Page 48 of Hold on Tight

He was sure Mira would agree, but if she didn’t, he’d do his level best to convince her. He wished he’d fought harder when she’d texted him to say he didn’t need to finish out the week with Sam. He wished he’d talked her into letting him sit until she found someone she was crazy about to take his place. Instead, he’d let the complexity of his own feelings get in the way of his ability to take care of Sam.

He wouldn’t do it again. This was no crazier than the situation of most divorced parents, and dads did a perfectly good job of sticking around and delivering childcare even when they’d been booted out of the marriage bed. There had to be a lot of bruised egos under those circumstances. A lot of guys who still wanted to be getting laid who weren’t. But that didn’t keep them from doing the dad thing.

“Tell Mira I’m sorry—”

“I will.” Jake had tucked his head down next to Sam’s. He heard her open and close the front door, heard her talking to the cop on the stoop, and put his nose against Sam’s warm, wet cheek. Sam clutched him.

The cop came in. “I’m going to take her home. I’m going to need Sam’s mom’s statement. Have her call the station.”

“Will do,” Jake said. “Thanks.”

“Welcome.” The cop went out the front door, and Jake heard the sound of his car pulling away.

He hugged Sam tighter.

“You’re okay, dude,” he said.

“It wasscary.”

“You were brave. You were a soldier.”

“I was?”

“Yeah. Can I tell you something?”

Sam nodded, all big wet eyes and occasional hiccupy shudders.

“Some people think being brave means not being afraid.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No. Being brave means being afraid andstilldoing what you want to do or have to do.”

It means sending a guy home from combat if you know he’s not fit, a voice in his head said.Even if he’s your friend. Even if he begs you to give him another chance.

Shut the fuck up, he told the voice, but not before that same reptile part of his brain supplied him with the look of the platoon sergeant’s face when he visited Jake in the hospital, when the cold, hard knot of knowledge that Mike was dead took permanent root somewhere between gut and heart.Because you were too afraid to do what had to be done.

“But I didn’t want to or have to do anything,” Sam said.

“Sometimes it’s not a big thing that you want to do or have to do,” Jake said. “Sometimes staying put when things are scary is the hardest part. You stayed in that bathroom with your babysitter and you listened to what she told you to do, and that was what you needed to do today. And you did it even though you were scared, so that makes you brave.”

Sam got a faraway look on his face. “Do you think I could be a soldier someday?”

Oh, God, Mira was going to kill him.

He thought hard about his answer. “I think you would make a very good soldier if you decided that was what you wanted to do. But there are a lot of good things to do in the world, and being a soldier is definitely not the only way to be brave.”

“Is it the best way?”

I used to think so. “No. There’s no one best way.”

“What are some other ways?”

“Cops are brave. Firefighters.”

He thought of Mira. He didn’t know shit about childbirth other than what he’d seen in movies, but it didn’t seem like it could be any easier than combat. “Moms are brave.”

“Dads, too,” Sam said. “My dad is brave. If he were here, he would have done the same thing you did. He would have come and gotten me out of the bathroom.”

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