Читать книгу The Mighty Quinns: Cameron - Kate Hoffmann - Страница 7

A DAMP WIND BUFFETED the mourners standing around the grave site. Cameron Quinn stared up into the slate-gray sky, then closed his eyes against the tears that threatened. He couldn’t remember the last time the sun had shone. It had been a year of dark, gloomy days strung together with nights of strange and disturbing dreams.

Cameron held tight to the umbrella as it was buffeted by the wind. His younger twin brothers, Dermot and Kieran, stood on one side of him, huddling close more for comfort than for protection from the coming rain. Ronan, his youngest brother, stood in front of him, his posture stiff, his hands shoved in his coat pockets.

After a year of searching and waiting and wondering, it was finally over. Jamie and Suzanne Quinn had been declared dead. Cameron’s parents had been due to arrive in Vanuatu in the South Pacific a little more than a year ago, ferrying a sailing yacht across the Pacific for a wealthy buyer.

The trip was originally meant to be a summer vacation for the whole family, but when the owner pushed up the delivery date, Cameron and his three brothers had been forced to stay behind for school. The trip was to take just over a month.

Cameron and the younger Quinns had marked off the calendar on their grandfather’s kitchen wall as each day passed. Every few days, they’d heard from their parents via satellite phone, but then their parents missed a night and then another. A week passed and the boys could sense the worry in their grand father’s demeanor. And yet Suzanne and Jamie weren’t officially missing. And then they were.

“Why are we burying a—a box?” Kieran asked.

“Coffin,” Cameron murmured. “It’s called a coffin.”

Dermot drew a ragged breath. “What if they come home? Will we dig it up again and get our stuff back?”

Cameron glanced down at his brother and shook his head. “They’re not going to come home.” Though he wanted to believe differently, Cameron knew the reality of their situation.

A week after the planned arrival date, the search for his parents had begun. Two weeks later, there was still no word, no sign, no explanation. And after his parents were a month overdue, a harsh truth began to creep into the boys’ lives. Their parents might be lost. Perhaps they were adrift in a life raft, or captured by pirates, or marooned on some tropical island. No one could say for sure, not even Cameron’s grandfather. And he always had answers for the questions his four grandsons asked.

It was not knowing the truth that bothered Cameron the most. That tiny flicker of hope that refused to fade. For a year, he’d believed, along with his brothers, that this would all turn out to be a very bad dream. But as he watched the empty casket being lowered into the dark hole in the earth, that flicker of hope faded, then extinguished.

“I’m scared,” Ronan said, turning to face Cameron, his eyes swimming with tears.

Cameron wrapped his free arm around Ronan’s shoulders. “Don’t be scared. We’re going to be all right. I promise.”

Dermot brushed a tear from his cheek. “I want Ma and Da back. I know they’re coming back. I know it.”

“Me, too,” Kieran said. “They’re coming back.”

“Maybe,” Cameron said. He wanted more than anything to believe. Maybe he shouldn’t give up quite yet. There was always a chance, wasn’t there? For now, he’d let his little brothers believe. They’d come to their own realizations in time.

The memories of their parents would fade, life would go on, and they’d accept the truth. Nothing would ever be easy or simple or silly again. It was Cameron’s job to hold the family together, to be mother and father to his younger brothers. He wasn’t sure he was up to the job, but he’d do his best. He owed his parents that much.