For the Children

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “You don’t have any family in town?”

  “Nope.” He wouldn’t allow self-pity, understanding that a man reaps what he sows. He’d rarely shared the holiday with his parents or his ex-wife and his daughter, when they’d been part of his life.

  They were walking too slowly to get any real physical benefit, but the pace allowed him to see when she peered at him in the comforting semidarkness, which was broken only by a moon that hung bright and low—and an occasional muted street lamp.

  “You alone in the world, Chandler?”

  So many questions—and just when he’d realized there was a real temptation to become more intimate.

  Odd, to want something so badly and not go after it. At thirty-four, he was forging his way through yet another new experience.

  “No,” he told her, refusing her sympathy. “I’m an only child, but my parents are healthy and thriving—in a home on a golf course in Florida.”

  “Oh!”

  He took minor pleasure in having surprised the good judge.

  “So what about you, what do you and the boys have planned?” he asked. A good offense was often the best defense.

  “Dinner at home,” she said. “We were invited to some friends’, but—”

  “Brian probably wouldn’t eat.”

  “Right.” She took a couple more steps. “And I wouldn’t be able to give him a hard time about it, either. Not in front of other people.”

  “How many people know about his problem?”

  “Besides his doctor and counselor?”

  “Yeah.” Hands firmly in the pockets of his jeans, Kirk took a wide step when her arm came close to brushing his elbow.

  “One.” It was her turn to surprise him.

  “I’m the only one who knows?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “Leah, my judicial assistant, knows he’s seeing a counselor about some self-esteem issues—she has to block out my calendar for Brian’s appointments—but that’s all.”

  She’d trusted him—and only him—with a problem she held very close to her heart. He had a role to play here. Kirk’s hasty but very strong decision, made only moments before, changed again. He couldn’t turn his back on a woman and child who needed his help.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THANKSGIVING PASSED uneventfully. Valerie’s younger brother called from Texas, where he’d been living since college, and they shared their requisite holiday chat, catching up on all the news since their Fourth of July phone call. At thirty-three, Adam was in school again, going for his fourth degree. And he was dating a woman six years older than himself. He was planning to make her wife number two.

  Valerie hoped the woman knew she’d be signing on for a life of supporting her brother’s academic habit. Adam was a great guy. Funny. Kindhearted. Handsome. He’d just never grown from student to responsible, bill-paying adult.

  And she’d talked to her parents. They’d moved from Arizona back to Indiana several years before, when her grandmother died, leaving her parents the house her mother had grown up in. They might not be rich in any financial sense, but they considered themselves wealthy in a spiritual way. They’d joined a new church upon returning to Indiana and it had become their life to the exclusion of all else. Sometimes Valerie wasn’t sure they even heard her when she spoke to them about her own life—about anything outside of their church family.

  Which made getting any kind of emotional support from them nearly impossible.

  And yet, the things they’d tried to teach her—things like not taking personally what other people said or did, about the power of choice and, particularly, the assurance that she was never alone—did sometimes calm her heart.

  While so many people spent their lives searching frantically for an elusive peace, she just had to call her parents to feel its presence.

  Lying back in bed with moonlight shining through her bedroom windows, Valerie listened to the strains of her favorite New Age jazz CD and thought of everything for which she was thankful.

  She had a job she loved, one that allowed her to contribute to society in a very real, satisfying and measurable way. At home she was not only comfortable and secure, but surrounded by beauty both inside and out. The custom-built house she and Thomas had commissioned when she’d made partner was landscaped with rock gardens featuring native plants.

  And most important, she felt grateful for her sons. What mother wouldn’t be thrilled with Blake and Brian? Thinking of their identical rounded cheeks with a smattering of freckles, the dark curly hair that was so like their father’s, and those incredibly clear shining green eyes, she smiled.

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah?” Valerie sat up, focusing easily on Blake in the dim light. He was in the gym shorts and T-shirt he always wore to bed. She’d thought the boys were both asleep.

  “Can I talk to you a second?”

  “Of course.” She patted the bed when Blake remained in the doorway. Though the boys would die rather than have anyone know, they still climbed into bed with her on Sunday mornings—one on each side—as they discussed whatever might be on their minds. Or made plans. Or just picked on each other.

  They climbed into bed with her anytime they needed to talk. Valerie pulled back the covers, feeling the cold through the thin cotton of her pajamas.

  Blake sat on the edge of the bed. “There’s only one month left of basketball. And that’s if we make the play-offs.”

  “I know.”

  Her son was frowning. And so, consequently, was Valerie. Blake wasn’t usually the one who worried about the future. That was Brian’s area. He was the more sensitive and emotional of her boys.

  Blake, on the other hand, was the more logical, easygoing twin.

  “What if Bry doesn’t get on the team, Mom?” Blake’s green eyes were wide as he turned to look at her. “He’s working so hard.”

  “I didn’t think there were any spots left.”

  “I know, but Coach could always make an exception, couldn’t he? Just for a game or two?”

  “I don’t think so, sweetie.” Her eyebrows drawn, Valerie tried hard to read her son.

  Blake scrambled close to her on the bed. “I do. I think he can, Mom.” With a hand on the mattress, he leaned forward until his earnest young face was only inches from hers. “You have to talk to Coach, Mom. You’re important. He’ll listen to you.”

  She nodded. “And what am I supposed to tell him?”

  “That Brian has to play—at least in one game. Just so he can say he’s on the team.”

  Arms wrapped around her middle, Valerie took several deep breaths. Calmed herself. Listening. “Why?”

  Blake’s gaze dropped. “Because he’s earned it.”

  “You know better than that, Blake,” Valerie said softly. “Nothing in life is automatic. Even with hard work.”

  The boy looked up again. “But Brian has…problems, Mom. If you tell Coach about him, he can make an exception.”

  An expected shard of fear shot through Valerie’s heart. That had sounded far too much like the boys’ father. Instead of honoring the laws he’d studied, he’d used them, manipulating the justice system to his own benefit.

  Because he’d felt he was owed.

  By whom, or why, she’d never understood.

  “It doesn’t work that way, Blake. You do the best you can do, and then you have to be at peace with the results. You have to trust that, somehow, things happen the way they’re meant to.”

  Blake smirked, his eyes filled with frustration. And a curious glint of pain. “Not another one of your lectures, Mom. Please. Not now.”

  “I’m sorry. But it’s not just one of my lectures. It’s the truth. An important truth.” Sitting there, staring at her troubled son in the darkness, Valerie had never wished more for someone to share the responsibility of raising her boys.

  But, as usual, it was only her.

  And whatever part of her father’s wisdom she’d retained over the years.

  “So you’re just goin
g to let Brian die?”

  Had Blake’s face not been so pinched with distress, Valerie might have smiled at his dramatic words. “He’s not going to die,” she told him. “Believe me, Blake, I’m watching very closely. As is your coach. Brian hasn’t lost a pound since you made the team.”

  “He always drinks a ton of water before weigh-in.”

  Any hint of peace emanating from the day, the music, the quiet of the night immediately fled. Valerie didn’t move, her expression understanding, compassionate, reassuring—and frozen in place. It was the best she could do.

  “He’s…not eating?”

  Blake shrugged, twisting the hem of his shorts around his finger. “Sometimes.”

  Gazing at the top of her son’s head, Valerie couldn’t remember a time she’d felt so completely helpless. She understood now why Blake had come in alone.

  And had a feeling he hadn’t said everything he’d come in to say. He was only glancing up at her for seconds at a time. And was about to tear his shorts, they were so tightly twisted.

  Leaning forward, Valerie ran her fingers through that curly dark hair. “Blake, look at me.”

  It took a long moment, but she waited until he did. “Is Brian skipping lunch again?”

  “Sometimes.”

  He tried to look away. She grabbed his chin. “What else?”

  “Coach said I had to tell you—”

  “About Brian? He’s right, you should. Although I don’t know why Brian’s drinking all that water to weigh in if your coach knows he’s not eating…”

  Shaking his head as much as he could manage with her hand on his chin, he said, “No, not about Brian. He doesn’t know about that.”

  Dropping her hand, Valerie asked, “Then what?”

  What did Kirk Chandler know that he hadn’t mentioned to her the night before?

  “I’ve been having some stomachaches.”

  Oh. Kirk had mentioned that. But when she’d seen no evidence of it herself…

  If she could’ve lain down and cried, she would have. “Where does it hurt, hon?”

  “Here.” He ran his hand over the middle of his stomach.

  She placed her hand over his, slowly rubbing the belly that had somehow firmed from baby fat to that of a young man. “When does it hurt?”

  He shrugged. “Different times.”

  “Always after you eat?”

  “No.”

  “How long does it last?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  He was staring down, twisting the hem of his shorts again.

  “I don’t know.”

  She needed Brian. He’d fill in the blanks.

  “How often does it hurt?”

  “Sometimes a lot. But it didn’t hurt at all today. Until—”

  “Until when?”

  When he looked up, there were tears in his eyes. “Until I got into bed and started thinking about stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, his eyes, in contrast to moments before, never leaving hers. “Like Brian. And the team. And Christmas coming.”

  “What does Christmas coming have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Holidays were hard when you didn’t live in a traditional family. She understood that. She’d just thought, perhaps mistakenly, that she’d compensated enough so her boys didn’t miss out.

  She asked Blake a couple more questions that he grudgingly answered. She determined that his body was functioning as it should and told him she’d call his doctor on Monday.

  She already knew what she was going to hear, though. She’d be told to get him off soda, on to milk, to keep antacids readily available, watch the fried food and get him into counseling.

  All things she’d been told herself four years ago when she’d been on the verge of developing an ulcer.

  Blake stayed with her for another half hour, sometimes talking, lying on the side of her bed. And when he was finally sleepy enough, he got up and stumbled across the hall to the room he shared with his brother.

  Valerie went with him, tucked him in. Both boys insisted they were too old for the nightly ritual, but they always let her do it, anyway. Kissing him on the cheek, she whispered a promise that she’d take care of everything, and watched his eyes drift shut.

  When she’d repeated the motions with his twin—including the quiet promise she had no idea how to keep—Valerie returned to her room.

  Judging by her twelve-year-old kids, she wasn’t doing such a hot job of single parenting.

  AT NINE-THIRTY on Monday night, the first of December, Kirk’s phone rang.

  “Want some coffee?”

  He liked the fact that she didn’t feel a need to introduce herself. And then refused to like it.

  “I was just heading over to The Coffee House. Meet me there?”

  “Yeah.”

  Something was wrong. She wouldn’t be calling him otherwise.

  Kirk just hoped it was something he could help her with. If she was planning to try again to get Brian on the basketball team, she was going to be disappointed.

  Because he wasn’t letting her son on his team until Brian gained at least one pound. He’d made a deal with the boy.

  Kirk arrived before she did, ordered for both of them and chose a table outside on the patio. Only in places like Arizona could you enjoy a balmy evening warm enough to be out without even a sweater on a December night.

  “What’s up?” he asked as soon as she sat down.

  “I couldn’t just want coffee with a friend?”

  Dressed in a black blouse tucked into jeans, with black high-heeled suede boots, she was every man’s dream of a “friend.” And more.

  “Are we friends?” he asked, sliding down in his seat at a sideways angle to the little glass-topped table, his jean-clad legs crossed in front of him.

  She blinked, tilted her head to look at him. “I guess I don’t know.”

  Because he didn’t know either, he let her off the hook. “Blake told me he talked to you about his stomachaches.”

  She stirred the whipped cream in her hot chocolate. “Yeah. I called his doctor today.”

  “And?”

  “He prescribed antacids, an ulcer diet and another round of counseling. He’s sure, as I am, that Blake is worrying himself sick about Brian.”

  “And about you.”

  She’d obviously freshened her makeup before she’d come, because he couldn’t see the freckles that were always so prominent after she’d been sweating it out on the tennis court.

  “About me? I’m doing fine.”

  “Boys worry about their mothers. Especially when there isn’t a dad around,” he told her. Unless they were self-centered like Kirk. Then they just didn’t see when their mothers’ hearts were breaking.

  Head slightly bowed, he looked over at her. “Blake also said that you’d promised Brian a spot on the team, at least for one game. He seems to think you have more power over things than I do.”

  With a deep breath and closed eyes, she appeared to be considering her response. Her tension made the cords in her neck stand out.

  “I promised him I’d take care of the things he spoke to me about,” she finally said, so gently her words were like a brush against his skin. “He just assumed that meant Brian could be on the team. And I’m his mother, Kirk. Mothers are gods and have the power of gods, didn’t you know that?”

  “Mine didn’t.” His mother, a rich socialite, had been a servant. His servant.

  “Mine did.”

  That didn’t surprise him.

  “But what I’m about to do isn’t very godlike,” she said, pushing her cup away, leaving folded hands on the table. “I’m narcing on my son.”

  “I haven’t heard that word in a while.” He would have smiled, except that she looked so serious.

  Too serious.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Brian’s filling up with water before weighi
ng in.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Instead of eating.”

  “Right.”

  The little shit.

  Disappointment fought with anger. Compassion won out. “He wants a place on the team more than anything,” he said, thinking aloud.

  “I know.”

  He glanced across at her. “So why doesn’t he just eat?”

  “The sixty-four-million-dollar question,” she said sadly. “It has to do with control, and self-worth. He’s asserting control over his life by controlling his appetite. And punishing himself for not being good enough to earn his father’s love and attention.”

  Oh. God. The caffeine he’d consumed that evening burned at the edges of Kirk’s stomach. Every time Valerie had spoken about her dead husband, Kirk had recognized pieces of himself. But she’d never talked about him from the perspective of her children.

  Had Alicia ever once thought that she was unworthy of her father’s love? Was that how she’d explained his continual absences?

  “What about Blake?” Kirk half blurted. “He doesn’t seem to have self-esteem problems.”

  “His just manifests in different ways,” Valerie said, sinking Kirk into further darkness. “Brian’s my sensitive child. He internalizes. Blake is more logical, and projects his feelings on to the things he does. Ever since he started school, I’ve struggled with getting him to apply himself, to give his best effort. His counselors attribute a lot of this to a feeling that there’s no point, because his best isn’t good enough.”

  “He gives his all on the court.”

  “I know.” Her gaze met his and held enough to establish an intimacy he couldn’t afford. “It’s the first time in his life he’s felt this way. Which is why I couldn’t pull him off the team.”

  He’d had no idea. The whole time she’d been fighting for Brian, she’d been fighting for Blake, too. Fighting a very real and frightening battle. He’d screwed up. Underestimated the risks.

  “So what do you suggest?” he asked. He could put Brian on the team the next afternoon. A junior-high team wasn’t as strict as later teams would be about the number of players. He could squeeze in one more.

  And he’d institute a grade-check program. Although he was doing it for Blake, it wouldn’t hurt any of his kids to have a little extra motivation to do their best academically as well as on the court.