understand why he wasn’t bleeding.
Then he felt nothing.
When they pulled into a truck stop near Barstow, Logan snuck to a pay phone on the wall just outside the washroom and tried to call his mom. He couldn’t remember her work number, had trouble making a longdistance call. Just as the operator came on, the line died.
His father had disconnected the call, replaced the handset then hauled Logan back to the truck.
“Son, I told you we can’t ever call her. We have to stick to the rules, the laws and the court orders. I’m sorry but that’s just how it is.”
Logan cried for several hundred miles as the Cali fornia desert rolled by and he fought to understand what no nine-year-old boy could ever understand.
All he knew was that something he loved had just died.
That something he needed was gone.
And all he could do was cry.
As they reached the outskirts of Las Vegas, his dad told him they were going to meet someone. Then Dad made a call on his new cell phone and they went to a restaurant at one of the big hotels where some woman waved to them.
“Son, this is Samara. Samara, this is my son, Logan.” “Hello, Logan.” She had a foreign accent and her hand was cold when he shook it. “Your father’s told me so much about you.”
Logan didn’t give a shit.
Just like he didn’t give a shit for the banana split his dad had ordered for him. Like that would make every thing okay.
“Son, I never told anyone this but Samara helped me during some pretty horrible times in Iraq. She saved my life. She’s a nurse from England and now she’s working here in the States—in a part of Montana where they’re short of nurses. That’s where we’re going to live, son. In Montana with Samara.”
“No, we’re not! We’re going home!”
“Son, I know this is a lot to handle and it’s compli cated.”
“I hate you, you fucker!”
The banana split sailed from their table, landing in an explosion of ice cream and glass near the feet of the startled waitress.
Gears clanked and rattled, brakes creaked. The school bus stopped and the doors opened to Logan’s place.
He tensed at the postbox with the name Russell. Sticking out like the lie it was. Dad said they had to change their names, something about court-ordered property law and complex rules.
Logan hated it here.
Dad was on the road driving most of the time, leaving him with Samara. She worked for the county and came to the school more and more for meetings about the big visit. At the start, when they got here, the other kids thought she was Logan’s mom.
It made him angry and sometimes he corrected them with his fists.
He got sent to the principal’s office a lot when they first got here. His dad and Samara thought putting him in the choir would help him settle down.
Samara kept saying that she thought he had a nice voice.
She never bothered Logan much. She made sure he did his homework and she took care of most of the house stuff. She made him what he liked to eat, like chili.
It was never as good as his mom’s.
Besides, she was always busy taking these nursing courses and studying all the time. Always typing on her laptop and talking to friends on her cell phone at all hours. She had a strict rule that Logan was never to touch her phone or laptop, something about patient confiden tiality.
He didn’t want to touch her stuff. He didn’t really like her.
Sometimes, late at night, he heard her talking on the phone in a strange language. From the action movies he’d watched, he guessed it was Arabic, or something. She was from Iraq. He told his dad who explained to him that Samara had friends around the world who worked with relief groups, like the Red Cross. These people did good things and she was just talking to her friends.
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
Then he felt nothing.
When they pulled into a truck stop near Barstow, Logan snuck to a pay phone on the wall just outside the washroom and tried to call his mom. He couldn’t remember her work number, had trouble making a longdistance call. Just as the operator came on, the line died.
His father had disconnected the call, replaced the handset then hauled Logan back to the truck.
“Son, I told you we can’t ever call her. We have to stick to the rules, the laws and the court orders. I’m sorry but that’s just how it is.”
Logan cried for several hundred miles as the Cali fornia desert rolled by and he fought to understand what no nine-year-old boy could ever understand.
All he knew was that something he loved had just died.
That something he needed was gone.
And all he could do was cry.
As they reached the outskirts of Las Vegas, his dad told him they were going to meet someone. Then Dad made a call on his new cell phone and they went to a restaurant at one of the big hotels where some woman waved to them.
“Son, this is Samara. Samara, this is my son, Logan.” “Hello, Logan.” She had a foreign accent and her hand was cold when he shook it. “Your father’s told me so much about you.”
Logan didn’t give a shit.
Just like he didn’t give a shit for the banana split his dad had ordered for him. Like that would make every thing okay.
“Son, I never told anyone this but Samara helped me during some pretty horrible times in Iraq. She saved my life. She’s a nurse from England and now she’s working here in the States—in a part of Montana where they’re short of nurses. That’s where we’re going to live, son. In Montana with Samara.”
“No, we’re not! We’re going home!”
“Son, I know this is a lot to handle and it’s compli cated.”
“I hate you, you fucker!”
The banana split sailed from their table, landing in an explosion of ice cream and glass near the feet of the startled waitress.
Gears clanked and rattled, brakes creaked. The school bus stopped and the doors opened to Logan’s place.
He tensed at the postbox with the name Russell. Sticking out like the lie it was. Dad said they had to change their names, something about court-ordered property law and complex rules.
Logan hated it here.
Dad was on the road driving most of the time, leaving him with Samara. She worked for the county and came to the school more and more for meetings about the big visit. At the start, when they got here, the other kids thought she was Logan’s mom.
It made him angry and sometimes he corrected them with his fists.
He got sent to the principal’s office a lot when they first got here. His dad and Samara thought putting him in the choir would help him settle down.
Samara kept saying that she thought he had a nice voice.
She never bothered Logan much. She made sure he did his homework and she took care of most of the house stuff. She made him what he liked to eat, like chili.
It was never as good as his mom’s.
Besides, she was always busy taking these nursing courses and studying all the time. Always typing on her laptop and talking to friends on her cell phone at all hours. She had a strict rule that Logan was never to touch her phone or laptop, something about patient confiden tiality.
He didn’t want to touch her stuff. He didn’t really like her.
Sometimes, late at night, he heard her talking on the phone in a strange language. From the action movies he’d watched, he guessed it was Arabic, or something. She was from Iraq. He told his dad who explained to him that Samara had friends around the world who worked with relief groups, like the Red Cross. These people did good things and she was just talking to her friends.
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
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