Something Else Entirely

33 - The thawing of Frozen Logan.

My family loves Logan.

I think Logan loves my family, too.

I could barely even get a word in over dinner as they all talked and laughed and joked with her, and she answered everyone politely and made jokes right on back with them.

Dad and Sadie undertook their equivalent of a parent inquisition, asking Logan, by way of many humorous stories and anecdotes, about her family, interests and goals in life, some of which I already knew, and others which I didn't.

I learned that her mother is a police officer, which I'm sure made me and Sadie both cringe internally considering we weren't the biggest fan of cops—me because there was a long time when they hated me, had cautioned enough times and arrested me once for being a ratty dickhead; and Sadie because the police never did anything to help her when her drunk stepfather was beating up her mother or abusing her and her siblings every other day. Logan's mother apparently hoped that she would follow in her footsteps, but she (thankfully) had other plans, and they clashed about it often, especially now she was only a few weeks away from finishing high school and needing to decide what she was going to do next.

Logan's father, who it seemed she much preferred over her mother, was gone three out of four weeks of the month, hauling cargo between mine sites across the Nullabor and back. I could tell she missed him a lot when he was gone, and that it would have been a real help to her to have him around more to get her mum off her back considering he actually loved and respected her talent in photography, as well as her desire to work professionally with his sister-in-law.

Kendall had apparently bought Logan and Byron their own cameras for Christmas when they were ten, but Logan had taken to it a lot more than Byron ever did, the old Nikon barely leaving her hands for years afterwards until she could afford to buy her own upgrade. She helped shoot her first wedding when she was sixteen and Kendall needed an extra set of hands when her business partner fell sick the night beforehand. It was the first wedding she had ever been to herself, and she fell in love with the idea of working with her aunt and 'capturing the raw beauty of people falling in love and committing themselves to each other forever.'

Sadie's heart imploded a little at hearing that answer from Logan, and mine might not have been far off either. I always knew she had a tender heart underneath all her complicated layers of angry, and I already looked forward to the day when she would say things like this about me.

The way Logan talked about taking photos was the same way that Sadie talked about counselling kids, and that Dad talked about building houses, and that they both talked about their love for each other and their children, and that I talked about my love and admiration of them.

Logan showed us some of her work when we all begged to see them, and she scrolled through a file on her phone with a few photos she'd taken—couples smiling and crying as they said their wedding vows, people celebrating and dancing and having the time of their lives; landscapes and random things she'd loved the look of when she jumped in the truck with her dad once on school holidays and travelled with him across Australia while he worked; candids she'd snapped while riding the bus or train, and from when she would just go into the city and sit on a bench for a few hours just watching the world go by; portraits she'd taken of Madden and Darcie from Byron's party. Madden especially liked those ones, placing an order for a printed copy of his favourite and running to his money box upstairs to grab out a twenty dollar note to pay her for it, which she refused to take from him.

"But you're a professional, Logan. You charge everyone else, so I have to pay, too. It's only fair," Madden had said, trying to stuff the cash into her tote bag.

"We're friends, Madd," Logan replied with a gentle smile, and Madden stopped forcing the cash on her and just relished in Logan referring to him as a friend, and not just as my little brother, which so many other people have done in the past. He's his own little person and he likes to be treated that way, so this move by Logan has pulled at the tender heartstrings he inherited from his mother, I'm sure of it. "And besides, you were my muse that night and it was priceless to have seen my cousin having so much fun."