Page 74 of Hold on Tight

His mom took a step back. Then another. Then she took his advice and sat down on the steps leading up to the house. Her eyes were huge and fixed on Sam’s face.

“He’s mine,” Jake said.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God. Jake. I would have known. Just look at him. Why—why didn’t you—” Her hands came up, open, pleading.

“I didn’t know. Until I came home.”

His mother’s eyes flicked to Mira’s face, but he shook his head. “It’s not her fault. She tried to get in touch with me. She tried for a long time. She thought my name was Jake and that I was a grunt, and it didn’t occur to her to look for a Ranger named Jackson. And then I was so off the grid for so long—she would never have been able to track me down, even if she’d had the right name.”

“I should have called you Jack,” his mother said, irrelevantly, staring at Sam without taking her eyes off him. “My God. Sam, you said? Sam, how old are you?”

“Seven. Almost eight.”

“God. Jake.”

There were tears in Jake’s mother’s eyes. He’d given her so goddamned much to cry about this year. He hated that more than anything. If he never put tears in her eyes again, it would be too soon.

I’m sorry, Mom. So sorry for everything. For scaring you half to death. For coming home broken.

When he’d been a boy, she’d sometimes said—like when she had to pour isopropyl alcohol on an open cut—“This hurts me more than it hurts you.”

This hurts me more than it hurts you, Mom.

“I’ve made you cry. Again.”

She looked up at him. Saw the look on his face, the apology, the pain. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, over Sam’s head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Areyou crying, New Grandma?” Sam asked.

Mira made a small sound behind him.

“I am,” New Grandma said. “And do you know why?”

“Why?” Sam asked.

“Because I have had a very lucky year. God has seen fit not only to send me back my son, alive and whole, but also to send me a grandson.”

“I’m lucky, too,” Sam said. “I have a new grandma and a new aunt and uncle and cousins.”

There were tight bands wrapped around Jake’s chest.

“And how would you feel about giving your new grandma a hug?”

“I could do that,” Sam said, and came forward into Jake’s mother’s arms.

Over Sam’s shoulder, Jake watched his mother’s face crumble.

“Hello, Sam,” Jake’s mother said, through her tears. “Welcome to the family.”

They were polite to her, but cool. And that was okay. She didn’t need them to fall all over her and welcome her with open arms. It was enough that they did that for Sam. Jake’s sister, Susannah, hugged and kissed Sam, and Jake’s brother, Pierce, shook his hand earnestly and told him they were very, very glad to have a new nephew. Then Sam’s cousins surrounded him like there were more than two of them and herded him to the guest room where, they said, there were so many Legos he wouldn’t believe it wouldn’t believe it wouldn’tbelieveit! The cousins were Abigail, who was nine, and Dylan, who was six and had eyes like Sam’s, although his face shape was different.

Then it was just the adults, and Jake’s mom, Janet, set out sandwich makings. For a few minutes, Mira didn’t need to make any conversation because everyone was engaged in construction and assembly.

The house was small, but it wasn’t a shack. It was a well-loved cottage, with a sliding glass door out to a deck that overlooked the Pacific, and a great room with a high ceiling, a galley kitchen, a long dining table, and a living area. They sat on the couches and chairs—which occupied some charming realm between beach chic and shabby—and began to eat their sandwiches. Then the grace period was over, and Susannah asked, “So, forgive my abruptness, but I think we’ve all got a few questions here.”

Well, yes, they would.

“How is it we have a nephew—grandson—whatever—we didn’t know existed forseven years?”

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