For the Children Page 2

  “HEY, BOY, you want to see how babies are made?”

  Coming in from school late Thursday afternoon, Abe didn’t recognize the male voice that had called out to him from the end of the hall. He glanced sideways at the guy standing in the trailer Abe shared with his mother. He didn’t recognize the man.

  Except that they all looked alike. Too tall. Too fat. Too bald—or too gray. Too dressed up. Too slick. And always, always too sickening.

  Reaching his room at the opposite end of the hall, Abe ignored the man. He’d been doing his community service work at the old folks home since class got out and he wanted to change clothes.

  “’Cause I’ve got some great pictures of your mom I can show ya…”

  Abe shut his bedroom door. Put on his headphones. And waited for his mother to call him to dinner.

  “HI, MOM.”

  Blake and Brian were in the kitchen, leaning on the counter in front of the small television set mounted above the countertop, when Valerie came in with dinner on Thursday night.

  “What’re we having?”

  The question was from Blake. Brian wouldn’t care.

  “Chinese.”

  “Cool.”

  Blake turned back to some basketball game they’d been watching on one of the cable sports stations.

  “Basketball season hasn’t started yet.”

  Brian glanced at her. “It’s a rerun.”

  “We do have a large-screen television set in the family room.”

  “We were waiting for you.”

  Valerie set the bags of food on the counter, going to a cupboard for glasses and paper plates. She dropped a kiss on each boy’s head as she passed.

  Every day without fail, since their father’s death, she’d found the boys waiting for her when she came into the house through the garage door that led to the kitchen.

  They were good boys. She paused, hand in midair over the shelf of glassware, as Brian leaned his shoulder into his brother. Blake accepted the extra weight.

  They were the best.

  Which didn’t mean that raising them alone was an easy task.

  “How was your day at school?” she asked them five minutes later. Television off, they sat together at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. Takeout was always eaten there.

  “Good,” Brian told her. “We’re trying out—”

  “For basketball,” Blake finished. “Tryouts are—”

  “Next week.” Brian jumped in as his twin took another bite of egg roll. Brian didn’t have to deal with the problem of a full mouth. He wasn’t eating much.

  The boys talked more about the tryouts and Valerie delighted in their enthusiasm.

  “How was your day in court?” Brian again. Her little nurturer.

  “Fine,” she told them, making herself think about the great job Leah was doing so she wouldn’t be telling them a lie.

  Before she was sworn in as one of the youngest female Superior Court judges in the state of Arizona, she’d promised herself that she would not bring her work home.

  Her day in court. The hostile teenager who’d spit at her when she’d given her ruling, committing him to a secure facility due to his repeated failures to follow the terms of his probation; the fifteen-year-old girl seeking an abortion against the will of her parents—these were not things that belonged in the home she’d built for her boys.

  “Come on, Bry, eat up,” she said. “There’s still enough light to shoot some baskets before you do your homework.” And before she tackled the load of jeans that was waiting for her, the bills she’d been putting off for almost a week, a call to the landscaper to tend to the sprinkler head that was spraying wide and a return call to her parents back home in Indiana. At some point she had to get to the grocery store, too. This was the third night that week for fast food.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Brian’s reply was not a surprise. “Did you guys have a snack when you got home?” she asked. Please let his lack of appetite be because he’s full.

  “Naw. There’s nothing here to snack on,” Brian said, pushing rice around on his paper plate.

  Valerie’s appetite suddenly matched her son’s. “Did you have a big lunch?”

  Blake dropped his fork with a sigh. Refusing to look at his twin, he pinned her with green eyes that were so like their father’s. “He hasn’t eaten lunch all week, Mom.”

  Brian continued to arrange little mounds of rice.

  “Is this true?” she asked him, the tension gathering in every nerve.

  Blake looked at Brian, who finally lifted his head and stared back at his brother. “I guess.”

  “Brian Alan Smith, do you mean to tell me you’ve been going without meals again?”

  The boy opened his mouth, but she didn’t wait to hear what he had to say.

  “You looked me in the eye and promised me you’d eat!” Her voice, trembling with disappointment, had almost reached shouting volume.

  He tried again to speak.

  “You lied to me!” Her throat hurt with the force of her yell.

  Both boys stared at her. Silent. Their eyes wide. And sad.

  “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” she asked her youngest—by six and a half minutes—son.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you want to die, Brian?” She wasn’t yet capable of sounding calm.

  He shook his head.

  “Do you?” she yelled at him.

  “No!” A healthy dose of life accompanied the declaration.

  “Well, you’re going to,” she told him, hating the derision she heard in her voice. Hating even more the sense of panic that was driving her to treat her son so abominably. Hated the fact that there were times when the weight of raising these two all alone overwhelmed her.

  “No, I’m not, Mom,” Brian said, his tone soothing.

  His twin sat silent, face straight, eyes revealing a hint of fear.

  “You heard the doctor, Brian,” Valerie said, forcing herself to speak at a normal level. “Three times in six months, you’ve heard the doctor. You’re borderline anorexic and if you don’t eat you’re going to kill yourself.”

  “I’ll eat.”

  “Then do it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now.”

  “Mom…”

  “Now! Brian.” Her voice started to rise again. And then, as though she’d used up all her anger, her heart softened. She looked at the young boy who’d needlessly burdened himself with an adult’s concerns—with the responsibilities he believed his father had held.

  “You’re going to stunt your growth, Bry,” she said gently. “You and Blake are just entering your biggest growth years. He already weighs ten pounds more than you do. And if this keeps up, he’ll spring right up—but you won’t.”

  With pinched cheeks Blake turned to his brother. “Eat a couple of egg rolls, Bry, and then we can go shoot some hoops.”

  Giving a troubled nod, Brian did as he was told.

  CHAPTER TWO

  KIRK HATED Friday nights. They meant a whole weekend ahead with nothing to do but lecture himself.

  He particularly hated this Friday night.

  Letting himself into his plush Ahwatukee home, in a secluded Phoenix neighborhood set into the base of South Mountain, he tossed his keys on the antique cherry-wood table by the door, caught the alarm before it went off and headed straight for the phone.

  He ignored the blinking red dot that signified messages. Saw on the LED screen attached to the blinking machine that there were twelve calls waiting for him and still ignored it. It was the same every day.

  He’d push the playback button sometime that evening. And half listen to the messages. It was a form of treatment—to listen and remain calm, unaffected.

  Sometimes he needed a drink first.

  Tonight, he needed the phone.

  Corporate attorney Troy Winston always picked up Kirk’s calls immediately. Even now.

  “What’s up, buddy?” Kirk’s righ
t-hand man of ten years greeted him.

  “Susan had a baby.” Kirk could barely get the words past the stiffness in his face. He’d run into an acquaintance of theirs at the Corvette dealership when he’d gone in for an oil job that afternoon.

  “Okay.”

  No surprise there. Kirk felt the stab of disappointment.

  “You knew.”

  “Yeah. I ran into Bob Morrison a few months back.”

  A name from his past. His ex-brother-in-law. Kirk didn’t respond.

  “And you didn’t bother to tell me.”

  “I didn’t think it mattered.”

  Susan’s gone on with her life, Troy’s tone of voice told him. He stood, feet apart, the muscles of his thighs straining against the legs of his jeans.

  “The baby’s a month old.”

  “Let it go, buddy,” his attorney, the only person still on Kirk’s payroll, advised him. “Give up this idiotic plan you’ve locked yourself into and get on with your life. Go out. Call someone. Date. You could have a new kid, too.”

  “I have a kid.”

  “Kirk, you’re really starting to worry me. I went along with this whole school guard thing because I thought you needed some time off. But I didn’t think it would last a week, let alone three months. All this isolation is starting to get to you.”

  “I slept with Susan ten months ago.”

  “You guys weren’t speaking to each other ten months ago. As a matter of fact, as I remember it, the woman freaked out anytime you were close enough to breathe the same air.”

  He could always count on Troy to tell him the truth. That was why the man had quickly risen to the seat right next to Kirk Chandler, CEO of one of the nation’s most controversial, well-known and financially successful acquisitions firms.

  Of course, all of that was over. Done. Kirk had closed the company almost a year ago. And Troy, while still handling Kirk’s personal affairs, was enjoying the good life.

  Kirk took a deep breath. And another. He concentrated on the fingers holding the phone, refusing to allow them to clamp the thing so tightly it bruised his hand.

  “I ran into her one night at the cemetery. She didn’t freak.”

  “Not freaking at a cemetery bears no resemblance to having sex. None. At all. Let me swing by, take you out for a beer. I know a couple of women who’d—”

  “It was late. I was there when she came walking up. We were both too tired to make sense of anything….”

  “Not good enough, Kirk. You forget who you’re talking to. This was the woman who, after your divorce, not only had her own name changed, but changed your daughter’s as well. Hell, I was there when Susan turned into a raving lunatic at the funeral just because your car was close by.”

  Sliding his free hand into the pocket of his jeans, Kirk flexed the muscles in his shoulders and down his back. The flannel shirt he was wearing still felt odd to skin more used to silk.

  “I was crying. That night.”

  Silence hung on the line.

  He’d left Troy Winston speechless. At a different moment, there’d be some satisfaction, maybe even humor, in that. Another moment in another lifetime.

  “She walked straight into my arms, broken, needy. Hurting so bad she was craving death….”

  Kirk knew he had to stop. To think about his fingers on the phone.

  Loosen up, man. Loosen up. It’s in the past. It can’t be changed. The future can be changed.

  They were the only words that kept him sane.

  “The woman I’d married, planned to grow old with, was in my arms. I walked her home. And when she didn’t want me to leave, I stayed.”

  “I’ll make some calls.”

  Troy’s voice was deadly serious as he rang off.

  And Kirk was satisfied.

  BY SUNDAY NIGHT, all the boys could talk about was the basketball tryouts coming up that week. There was a practice Monday after school and the actual tryouts were on Tuesday. Throughout the weekend they’d alternated between half killing themselves in the driveway, attempting to become shooting stars in two days, and driving her crazy with energy that only seemed to grow the more they expended it.

  “Larry Bird flicked his wrist right as he threw the ball. That’s the trick,” Blake said, rolling the die but forgetting to move his little metal car along the Monopoly board.

  “Dan Majerle was the best-three point shooter in the league. I think he flicked his wrist, too,” Brian added, staring at the board. “We need to flick our wrists…”

  “And we didn’t practice that at all.”

  Neither boy seemed to notice that the game in which they were currently engaged had stalled.

  “Mom? Can we go shoot—”

  “No!” Valerie laughed. “It’s pitch black out there, guys. You have tomorrow’s practice and you’ll have time before dinner tomorrow, too.”

  “Do you think we’ll have to do one-on-ones?” Blake asked his brother.

  The die still lay, double sixes, on the Monopoly board. Valerie was quite proud of her six red hotels and twelve green houses.

  Her boys, who were usually land magnates, owned the utilities and a few of the railroads.

  “I’m sure,” Brian said, frowning. “You don’t have to worry, though. Just steal the ball and blow them away.”

  Picking up the Community Chest and Chance Cards, she put them in their storage slot on top of the one-dollar bills. Then she cleared off the rest of the board and folded it to fit inside the box.

  The real estate didn’t really mean that much. She’d had no competition.

  The twins continued to discuss everything from shoes and socks to ways they could maintain control of the ball, completely oblivious to the game’s disappearance.

  “Let’s go get some ice cream,” Valerie finally suggested.

  In tandem, the boys looked at her. At the empty table. And then back at her.

  “Sorry, Mom.” Brian spoke for both of them.

  She grinned. “It’s okay, guys. I’m glad to see you so jazzed about something.”

  And she was. Overjoyed, actually. Brian had been eating all weekend. She realized this was just a temporary fix, but it seemed pretty obvious that basketball could be the thing they’d been searching for to help her son with his flagging self-esteem.

  Talk of basketball continued as all three ate their ice-cream cones, filled with the strangest concoctions of vanilla ice cream and mix-ins they could come up with, stopped by the store for the week’s groceries, and then tried to focus on the boys’ homework. Brian hauled out a disgusting-looking object he’d been hiding, unbeknownst to her, wrapped in a towel under his bed.

  “It’s my science project, Mom!” he’d protested when she insisted he throw it away immediately.

  “What is it?” Valerie wasn’t convinced.

  “A piece of bread I dipped in fabric softener. There’s another one dipped in diet soda.”

  “Yeah,” Blake piped up from his spot on the living-room floor. “His theory is that one will be preserved and the other will be eaten away by the acid. Cool, huh?”

  Yeah. Cool. She should’ve had girls.

  “Mom?” Pen in his mouth, Blake was frowning as he looked up at her. “Dad would be really happy if he knew we were trying out for the team, huh?”

  Valerie straightened the cushions on the couch. “Of course he would.”

  “And he’d come watch every single game, wouldn’t he?” Brian asked, stopping on the way back to his room to return the experiment.

  Blake chuckled. “Yeah, he’d be one of those dads who know every kid’s name and stats and shout from the stands like a maniac.”

  It was clear the boy meant that as a compliment.

  Valerie agreed with only one part. The shouting. But it wouldn’t have been from the stands in a junior-high gym.

  “He wouldn’t have missed a single one,” she told the boys, leaning over to pick up some lint from the off-white carpet.

  She was saved from any further sojo
urns down fairy-tale lane when, apparently satisfied, they returned to more immediate concerns. Algebra problems that were due in the morning.

  Thomas Smith was dead. Leaving behind a memory that was mostly not bad to his sons. Valerie knew that was because the boys’ memories had become selective—the human mind protecting itself, she supposed. So wasn’t it kinder to let the myth perpetuate itself?

  Or was she just weak? Choosing the easier way of pretending all had been well, rather than being honest with the boys.

  Some things could remain buried forever, but there were others the boys would eventually have to know….

  Not now. Not yet. They were still children. Her little boys.

  And Brian was already treading such dangerous ground.

  KIRK TOSSED his cell phone from one hand to the other and then back, looking down at the elegant kitchen tile again; 6:00 a.m. Arizona time meant that it was eight o’clock in Virginia. He’d put off the call all weekend. Another hour and it would be time for him to head in to work. He liked to be on the corner long before the first kid arrived at school, and there was an early choir practice that morning.

  Another hour and he’d make it. He could do this—follow through on his decision to abandon his old life as CEO of Chandler Acquisitions, the career that had consumed him to the point of heartlessness. He could outlast the temptation of making a final perfect deal. He was actually gaining a measure of peace in the job his old friend, Steve McDonald, had offered him during a painfully dark night several months before. Back then he’d been slowly killing himself—with hard truths and liquor. These days, taking care of the children as he’d promised Alicia he would, he actually slept at night.

  He could put down the phone; the number implanted in his memory would eventually fade, along with the rest of Friday night’s messages begging him to handle just one more deal.

  Someday, maybe even his uncanny ability to remember them at all would disappear.

  The Gandoyne company produced aluminum cans, specifically for food products. Aster Sealants owned the patent on a material that would seal and reseal aluminum lids. This sealant had various uses, but if it was put together with food-product storage it could make both companies wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.