The Bookstore on the Beach - Brenda Novak Page 0,91

lick from Molly. “She’s friendly.”

“She doesn’t like other dogs, but she loves humans. And she’s not above begging,” he joked and gestured at the volleyball. “You waiting for some friends?”

Caden looked at the ball as if he’d only just remembered he had it with him. “Not really. Not until later.”

Something was off. Caden didn’t seem to be the same happy boy who’d come into the restaurant. “You okay?”

“As okay as anyone would be, I guess,” he replied.

Quinn hesitated. He didn’t want to invade Caden’s privacy, but he could tell something was wrong. “That didn’t sound too convincing. You want to talk about it?”

“Naw.”

“You sure?” Quinn sat down beside him. “This isn’t about your father, is it?”

“It probably wouldn’t have happened if my father was still around but...not really.”

Quinn remembered Autumn telling him that her daughter had taken Nick’s disappearance much harder than her son and figured that maybe Caden was having a delayed reaction. “Sometimes we don’t have any control over the stuff that knocks us down. We just have to figure out how to deal with it and do our best to get back up.”

Caden flipped his bangs out of his eyes and looked over. “Your mom’s fighting cancer, right?”

“She is.”

“I’m sorry about that.” He squinted against the glint of the sun as he stared out to sea. “Do you think she’s going to make it?”

Everyone in town was being so careful to insist his mother would win the battle that Quinn sort of appreciated someone who was willing to confront the reality of the situation. “I want to believe she will. She beat it last time. But now it’s back.”

“I hope she can beat it again.”

“So do I. I don’t want her to die, but if she’s going to die, I’d rather she die quickly and not have to suffer.”

“I get that.” He gave Molly, who kept nudging his hand and sidling up next to him, another scratch. “It might be that you’ve had too much warning—had to watch it coming for a long time—and I had none.”

“You’re right,” Quinn said, surprised by the maturity of that insight. “Neither is easy.”

Caden picked up his ball and began to spin it in his hands as Molly finally wandered off to smell a piece of seaweed. “I get so mad at him sometimes, you know?”

“Mad at him?”

“For leaving. At least you know your mother has no choice. Why’d my father have to get involved in whatever he got involved in? Why’d he have to go to Ukraine? We were doing fine! We were happy!”

“What do you think the answer is?”

“My mom said he was trying to serve our country. She said that’s an honorable thing to do, and I should be proud of him. But what did he really accomplish?”

“Maybe that’s something you’ll learn later. Or maybe it’s something you’ll never learn. Either way, I get why you’re mad. His sacrifice turned out to be your sacrifice, and you didn’t get a choice in the matter.”

“Yes,” Caden said, looking relieved to at least be understood. “That’s it.”

“But dying while trying to do something courageous is just as admirable as getting it done, Caden. Maybe more so. He made the ultimate sacrifice, even though he had so much to live for—his work and, more important, his wife, his daughter and his son.”

“I guess I’m letting him down by being a big baby, huh?”

“Not at all. You have the right to grieve. And anger is part of that. But he wouldn’t want you to let what happened to him destroy your life, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“So you need to remember how much he loved you. Hang on to that always—and keep your chin up.”

When he started blinking quickly, Quinn decided they’d dealt with enough emotion and stood. “Want to serve me a few? It might be good practice for you.”

“You play?” Caden asked in surprise.

“I grew up here,” Quinn said. “Course I play.”

Molly ran around while they took the closest court until it got too crowded on the beach to allow her that much freedom, at which point Quinn tied her up so they could play a little longer. Caden was better than he’d expected, and the longer they practiced digs and dives and other hard returns, the happier Autumn’s son seemed to get. He was working through his anger and pain physically, and Quinn knew how good that felt, so he kept going as long as he could.

It was almost noon by the time he told Caden he had to get over to