Page 6 of Hold on Tight

Every word she said that was notI have a son, and he’s your son, toofelt like a lie. Like postponing the inevitable. But could she just … do it? In the waiting room of the physical therapist’s office? They were the only two people here, but surely there was a better time and place. Someplace quiet, someplace private, someplace … intimate.

But how would she get him alone like that? How would she explain why she needed to?

So many times, she had imagined a chance meeting, this opportunity to finally say,Jake, I have something to tell you. You might want to sit down.

Well, here he was. Sitting.

“That’s my son,” she said, pointing through the window. “Sam.”

Her heart pounded so hard she thought she’d be sick.

She waited for a flicker of recognition, something to indicate he’d made the connection, but there was nothing. Only his blank, grim expression. Was he still in there somewhere, behind that mask? Was it the loss of his leg that had made him like this, or what he’d seen in the war? She’d read somewhere that the army was requiring longer and longer commitments from soldiers, pushing them to the outside limit of what they could endure, physically and mentally. Who knew how damaged he was?

Who knew if he was someone she would choose to let her child spend time with, let alone love?

“Could I—could we—get coffee?”

Maybe if she sat down with him, if they could talk, if she could find out who he was and where he’d been.

“What?” he asked. “Chat and catch up?”

“Yes. Chat and catch up.”

“I fill you in on what it’s like to be down a limb?”

He was angry. Not at her, or at least not at her for any good reason. At his fate, at the world. And she couldn’t blame him for that. She couldn’t imagine—couldn’t fathom—what it would be like to have to relearn everything, to start from scratch with walking and balance and all the things she took for granted.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m not much for coffee talk these days.”

“Ms. Shipley?” The physical therapist, Joanne, had poked her head into the waiting room. “I want to go over Sam’s homework with you.”

Okay, what did she do now? Walk away? Despite his curtness, she couldn’t imagine turning her back on him and writing him off. Sam’sfather.

If she walked away now, if she let him walk away now, she’d have no way to get in touch with him. It would be as good as if they’d never had this chance meeting.

Was that what she wanted?

She’dpromisedherself.If I ever see him again, I will tell him he’s Sam’s father.

“Sure. Can you hang on a second?” she asked Joanne. “I’ll be right there.”

“No problem. I’ll show Sam one more thing on the ball while we wait for you.” Joanne disappeared again.

“Just—please,” she said to Jake. “Coffee, a drink—I don’t care. I’d just like us to get a chance to talk.”

“Do we have something to talk about?”

His words found their way into her old, half-healed hurt. The part of her that had tried for months—years—to understand how she could have been so wrong about what he felt for her.

But there was no room for pride now, no room to care if he thought she was desperate or throwing herself at him, hoping for a reprise of the good old times. She just didn’t want to lose this thread, this chance. She wouldnotlet her cowardice cheat Sam out of the chance to have a father in his life.

“Yes,” she said. “I have to tell you something I think you’ll want to hear.”

Nothing. No curiosity, no glimmer of the old Jake. It was like he wasn’t in there at all.

“Jake?” The receptionist had poked her head into the waiting area. “Linda says you can head back there as soon as you’re ready, and she’ll be with you in two.”

Jake used the arms of his chair to pull himself to his feet and shook his head at Mira. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

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