His voice got sharper.
“You helped us for years. You never complained. You never once said you wanted any of it back.”
“I don’t want the money back.”
“Then why are you demanding it?”
“I’m not asking for the loan to be repaid because I’m angry, Logan. I’m asking because it was a loan.”
“You called it family help.”
“That doesn’t mean it turned into a gift.”
I heard a voice in the background. Chelsea.
“Is that him?”
Logan covered the phone. Not fast enough.
“Dad. Chelsea wants to talk to you. She says she needs to explain.”
I stood up and walked to the window.
“No,” I said.
“Dad, please.”
“I’m not ready to talk to her.”
“She didn’t mean—”
“Logan.”
He stopped.
I hardly ever used his name like that. Not loud. Not harsh. Just firm enough to remind him I wasn’t asking permission.
“I’ll meet you,” I said. “Alone. Somewhere public. Tomorrow afternoon.”
I gave him the name of a coffee shop near the Irving library.
Right before he hung up, he said something so quiet I almost missed it.
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
I closed my eyes.
“Come prepared to tell me what you’re sorry for,” I said.
The coffee shop was busy the next afternoon. College kids with laptops by the windows. An old couple sharing a pastry. A young mother trying to keep her toddler from dumping sugar packets on the floor.
I got there early and took a table in the back.
Logan came in twelve minutes late.
He looked older than he had three weeks before. His shirt was wrinkled. His hair needed cutting. Dark circles under his eyes.
He held himself like a man carrying something fragile.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hello, son.”
He sat down across from me.
“I didn’t know how to find you,” he said. “I called your old bank. They wouldn’t give me your address.”
“They shouldn’t have.”
“I called Aunt Miriam.”
“She didn’t know.”
He nodded. He looked down at the table.
“I was worried.”
“I believe you.”
His eyes came up.
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“What else should I say?”
“That you were worried about us too.”
“I was.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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