as she can, his bitch picks herself and flees from the room, shutting the door and leaving a hysterical Logan, sobbing on the floor.

The sight of it just makes him angrier. “Stop crying!” He screams at his son, making Logan jump.  And then Logan runs too, disappearing down the hall.

John doesn’t know why he follows, still buzzing with adrenaline from that slap. But he races after Logan, following his son’s crying and Logan shuts his bedroom door and locks it.

“Logan, open this door right now!” He pounds heavily on the wooden door, and he wants it to break underneath his fist.

“NO!” his son screams back at him.  “Go away!”

“Logan, now, or I swear, I will break this door down!”

“I don’t want you!” Logan pounds back on the door.  “Go away, I don’t want you!”

John stops pounding, his fists release into shaking hands, and he leaves just as he has been requested.  He stumbles into the kitchen and feels like his whole body has been lit on fire, like he has woken up from a nightmare in a sweat. But the nightmare lives on, as his anger bleeds into anguish, the fire burning stronger inside him.  Nothing can cool him down, but still, he tries. He breaks into the liquor cabinet and drinks.  The physical burn of the alcohol sears away the pain that rattles inside of him, pain that cannot be scratched away or picked, or bandaged, or healed.  It is when he is slightly drunk, the tracks of his own tears stained on his face, that he goes back to Logan’s room, finding the door open by just a crack.

An invitation in.

His son is sitting against his bed, his face hidden underneath his arms.  When John approaches him, his little voice comes out muffled:

“I’m not a dog,” he says.  “I’m not anyone’s dog.”

“I don’t think of you like that.  Not even a little bit—not for a second, you hear? Logan, you’re my little boy,” John breathes the words and they linger in the air, smelling of vodka.  But he means them.  That must count for something. “C’mere.”

“Don’t hit me like you hit Mommy,” Logan’s voice breaks as he looks up. His eyes are puffy and swollen with redness, which makes the green of his eyes shine stronger.  He doesn’t wait for his father to reply, but crawls almost desperately toward John, fitting onto his lap awkwardly and burying his face into his father’s shoulder.  “I’m sorry,” he mumbles against his shirt and begins to cry again.

He has nothing to feel sorry about. This is all his fault. He is a failure.

-

She calls a week later.

“You’re not to come within one hundred feet of me,” she says.

“That’s a little extreme,” he says.

“You hit me.”

“You hurt me worse.”

She ignores him. “How’s Logan?”

“He refuses to go to school and he won’t eat.”

“Well he’s your son, so you do something. I’ve dealt with him and his needs for six years. I shopped for his clothes, I fed him and bathed him and did everything I was supposed to. Your turn.”

“You’re his mother.”

“And you’re his shitty father. This will teach you a lesson.”

“So what? You’re just leaving him with me?”

“Do you not want him?”

He pauses.  He feels Logan’s tiny hand gripping his shirt, he hears his birthday song and remembers how Logan used to eat his applesauce without much fuss. Logan never cried at night, Logan always smiled. Logan, his son.

“I want him,” he says.

-

He makes a list of things Logan needs—

A haircut, new shirts, new pants, new socks, new shoes, a new lunchbox, a new bookpack—anything and everything new, to signify a fresh start. John decides to enroll him in a new school too, a private Christian Elementary that costs a fortune, but will teach his son good morals and lessons, and the choice will reflect well on him.  Logan gets a uniform and John brushes Logan’s hair and forces him to drink all his damn milk every morning, before Heather comes and picks him up. For twenty minutes in the morning, it’s just John and Logan, father and son.  It’s stressful, Logan is cranky, but damn it, John gets it done.

He tries to be a good father, the best father, to prove his ex-wife wrong.  But the Twin Towers crash into dust, and America is thrust into its own crisis.  Once again, John doesn’t have time. He wants to do his job well, he wants to live up to his potential and one day he wants to be President.  He wants so much, he needs so much, so he can’t afford to tuck his son into bed. Isn’t it just a small sacrifice, for the good of the people? In the long run, it won’t even matter.

The media is all over him all the time as the scandal of his marriage gets out and he’s accused of hypocrisy.  Everyone shouts at him—“You’re not the man you said you were!”  He’s corrupt, he’s divorced before forty, he is not “All-american” like he advertised himself to be, he does not have the picket fence or the dog or the loving wife or the adorable, mild-mannered son.  Not anymore at least.

He’s in a perpetual bad mood as he hurtles through a never-ending tunnel of “Shit Happens.” He’s growing too old for this game, but he’s not a quitter.  Never was, never could be. But even though he tries his best, he can’t be both Senator Wright and Logan’s Dad.  He misses meetings or he misses piano recitals and teacher conferences.  Pick and choose, he’s the loser in the end.

Once he receives an emergency call from the hospital.  His son has somehow consumed some peanuts. He flies into a panic, drops everything and goes.  Logan is lying down in the hospital bed, eyes half-closed, so small in the gown, his hair a tussled mess.  He is too pale, he almost melts into the sheets, and he is too quiet.  There is no trace of a smile anywhere on his face, not even when his eyes open and he sees his father there.

“What happened?” and John can only take Logan’s hand and squeeze it, so nervous and scared himself.  What if he dies? What then? He looks like he could die at any moment.

“I ate some peanuts. I didn’t have a lunch, but a boy offered me his trail mix. There were peanuts in it. I didn’t know,” Logan recites.  His tone is almost bored, and clearly he has told this tale several times already. 

“Why didn’t you have your lunch?” Senator Wright is livid. “Heather is supposed to make you lunch, and if you want to get lunch there, you have money in your account—”

“I didn’t have money. You didn’t renew it, Dad.”

His blood freezes inside him.  How could he have forgotten such a thing?  He always remembered to keep his son’s accounts filled, just in case Logan ever needed anything.  Logan has never, ever been without what he needed or wanted.  Money was, at the very least, the one thing John could offer to his family, when he himself was not available. 

John is struck with a profound sense of failure yet again, so powerful that it goes straight through him and leaves him hollow.  He is the one that put Logan in the hospital for his carelessness.  From that day forward, John always, always—without fail—makes Logan’s lunch for him.

-

There were days when he and Logan had walked down Central park toward his office, hand-in-hand, and Logan had hopped up and down and begged for ice cream, until finally John had relented.

There were days when Logan had brought home worksheets from school, tugged at his shirt, pointed at the shiny sticker and the shiny A on top, smiling bashfully. 

But then there were days when John couldn’t take it and screamed at Logan to clean his room, screamed at him to shut up, screamed at him to stop playing the piano, stop crying, and give him some peace and quiet. And Logan began to scream and fight back, slamming doors hard, emerging from his room in a perpetual bad mood, his eyes red from crying.  After work, John came home to a grim-faced Heather telling him that Logan had flown into a temper tantrum and broken three dishes. 

Then came the days when they rarely spoke at all. Logan, already in bed by the time Senator Wright made it home, with his door locked, refusing to open.

“Something’s wrong. He’s becoming so different, Mr. Wright, I don’t even recognize him sometimes. You need to be there for him,” Heather pleads with him.  “I think he really, really misses you.”

He does all he can. But his job—

The days all run together, they dwindle, and John still didn’t have enough time. 

When he’s been divorced officially for three years and Logan is ten, Logan asks him, “Do you mean what you say on the news 100% of the time?”

“What, Logan?” he can’t help be a little sharp, he’s swamped at the moment.

“I watch you on the news,” Logan says quietly. “Every time you’re on.  And I was wondering if you mean what you say, or if you’re just saying what they want to hear.”

“What are you talking about? Of course I mean it.  It’s my platform, Logan.”

Logan looks down. “But…so marriage should only be between a man and a woman, then? Dad?”

Three new emails, all important.  The economy is in shambles. 

“Dad…”

He can fix it—he’ll find a way, he always does. That’s him, Mr. Fix-it man, Mr. Do-it-yourself politician. That was his slogan.

“Daddy, I think...I…I…”

“Logan, will you please be quiet. I can’t concentrate with you blabbering.”

-

“I’m gay,” said Logan to the silence of the dinner table. His voice held tears, but his eyes looked straight forward.

I KNOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE NATURAL BUT BUT I JUST I JUST HSIOGJAOG

A/N: If you read this, you're required to send me a potential title :|

Just kidding. But actually, I would really like suggestions cuz I'm fresh out of them, having used up my title quota for the rest of my life.  Yup, I am a poor writer with a shortage of titles.  Each title which whom I have gotten involved has broken my heart and dumped me carelessly so I really don't trust titles anymore. So I would appreciate you guys helping me out and hooking me up with a nice, well thought-out title that my parents will like. /why am I a nerd.

Oh and also I plan for this to be three parts, and it focuses on John Wright and Logan Wright's relationship from the time Logan is born up to canon. It's told from John Wright's POV. Most of the time. Okay I'm done messing around now, here you go. <3

-

John Logan Wright the Third is born as the rain falls and the city roars. John Logan Wright Jr. doesn’t get there in time—he tries desperately, wrapping up his phone conference as hastily as he can, canceling his meeting, bullying a taxi away from two ladies without bothering to apologize.  But the sky is dark and angry, traffic is heavy, New York is bloated with too many people.  And he doesn’t make it.

“Where were you?” his wife is in tears. Her whole body is wet and aching and smells of sweat. He is tired too, and it’s hard to explain it without making her crying worse.

“You weren’t here for me. I was so scared. You weren’t even here!”

“I’m sorry,” he says helplessly, and kisses her wet forehead.  “I’m so sorry.”

“Mr. Wright, would you like to meet your son?” The nurse comes forward.  She holds a squealing mass of tissue and blood and flesh, its eyes screwed up, fists clenched tightly, almost angrily. John stares at it as the butterflies in his stomach make him feel sick with fear.  Still, his arms go out automatically, and the baby falls into his hold. A son, the nurse had said.  His head can barely wrap around the fact—a son?

 The baby grips at his shirt the second he’s placed in John’s arms, fingers wrapping themselves around the cloth of his father’s shirt, pinching his skin with a tenacious, vicious hold. It’s his baby, his little baby—his son.  Of all the ugly, beautiful, strange miracles!

“Oh give him here, John, you’re not holding him correctly! You’ll hurt him!” his wife admonishes, still in the worst of moods. 

John doesn’t want to let go (and he thinks that his baby boy doesn’t want to either), but he refuses to fight right now. He feels so meek and tired next to his wife, who’s just done this wonderful feat, and next to newly born John Logan Wright, who is the most fantastic thing in the entire room.

  He laid his boy gently down into the arms of his mother, sits beside his family.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he says as he kisses his son’s forehead. He says it to them both.  “I promise.”

-

His son grows quickly into the name Logan, and it suits him and his bright green eyes.  Beautiful eyes.  John has no idea how he created such a beautiful, bright-eyed boy, who loves to stare outside of windows, whether the sun is shining or the storm clouds are crawling all over the sky. He babbles incessantly, but he doesn’t cry as much as John had expected.  No, his son is brave and strong—all smiles. John can’t help but brag about it at the water cooler sometimes. Oh, your daughter cries all through the night, does she? What a shame. Logan is an angel. Your son won’t eat what he’s given? Logan loves his carrot mush and applesauce. Come over sometime, Logan absolutely loves meeting new people. He is so agreeable.

 His life only gets better and better. Brilliant wife, brilliant son, it gives him such confidence and energy that he dares to pull longer nights and take chances and fight for what he believes in.  John Wright has always been a tenacious politician, but suddenly he’s breaking down walls. He has everything going for him—so why not run for Senate?

The dream is born in him late one night at dinner, with Logan giggling and smashing his peas into his mouth, the TV in the other room on.  Tonight’s conversation has been muted, both adults tired, depending on their giggling baby boy to fill in the silence with his babble.  John’s eyes drift from his wife to his son, the TV in the background reporting on a new bill circling through the Senate.   The idea materializes in front of him, as though it was always there.  Of course!

“Darling,” he breaks the silence, “what do you think about being the wife of a Senator?”

Logan, from his highchair, claps his hands in approval, giggles, spits up a little.

It’s really all the confirmation he needs.

-

Logan sprouts a head full of thick blonde hair that grows as quick as grass. His first words are “Dada, up!”  John knows it’s silly, but to him, those words are proof that Logan is a dreamer like his old man, always thinking forward—no, no, skyward, onto bigger and better things.

“Dada, up!” 

John takes his son by the arms and swings him up. Logan’s arms curl around his neck and his tiny nose nuzzles his cheek. 

“Up, up and away, right, Logan?” He spins around, making Logan laugh even more.  “Up, up and away!”

-

He wins the seat. Of course he does. He is the young, vibrant politician with a picture-perfect family and an adorable son who doesn’t ever cry at his rallies.  The media loves Logan almost as much as John does. And John sees this. He uses this. 

His wife doesn’t like it though.

“He’s hardly even three!” she snaps at him one night, ripping off her jewelry as she moves around the room in a huff.  “Just a toddler and all of New York knows his name and his favorite candy! That’s ridiculous, John.  This really can’t go on—I refuse to take him.”

“Sweetheart, it’s harmless.  Logan doesn’t even mind it.”

“He’s a child! He’s just happy to be with his father—for once!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He looks up from the book he’s reading. 

“Late nights, dinners out, trips across the country! For a man trying to be the poster boy for the American family, you’re hardly around for your own!” She’s a whirlwind of pent-up frustration and she lands on the bed with a huff, yanking back the covers.  “He wanders around the house sometimes, calling for you, you know! I had to purchase a leash to put on him whenever we go out so he doesn’t get lost, looking for you! He may be young, but he’s bright. He wants his father.”

Bile churns in John’s stomach and he feels tense, throat tight.  Her anger is like a knife in his gut.  He can’t help but think—how dare she try to make him feel guilty, how dare she try and ruin his dreams in the most backward, scheming, political kind of way?

“You’re always invited to dinners, parties, anything at all,” he snaps back.  “You’re the one who doesn’t want to go half of the time. I have to drag you the other half. How do you think I feel, having a wife who doesn’t support me?”

“That’s ridiculous John, I have a child to take care of.  I don’t want to leave him with the nanny all the time. And you can’t expect me to take him to cocktail parties! Will you think of him for once? Or me? I didn’t marry the entire U.S. Congress, I married you!”

“You two are all I ever think about!” John tries to defend.  “I’m trying to make this country a better place for him, for you—”

“Bullshit.” The light switches off without another word. 

-

John never has enough time.  The day, from the early morning to the late night, moves faster then he can keep up. He’s suddenly not as young as he used to be, even though, in his mind, he feels like he’s 22, fresh out of college.  But his eyes ache, his head aches, and he grows frustrated easily, with the situation of his country—and the situation at home.  He can’t finish his work, he can’t find time to make love to his wife, he can’t sit down for thirty minutes and eat dinner without his Blackberry buzzing and whisking him away.  When he’s at home, he’s bent over his desk, and backaches ripple up and down his spine as the headaches force a few aspirin down his throat.

The fights with his wife evolve.  Once they were mere squabbles over the same thing, same thing.  She would whine about how he works too late and wakes her up when he came home.  He solves this by sleeping in the guest room instead, all alone.  She complains about how she never gets to go out with her friends, and so he hired a second nanny, a kind, 26-year-old  former pageant girl named Heather, who adores Logan.  But he can’t be home the way she really wants him to, and he can’t take Logan out to baseball games or help him learn how to add and subtract.  Those are problems he can’t solve.  And problems without solutions cause him additional stress, so he throws himself into the ones he know he can help, tackling his work whenever he could, letting it consume him to distract him from his failures.

One day, Logan opens his office door quietly; his angelic face a demure mask of politeness. “Daddy,” he says.  “Uhm, Daddy,” he has to repeat himself.

“What, Logan?” John mumbles and pulls up his email, eyes swiftly moving over the words from one of his colleagues, words that do not comfort him in anyway.  Urgh, he needs more aspirin.  Goddamn, why doesn’t anything work out for him anymore?

“Can I show you something?”

“I’m busy.”

“It will only take a second, I promise.”

“Logan, didn’t you hear what I said?” John grits his teeth, pinches his nose, and takes a breath.  He’s so fucking tired and his head is splitting him in half and he needs to be in three places at once and fuck those goddamn Democrats and fuck the President and fuck this whole country and fuck his wife for chewing him out again for not picking up the dry cleaning when he has one hundred more important things to do.

“I did,” his son whispers. John does not notice the fear in his eyes.  “But it’s really important—”

And fuck his son for being an annoying little shithead who couldn’t even fucking listen—

“Logan, NO!” His growl turns into a shout.  He’s out of his seat and pushing Logan out the door and down the hall.  He slams his office door, locks it and as his heart pounds, he can hear crying not too far off. 

When did he become this man? He decides that he’ll take Logan out for ice cream as soon as he’s done…

As soon as he’s done.

-

Two days later, he receives an email from their nanny while at work.

“Hey Senator Wright! J

Happy Birthday from Logan and me!!!  I helped your son record this for you, so you can watch it when you have time. We know you’re a very busy important man of course, and we hope we’re not interrupting anything.  Logan wants me to tell you that he loves you very, very much!  Hope to see you later for your birthday dinner!

XOXOXO (That means lots of hugs and kisses),

Heather and Logan.”

Attached is a video that is only about a minute long.  Too curious, John presses play and Logan’s bright green eyes fill his screen, his smile nervous but sincere. The camera zooms out to show his little boy sitting on the piano. Even though his legs dangle on the bench and do not touch the ground, John still wonders how his boy got so big.  Are those little oxfords on his feet and is he wearing a tie? Why is his little boy dressed up all nice? He should be in his light-up Batman sneakers, running around. And when did his hair get so long?

“Okay, Logan, go ahead!” Heather’s whisper is loud and clear. Logan turns to the piano. And he begins to play.

It’s not a tune John recognizes, and though it isn’t overly complicated, he’s staring wide-eyed at his screen, as his son tenderly plays each key with precision, his face scrunched up in concentration.  Logan treats each key as if they were something soft and fragile—made out of glass.  If he presses the keys too hard or if he goes too fast, they will surely shatter.  But even in this staccato style of playing, the melody comes together.  The tune steadily climbs up and then down, a patient song, a pretty song, and a song that brings tears to John’s eyes. When it stops, it’s a bit abrupt and John wants it to keep going on and on and on forever. 

Logan turns back to the camera and his smile is wide and uncontrolled now, face flushed with his nerves, but also with happiness. “I hope you like your birthday song, Daddy! I love you!”

The video ends with his beaming face.  And John knows that this is what his son wanted to show him just two days ago.  A little composition his bright six-year-old made, just for him.

Heat rushes to John’s face as everything overwhelms him in a wave of emotion—he didn’t even remember that today was his own birthday.  He didn’t even know his son could play the grand piano that his wife had bought for the family room, more as a decoration piece than an actual musical instrument.  He can recall, somewhere in the thicket of his memory, that he had once heard methodical playing in his house, but he had dismissed it and shut his office door, willing the noise away.  Now all he wants is for it to fill his entire head.  His office is depressingly quiet, overbearing, too clean, too organized.  He remembers with the powerful pain of nostalgia Logan gripping his shirt and he cries, unabashed, at his desk.

Like that day six years ago, the sky is dark and threatening rain, and the city is festering, and he has too much work to do to go to his birthday dinner.  But John leaves anyway, saying he feels sick.  He arrives home only a little late, the smell of turkey greeting him, and he knows that his favorite cranberry sauce is waiting for him, and it feels like Thanksgiving and he has so much to be thankful for.

Logan is sitting practicing the piano when John enters. He goes straight to his son, who is so absorbed in his music that he does not notice his father until John has him in his arms, scooping him up with tears filling his eyes again.

“Up, up and away Logan!” he cries as he used to, spinning his son once with a choked, awkward laugh that wants to become a sob. He hugs his son close, realizing for the second time that day how long and shaggy his blonde hair is, how big he has grown—can he really be six? Isn’t he going to be seven soon? Time, time, it is escaping him.

“Daddy, what’s wrong?” Logan squeaked and squirmed in his arms. 

John puts his son down, kneeling so he is eye-level.  “Nothing. Nothing at all.  I got your email today.”

Logan turns bright red. “O-oh.”

“It was the best birthday present I’ve ever gotten.  You, sir, are a mighty fine piano player,” John pokes Logan in the chest, earning him a nervous giggle.  “Thank you so, so much.”

Logan absolutely glows. “I can play it again for you—i-if you have time,” he bites his lip.

“Logan, I would like nothing else.  I’ll go get your mother and you’ll play it for both of us, okay?”

“Okay!”

And that night, they sit down together for the first time in a long time.  Logan plays piece after piece, singing along to the songs with words in a high, clear voice fit for a bird, stunning John for the second time that night.  He must give his son singing lessons, he must insist on more piano lessons. He needs to nurture Logan’s talents and he needs to be around. He just needs to, somehow. The turkey settles warm in his belly, he tucks Logan goodnight and makes love to his wife for what would be the last time.