“Why are you asking me that?”
He had waited too long to respond to the question.
“I asked Papa, but he told me not to ask questions like that. But I know you like questions,” Virgil responded.
Logan looked away from the large eyes looking up at him to scan the faces of his brothers around them. Roman and Remus had previously been bickering over who was to eat the last pancake, but the two had silenced at the question. Patton said nothing either as he drank from his glass of orange juice, but his eyes watched Logan carefully as he wondered how the question would be answered.
“It’s a long story, and the bus will be here soon,” Logan said finally. “Why don’t we table this talk until you get home from school, okay?”
Virgil didn’t seem pleased by the response, but he nodded nonetheless, “Okay.”
He called his father when they had left for school.
Logan set the phone on speaker as he moved to do the dishes. He needed something to focus on, something other than the memory of yellow petals. “You avoided Virgil’s question,” Logan started. “So he asked us.”
The man on the other side of the line gave a curse, “What did you tell him?”
“That it was too long a story and it would need to wait until he got home.”
“...The story is short. He waited too long.”
Logan shook his head as he took a deep breath, “Not the way I tell it.”
“You’re going to make me sound like a villain I take it?”
“I tell the story the way it goes.”
Logan didn’t respond, but the way he hung up said enough.
He took a deep calming breath as he focused on the dishes. Not on the bathroom out the door and down the hall on the right. But as tears came to his eyes he couldn’t stop himself from slipping into the memory.
He had been the first of his brothers to come home.
Six years later he wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t picked up Patton from school or if the twins had been at rehearsal or a sport. But he could remember being thankful that he had been one the one to find Dad retching in the bathroom instead of them.
Dad was slumped against the toilet. His face was pale and covered and sweat, his hair was stuck at a weird angle, and he had stared up at Logan with mismatched eyes of pain and fear.
Logan had opened his mouth to ask what he should do to help. To offer to get water, medicine, something else, or all of the above- when Dad’s form convulsed and blood stained yellow petals spilled from his mouth and into the toilet.
The “episode” as Dad had called them lasted for a few minutes longer, before he pulled himself up from the floor and Logan found himself grabbing his father’s arm to stop the man from falling. Dad hadn’t seemed to notice.
He flushed the toilet and leaned over the sink rinsing his mouth and washing his face before his eyes met Logan’s in the mirror.
“You’ve heard of hanahaki?” He asked quietly.
Logan had nodded mutely. It was something which had heard of before, but something had never believed in. A disease so rare that could kill a person who was heartsick, the concept had become a joke in his school. It was something people said not knowing what it really meant, something people laughed about, because they had never seen it.
But now Logan had seen it.
And he regretted all those times he had laughed.
“You need to have it removed,” Were the first words Logan had forced his mouth to stay.
Dad pulled his arm from Logan’s grip and he walked out of the bathroom, “I know.”
“Then why haven’t you done it?”
Dad didn’t reply as he walked towards the front door and grabbed his keys.
“Should you be driving?” Logan asked him.
“I need to get Virgil from daycare.”
“You were puking flowers in the bathroom!” Logan shouted at him, his voice breaking at his barely contained fear. “You need to go to the hospital! Get someone else to get Virgil!”
Dad shook his head as he opened the door, “This isn’t a new thing Logan. I’ve lasted this long, I can last long enough to pick up my kids.”
“How long has it been?” he had asked that night.
Dad looked away from what he had been writing with a frown. “You should be asleep.”
Logan ignored the comment as he repeated his question, “How long has it been?”
Dad’s eyes had been tired as he shrugged, “Long enough.”
Logan took a deep breath as he took a seat across the table from his father who wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You’re not supposed to lie to me.”
“You’re not telling me the whole truth, it's a lie of omission.”
“What do you want me to say Logan?” Dad had sounded exasperated as he ran a hand through his hair. “I know I should have gotten them removed, okay? I know. But I also know the chances of someone surviving the surgery. It needs to be caught before the petals start. But I didn’t find out soon enough! So forgive me for picking the slow death where I get to spend time with my kids, over dying on an operating table!” He took a deep breath as tears fell from his eyes. “Dammit... I know Logan... I-”
Logan didn’t remember coming around the table to close the distance with his father, but he remembered the feeling of holding Dad tightly as the man squeezed him back. He didn’t remember what other words had passed between them, or if they had even spoke at all. But he remembered Dad had begun coughing again. And he remembered hating how beautiful the petals looked as they fell.
“Mr. Ekans, can you apologize for your actions?”
Logan stared at the principal before him, “I won’t apologize. And if you give me after school detention I will be honest and tell you that I will be skipping it.”
The man sighed and turned his attention to the boy whom Logan had punched. In Logan’s personal opinion he looked better with the bruise Logan had given him. “You are free to return to class, I have already contacted your home room teacher as to why you were not present.”
“Logan,” The principal started when the other boy left, switching to Logan’s first name. “I understand what he said was wrong and that your situation is... delicate, but that does not give you permission to hit other students.”
“And if someone made fun of your father dying?” Logan returned. “What would you do?”
“In school suspension for the rest of the day.”
Logan gave a sigh, “Fine.”
His principal nodded, “Cooperate with your in school suspension and I won't call your father understood?”
“You never answered my question.”
“A long day of suspension awaits you Mr. Ekans.”
Logan looked away from his homework to where Dad had entered his room, arms crossed. “Why do you know that?”
“I just got a call from a mother who was frantically apologizing for her son’s actions... Do you want to tell me your side?”
Logan had shrugged, “He said something about you and I got mad. That’s the whole story.”
“...Roman? Remus? Would you mind letting me speak to Logan alone for a bit?”
Logan had watched as his two brothers begrudgingly left the room, and when they had he kept his eyes on the closed door rather than his father’s face.
“Talk to me Logan,” Dad had urged quietly. “What are you thinking?”
“That he deserved to be punched.”
“Logan. We both know that’s not what I meant.”
Logan opened his mouth to respond when Dad’s hand had suddenly clamped down on his shoulder tightly and petals spewed from his mouth and onto the floor between them. His hand covered his mouth as he convulsed blood seeping from between his fingers as he did. Logan hurriedly maneuvered the man to sit on his bed and hurried for his trash can which Dad grabbed and coughed into.
Logan felt helpless. What could he do besides stand and watch? What could he do besides wipe away the tears which gathered in his own eyes.
Logan turned sharply to see the twins standing in the doorway confused and worried expressions on their faces.
“Are those flowers?” Remus asked.
Logan gave a hard swallow as he turned his back on Dad’s coughing as he moved to the door and forced a smile on his face, “Why don’t you two come with me to get him some water?”
“But is he okay?” Roman asked. “Isn’t flowers a bad thing? And you’re crying?”
Logan forced himself not to acknowledge the sound of Dad puking as he pushed the duo out of the room. “Come on... I’ll explain as we go.”
“Logan? What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at school.”
Papa raised an eyebrow as he took in the expression on Logan’s face before he waved for Logan to follow him. He led the way to an empty conference room and closed the door once the two were alone. “How did you even get here? And why did the front desk let you come here?”
“Well I’ve been here before so she recognized me as your son,” Logan answered. “And I skipped school and took a bus.”
“Damien won't be happy about that,” He sighed pulling out his phone. “I’m calling him and getting him to come get you.”
“No! I need to talk to you about him!”
Papa frowned, but after a moment he gave in with a sigh. “I guess it must be serious if you came to talk to me. What’s going on?”
His eyes had widened slowly and his mouth opened and closed a few times, but at his lack of words Logan continued.
“He has hanahaki... It’s getting worse.”
“Why... why are you telling me this?”
“Why else would he have it? You broke his heart...”
“That was two years ago!” He defended frantically. “It couldn’t be my fault. I-”
Logan didn’t need to hear his excuses. “You need to talk to him.”
“Wouldn’t- wouldn’t that just be worse?”
Logan didn’t have an answer to that question, quite frankly he wasn’t even sure why he felt he needed his dads to talk other than the fact that he felt they should. Less regrets that way. So instead of answering, he asked, “Do you want him to die without ever speaking to him again? Or do you really hate him that much?”
He ran a hand down his face, “Let me tell my boss I’m leaving.”
Logan had never learned what the two had spoken about. He had been sent out of the bedroom while the two spoke and it never seemed right to ask about something so private. He had only heard the tail end as Papa had left.
“If you knew earlier would you have gotten them removed?”
Dad had given a small smile, “At this point I rather think on the present than on the past.”
Logan had thought the presence of flowers at the funeral had been offensive, but customs overrode his feelings.
So much so that despite Papa trying to stop him he had risen during the service and walked up to a display of flowers someone had sent beside the closed casket. He was aware of everyone’s eyes on him, but he ignored it as he reached into the flowers and plucked each of the white snapdragons from the display.
When he was finished, he took his seat once more and forced himself to look and listen at the speaker as plucked each petal and let them fall onto his lap. Perhaps whomever had ordered them had thought white ones would be fine as they weren’t yellow. Or perhaps they simply had been ill informed about the details on the petals which haunted Logan’s dreams.
They must’ve been ill informed about the terror of watching someone sob and cough blood mixed with delicate petals. They must’ve been ill informed about the horror of hearing a man screaming as flowers crushed his ribcage and forced their way out of his mouth until he couldn’t scream anymore.
He had sat outside that hospital room covering Remus’ ears, while Remus did the same to Roman, and Roman to Patton. But no one had covered his.
And never before had information been so cursed.
“When someone loves a person so much, but that person doesn’t love them back it can cause a form of sickness. And sometimes that sickness is so bad that it becomes real. And with this sickness- hanahaki its called- flowers grow inside a person. And if it's not caught and taken care of quickly it can't be reversed. And then the flowers grow so much that it becomes too much for a person... So when Papa and Dad split apart, and Papa didn’t love Dad anymore. Dad got flowers and it was too late... And so to answer your question,” Logan took a deep breath. “Dad died from hanahaki. Does that make sense?”
“Why didn’t Papa love Dad?”
The eight year old didn’t seem pleased by the response, “Why do you think?”
“I don’t know Virgil... and quite frankly I don’t think he knows either. Any other questions?
Virgil was quiet for a moment, “Is that why you hate flowers?”
“I guess you’re right.” Logan sighed as he leaned back in his seat. He forced himself to look at the ceiling as emotions came in a wave for the second time that day. He took a few deep breaths as the memories threatened to surface again, but as he breathed each out he let them go with the air.
Out goes the bathroom down the hall on the right.
Out goes his brothers worried faces.
Out goes Dad’s fearful eyes.
And out goes those yellow snapdragons.
