Page 89 of Hold on Tight

“You like to go places we like to go, like Discovery Park and the Ferris wheel and the Oregon coast.”

“True,” Jake said.

“She smiles a lot more when you’re around than when you’re not,” Sam said. “I don’t think she’s smiled since Aaron showed up, and she was really smiley before that.”

Jake’s stomach clenched at that. A memory resurfaced, sharp and dismal, of Sam saying that he hadn’t told Mira about his lack of friends in Florida because he’d been worried about her happiness. This boy worried a lot about his mother’s happiness. This boy knew the subtle degrees of Mira’s emotions.

She smiles a lot more when you’re around than when you’re not.

And if that were true? What would it mean, anyway?

“I bet Aaron used to make her smile a lot, too,” Jake said.

“Not as much,” Sam said.

He should not have felt a wave of relief at that. He should not have.

He struggled to find the words to explain to Sam what he’d known with so much conviction the night he walked away from him and Mira. Because it was important to explain. It was important for Sam to understand. That he hadn’t walked away to be cruel. He’d done it …

He’d done it to be fair.

“When you’re a dad, or a husband, you take care of the people in your family. It’s a big job, and to do a good job at it, you have to have your own life in order. Aaron has his life in order. He has a job and he knows what he wants, enough to fly out here and ask you guys to be in his family. I’m not like that.”

“You have a job. You’re a soldier.”

“Iusedto be a soldier.”

“Did you stop being a soldier when you lost your leg?”

“No,” Jake said. And suddenly he understood the truth. “I stopped being a soldier when I lost my friend.”

“You lost your friend?”

“He died in the war. And I didn’t—I don’t want to keep fighting. I’m done.”

He expected to feel a sense of loss at the finality of his own words, but instead, he felt a rush of relief.Done.

“So now you could get a different job.”

“I could.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I don’t—I don’t know.”

Sam seemed to think about this for a long time. He actually rested his head on his palm likeThe Thinker.

“Are you afraid?”

Chapter 28

Sam was still waiting for his answer.Are you afraid?

He’d asked the question as if the thought was absurd. And all at once, Jake saw that it was. He thought of Sam’s resilience, in the face of everything he’d experienced in the last several months. A move across the country, a fall, the acquisition and loss of several babysitters. The realization that he had a father he hadn’t known he had. A grandmother, two aunts, an uncle, and two cousins. A whole fucking family.

The reappearance of a father figure.

The disappearance of a father figure.

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