For the Children

“You coaching?” Blake asked.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll be there,” Brian called as they raced the last few yards to the opposite curb.

Kirk watched them go, his forehead creased.

Something wasn’t quite right with Brian Smith. He shuffled when he walked. Like he was too lethargic to pick up his feet.

That was as far as Kirk had gotten with his analysis, however. Those two were hard to get to know. They were cheerful and friendly on the surface, but didn’t reveal much about their inner thoughts and feelings. They covered for each other, looked out for each other—almost as though they didn’t need anyone else. As though they had one identity instead of two.

Kirk was no psychiatrist, but he didn’t think that could be good for them.

“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.