I don’t think.

Every person has a limit.

There is a small shed set off to the side of the garden. It’s where my father keeps his gardening supplies. Funny how the green weed killer and plant-food bottles look so similar. It’s easy enough to swap the contents.

My father’s so religious about feeding his plants, loving them and hovering over them every day. If I add up every minute he’s spent in this garden over the past six years, I know it will outweigh the time he’s spent with me.

I hope the garden stays barren.

*   *   *

“Quinn, wake up. Shh . . . You’re okay.”

My father shakes me and I’m awake all at once, startled to find him sitting on the edge of my bed with his hand on my shoulder.

“There you are,” he says as my eyes focus on him. He drags his work-roughened fingers under my eyes, wiping away tears I didn’t know I was crying.

I am six parts ocean.

My father’s presence confuses me after our silent warfare. “Dad?” I stop because my throat feels raw.

“You were screaming Carey’s name,” he explains. “Must’ve been one helluva nightmare, too,” he adds gruffly. “I think you even woke Rueger.”

We listen to the Lab barking from next door.

I remember the dream now. I’d been watching the news. A reporter had come on to announce the execution of a prisoner-of-war. The shot had switched to a home video of masked men with swords. Carey knelt before them, and I’d watched as one man cut off his head, holding it up to the camera in triumph. Even now, I shudder reliving it, knowing it could actually happen. Has happened.

“What if he doesn’t come back?” I sound like I did when I was a little kid, asking when my mom would come home.

My father hooks my hair behind my ear, like he used to when I was younger and had bad dreams, and I remember how he once-upon-a-time loved me. I clasp his warm hand between mine to make him stay with me, but he pulls away after a few short seconds.

“He’s a good man. Don’t you give up on him, okay?”

I nod. The house creaks and knocks around us, and Rueger still barks in the distance.

“I didn’t know how upset you were, Quinn,” my father says. “I came down hard on you.”

Tonight the moon shines through the blinds, too bright to camouflage how tired he is. His eyes are pinched the way they were when he first came home from his tour in Iraq after my mom left, and it was just him and me. He’s worried, I guess, wondering what the hell to do with me. Raising a daughter alone isn’t the life he wanted.

“Sometimes I forget you’re not one of my Marines.”

“I’m not that strong, Daddy,” I whisper.

One side of his mouth concedes a smile. “It’s been a long time since you called me that.”

Too long.

“You okay now?” he asks, rising.

I don’t want to, but I let go. “Yeah. Sorry I woke you.”

He pauses in my doorway. “I’m not. I love you, kid. Get some sleep.”

My door closes before I can recover enough to tell him I love him, too.

Chapter Fifteen

My alarm isn’t set, but I wake early enough to make it to Spring Lake by 0830.

I avoided seeing my father by sneaking out the front door while he poured himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Some Sundays I hang out at the hospital, so I’m guessing he’ll think that’s where I am. In reality, I’m sitting in my Jeep in front of the Blue Dawn Café, waiting for my mother to show and wondering what the hell I’m doing here.

The Blue Dawn Café is set back from the tree-lined sidewalk. The huge square windows frame the picturesque view of the inside with its vinyl booths and the regulars lined up on stools at the bar. It’s a freaking Norman Rockwell painting.

Why Spring Lake? I think. Uncle Eddy is Army. Were they stationed at Fort Bragg—a half hour from Sweethaven—all this time? Or did they move back to North Carolina recently? And why now?

The questions whirl through my mind, but I don’t have any answers. She does, though. If I find the courage to walk into the diner, I can find out what I want to know. But will I like what I hear? I’ve learned that things can always suck worse than they did five minutes ago. Do I really want to rock this boat, with its plugged holes and missing oars?

I haven’t made any decisions, but it’s too late. She’s arrived. The café must have a back entrance, because one minute she’s not there and the next she’s sliding into a booth in the front window.

My mother.

At the hospital, maybe thirty seconds passed from the moment I saw her to when she’d walked out the door. Now, I take my time to absorb the changes. She hasn’t aged as much as I’d thought. Perhaps whatever was wrong with Uncle Eddy made her look strained that night.

She is beautiful, but not sultry like I remembered. I can’t put my finger on what’s different. The longer black hair and the toned-down makeup, obviously, but something more. Something in her attitude. She is a mystery.

I want to know. Everything.

*   *   *

Six years ago, my mother had promised we would take a trip. A train trip to New York City. Or a car ride to Wilmington. I didn’t care where we went. I loved that it would be just her and me.

Of course, after I found my mother in bed with Uncle Eddy, she stopped mentioning the vacation, and our getaway dissolved into mist. I knew the call I’d made to my father had sealed the deal. Uncle Eddy had disappeared from our house, and my father had yet to return home from the Middle East. My mother had scarcely noticed me in days, and I’d spent more time at Carey’s than at home. At least at his house, Carey tried to cheer me up. He even went so far as to convince Blake to let me pick the movie—Mulan—which they both hated and I loved. We did not agree on what constituted a “chick flick.”