The Hero - Robyn Carr Page 0,88

didn’t try diving off the dock. He sat on the deck and just watched the sea. And thought about things.

Less than two weeks after arriving in Thunder Point, three months after burying his wife, Spencer had been called to Missouri because his father had passed. It was far from unexpected. His parents had been in the same nursing home, his father suffering from the effects of a massive stroke that should’ve killed him but left him completely incapacitated instead. His mother, suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s and several heart attacks, survived him, but not for long. The last time he took Austin to visit his parents, over a year ago, his mother didn’t recognize either one of them.

But he took his mother in a wheelchair to his father’s burial. There were a few people there from the nursing home, but all their friends and family were gone. And his mother had been on another planet the whole time, gazing off at nothing, making weird little movements with hands that were crippled with arthritis. She had absolutely no idea what was going on.

The nursing supervisor from the nursing home said, “Spencer, you’ve had a very hard year. Let me be completely honest—your mother isn’t going to be with us much longer. In fact, some of us were surprised that your father predeceased her. All the arrangements have been made for her—you made sure of that quite a while ago. Say goodbye to her now. It will be a matter of weeks at the very most. Just take care of your young son. It’s time to get on with your life.”

The call had come a few weeks later. Spencer silently grieved, but he didn’t mention it to anyone except Austin, to whom he said, “Grandma passed away peacefully. She’s with Grandpa now and I believe they’re dancing. When I was a boy, I remember, they loved to dance.”

And Austin who was sometimes a thirty-year-old in a ten-year-old body, asked, “Did she have a happy life?”

And he nodded with a smile. “Until the past few years, after Grandpa had a stroke and Grandma’s Alzheimer’s got the better of her, they were very happy. They laughed a lot. They had fun. They were thrilled when you were born and visited a lot when you were small. But then...”

“I know. Then she went around the bend. And Grandpa stroked out.”

Exactly correct, Spencer thought. His father had been eighty-six, his mother seventy-nine when they passed. Not bad, considering Bridget hadn’t even made it to forty.

After talking about it with Austin, Spencer mentioned it to Cooper, in case Austin ever brought it up with him. And he had said to Cooper at the time, “Let’s not get all emotional about it—I expected it a year ago. I’m relieved. Another chapter of suffering closed.”

Cooper, who many consider a little hard-edged, said, “But, man, buddy, you’ve had a real load this year. I’m sorry. Really sorry.”

He hadn’t thought about it much after that. He was relieved.

He hadn’t cried about it. He wasn’t the crying type anyway. He’d let it all go and embraced his new life, his new town, his team—God, what a team! And there had been that woman, Devon. Despite all adversity, what a fighter she was! She was so alive and, man, had he needed all that life. Especially in the ashes of his buried grief.

And then she’d said, “If something should happen to me...”

Devon thought it was the request that he be responsible for Mercy that had thrown him, but that wasn’t even close. The minute Devon had said that, something roared to life inside him—probably all that grief he hadn’t let see the light of day. And like an arrow through the heart he thought, I can’t do it again! I can’t bury one more person I love! I don’t have any more in me! Jesus, if he were a country-and-western song all he’d need is a broken-down pickup and a dead dog and he’d get an award.

Cooper came outside a couple of times, sat with him a minute, talked about his new house a little, though it was still just cement and dirt. Cooper asked him what was wrong and needing him to go away, he said, “Could be flu. It’s been running through the school. I’m achy and my head is pounding.”

He sat there, licking his wounds and feeling sorry for himself for at least a couple of hours when he saw her walking across the beach. She held something in her hands