Contents
Chapter 8
Overview
Logan returns home to cover shifts at the family garage and collides with the reality of his father’s worsening alcoholism. Jeff relays a dire doctor’s warning and rejects Logan’s plan to go pro for fast money. Jeff reveals he and Kylie are leaving for Europe right after graduation, intensifying Logan’s panic about duty versus dreams.
Summary
On Wednesday, Logan drives to Munsen to cover at Logan and Sons Auto Repair, dreading the work and the life it represents. He starts on a Buick, avoiding contact when Jeff returns from taking their father to a doctor’s appointment. Jeff confronts Logan for not greeting their father.
Pressed, Jeff shares the doctor’s warning: their father must stop drinking or he will die. Logan reflects on their history—years of sobriety, their parents’ divorce, the catastrophic car accident that crushed their father’s legs, the failed physical therapy, and how Jeff left college so they could care for him as alcoholism returned.
Outside, Logan floats a desperate plan: a New York agent believes Logan could sign in free agency, bringing money for staff at the shop, a nurse for their father, maybe paying off the house. Jeff shuts it down, citing their long-standing deal and the impractical timeline for money to arrive.
Jeff then reveals he and Kylie are leaving for Europe the day after Logan’s graduation before eventually settling in Hastings, and says he needs a break. The news escalates Logan’s fear that responsibility will trap him, and he retreats to finish the job, then slips away without facing their father.
Who Appears
- LoganNarrator; covers shifts at the family garage, proposes going pro for money, panics over looming responsibilities.
- JeffOlder brother; manages father’s care, delivers doctor’s warning, rejects Logan’s plan, reveals Europe trip after graduation.
- Logan’s fatherAlcoholic, injured from past car accident; subject of dire doctor’s warning and ongoing family caretaking.
- KylieJeff’s fiancée; off-page but central to the plan to leave for Europe right after graduation.