Page 42 of Ebbing Tides

I sighed, wondering where Melanie was and just how much she’d want me to divulge to her little boy. Hell, had I already said too much?

“Well,” I began with a deep breath, “for a long time, I was a soldier and—”

“You’re a soldier?” Danny asked, suddenly interested in our conversation. He jumped off the couch to walk toward us.

“I was,” I answered. “Not anymore though.”

“Did you drive a tank?”

I smiled at his enthusiasm and shook my head. “No, I didn’t drive a tank.”

“Did you get hurt?” he asked as his little brother stared at me with so much wonder that you would think he’d just met the Easter Bunny.

“I did,” I said, then turned my head to tap on one of my hearing aids, nearly invisible unless you knew to look for them. “I lost my hearing.”

That grabbed Luke’s attention. “You’re deaf?”

“Yep.”

He laid the book on the table between the two chairs and began to walk toward our little huddle, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “If you’re deaf, how can you hear me talking to you?”

“I have hearing aids,” I said, gesturing toward my ears.

Luke squinted his eyes, as if trying to see the devices. “Do you know sign language?”

I shook my head. “Nah, never bothered to learn.”

“A kid in my class is deaf,” he said, crossing his arms. “But he talks funny.”

Sometimes, kids had a way of observing things so plainly that they could almost be perceived as cruel. But there was nothing cruel about what Luke had said, and I smiled with understanding.

“I dunno if it’s nice to say the way he talks isfunny,” I corrected gently. “But I bet he sounds pretty different, right?”

Luke considered the question, then nodded.

“That’s because he doesn’t know exactly how words are supposed to sound. But it’s awesome that he tries though, don’t you think?”

He nodded again, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Yeah, he is pretty cool.”

“See? You—”

“Hey.”

The sound of Melanie’s voice drew my attention from her three boys. She stood there, across the room, barely inside the living room, wearing the same loose-fitting sweatshirt she'd worn last night, paired with black leggings and winter boots. Her hair was twisted into a single braid, draping over one shoulder. Her eyes and lips coated and lined in just a touch of makeup. It spoke such volumes to me that this woman—who had suffered unimaginable loss, who was responsible for the lives of three young boys—could devote the smallest bit of time to herself every day. Laura never had, and while that was equally admirable—to give yourself away for the lives of your children—it was just as admirable to me that Melanie could set aside time, even just a few minutes, to make herself feel good.

I could make her feel good too. Idid. I did do that, and I could do it again if she let me.

“Hi,” I answered finally, realizing I'd been staring for too many seconds too long.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and cocked her hip as her hands fiddled inside her long sleeves, her eyes staring at me like I was a puzzle to piece together and figure out.

“What's, uh … what's up?”

I cleared my throat and smiled at the boys as I patted CJ's head and slowly stood up, wincing at the ache in my knees and remembering once again that I was no longer that twenty-something-year-old guy, belly-crawling with ease through the desert.

“I was hoping I could have a word with you.”

“Aword?” she asked, lifting one brow.