Huey stared out the window of the houseboat. He saw the dock, he saw the road at the edge of the dock, he saw Uncle Donald's little red car parked on the road at the edge of the dock, and if he looked up, he could see a few seagulls flying around. But he didn't see what he was looking for.
Huey had spent all of his free time over the last few weeks in this very spot, watching the world outside. His brothers had given up on getting him to do anything else. Every time a car slowed down outside their pier, he his hopes grew just a little, only to be smashed back down when that car kept driving past.
"Huey, you've gotta come away from that window," Uncle Donald said, walking by with the laundry. "What are you waiting for, anyway?"
Tears welled up in Huey's eyes. Up until now, he'd always answered this question with a simple "nothing," but today…
"Mom," he whispered.
Uncle Donald put down the laundry basket. "What?"
"I'm waiting for Mom to come back," he said.
"Oh, Huey," Uncle Donald said, putting a hand on his nephew's shoulder.
"You said she was gone," Huey said. "Gone, not dead. If someone's gone, they come back. You always come back."
Uncle Donald's eyes were watery. "Huey, your mom-your mom loved you very much. If she's still out there, somewhere, I'm certain she's trying everything she can to come back to us. But there's a very good chance that-that she isn't still out there."
"But you said-"
"I know what I said," Uncle Donald said gently. "I don't want to believe that she's," Uncle Donald's words caught in his throat, "gone forever. But you can't spend your whole life waiting for someone who-who probably won't come back. She wouldn't want that."
Huey's face suddenly felt very wet.
"And if she does come back someday," Uncle Donald continued, "she'll want to hear about all of the things you've been doing while she was gone. She'll want to hear about how you played with your brothers, became a Junior Woodchuck, and made the football team. And in the meantime, I'm here. Your brothers are here. We're still a family, even if we're missing a few people."
Huey threw himself into Uncle Donald's arms, heart aching for a mother he'd never really known. Uncle Donald held him tightly as he cried, that horrible crying where your lungs didn't know what to do so your breath came in huge, heaving gasps in between huge, heaving sobs.
"I'll always be here," Uncle Donald promised. "Always."