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Wayne gave Michael a mischievous smile.
After another pause, Michael rubbed his eye. Wayne wondered if he, too, was on the verge of tears.
“You know, I heard you guys talking last night on the porch,” Michael said.
“Sneaky.”
Michael shrugged. “It’s an old house. Me and Megan could always hear what was happening downstairs. It’s how we used to sneak out when we were kids. Anyway, Aunt Tracey said something about this woman... a woman who might be related to us?”
Wayne’s stomach curdled with sadness.
“When I brought it up with Mom this morning, she just brushed it aside and said that it’s another person after Grandpa’s money,” Michael said. “But from what I heard last night, you know her a little bit better than the others do. What do you think?”
“She’s one of the better people I’ve met in my life,” Wayne told him, his voice cracking. “She’s actually on her way off the island, and I think we both want to protect ourselves from heartbreak. At this age, heartbreak is something we’re so aware of.”
“But if there’s anything I’ve learned from my years away, it’s that you can create whatever life you want. You can draw it up out of thin air,” Michael said.
Wayne chuckled. “You really think that?”
“I do.”
“You have the optimism of a traveler,” Wayne said. “Someone who has seen every inch of the world.”
“Maybe just every inch of the continent,” Michael said, his grin widening.
The sails surged out with a sudden gust of wind. Wayne rose to tidy them, to turn them back toward the coast. Out there on Lake Michigan, the boat pulsed to-and-fro, hardly aloft, hardly controlled, as the grey autumn skies pressed harder down upon them. If Wayne had learned only weeks ago that he would be out on the water with Michael—the prodigal son—he would have said,Not in a million years.
But here they were together.
And maybe, just maybe, second chances were possible after all.
