For the Children

“What I’ve said is that it’s hard to believe someone who moves with his confidence is content standing on a street corner with a stop sign.”

“Do you have any idea how many times you’ve said it, though?”

Was she really talking about the man that much? She made a mental note to stop.

“It’s just that something about him strikes me, you know?” she said now, thoughts of the smile he’d given her that morning starting to replace the memory of the look in Ben’s eyes.

“Yeah, I know,” Leah said, her grin growing wider.

“Not like that.” Valerie picked up a pen, drew some lines on the top of a small pad of sticky notes. “He represents everything I haven’t known in a man,” she continued slowly. She and Leah had never spoken about anything like this before. “He sees the incredible value in children. He gives his time to them.”

“Isn’t that what Hal and the other male judges and probation officers and C.P.S. workers and attorneys do every day?”

“Of course.” Valerie glanced up. She couldn’t explain what made the guard different. He just was.

“So you think the boys will make the team?”

“I pray that they do.” She’d been offering up little prayers for days. “Neither of them is particularly tall or talented at handling the ball, but Brian’s a great shooter.” She chuckled. “I can vouch for that. We spent more time on the driveway this weekend than we did in the house.

“Besides, it’s just a junior-high team. At that age they let everyone who tries out have a place on the team, don’t they?”

Leah didn’t know.

Valerie didn’t, either. She just hoped to God the boys were chosen. Basketball was going to be Brian’s lifeline.

“You had a call from someone named Susan Douglas.” Leah passed a note she’d been holding across the desk. “Said she’s a friend of yours and needs to speak with you today. She was hoping before your morning calendar.”

Susan Douglas. It was turning out to be a day for difficult situations. She reached for the note. “I’ll call now.”

Leah stood. “I’ve never heard you mention her before.”

“I told you my husband died two years ago, in a car accident….”

“Yeah.” Her eyes filled with compassion, Leah sat down again.

“The accident was his fault.”

“I’d heard that.”

“Did you also hear that he was drunk?”

“No!”

Valerie nodded, fighting other mental visions she’d spend a lifetime trying to erase. “I’m friends with a couple of reporters who wanted to protect me and the boys, so the accident didn’t get much press coverage. Also, it happened shortly after 9/11….” She paused. “He hit a little girl….”

She stopped abruptly. The morning she’d had, the life she was having, had briefly gotten the better of her. She would not cry.

Tears didn’t help. She’d already shed so many and they never eased the pain.

They couldn’t change the past. They couldn’t bring that little girl back.

Leah was staring at her, an odd mixture of horror, shock and compassion on her face.

“Was she badly hurt?” she asked hoarsely.

Valerie nodded. Scrambled frantically for the detachment that would see her through. “She lived for almost a week, but there was never really any hope….”

“Oh, God, Val, I heard there was some kind of tragedy involved, but I never guessed… I’m sorry— I had no idea… I’m so sorry.”

And this was one reason Valerie didn’t talk about that part of her life. People had no idea what to do or say. After the accident, even though the tragedy had been kept out of the papers, Valerie had found that the friends she and Thomas had shared slowly stopped calling. And she understood why. No one knew what to say.

Because there was nothing to say.

A year later, she’d received her appointment to the bench. She’d started a new job, a new life and was trying desperately to let go of the most painful parts of the old one.

“Susan is the little girl’s mother.”

“You know her?”

“I got in touch with her after…I’d seen Alicia’s obituary. It listed her mother’s name, said she was survived by a loving family and friends, and that was all. But there’d been this picture….”

She drew some more lines. Evenly spaced, even in length and thickness. Parallel in every way. Perfectly balanced.

“I knew there was nothing I could do, but I had to try to help.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Leah’s smile was sad. And full of love.

“She was so kind,” Valerie told her assistant. “Even in the face of her own grief, she was concerned about me and my widowhood. As we talked, we found we had something else in common—our poor choice in husbands. Apparently, the little girl’s father was out of the same mold as my husband. Except that Susan and her husband had already been divorced when Alicia was killed.”

“Oh my gosh! That poor woman!”

“Yeah. She had it pretty rough for a while there. She’ll never completely recover from her daughter’s death, but…” Valerie paused, feeling again that horrible stab of guilt about all the things she hadn’t done that might have prevented the senseless tragedy. “She remarried shortly after the accident and although I haven’t spoken with her, I heard not too long ago that she’s had a new baby. I sent a little outfit.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s calling, then,” Leah said, standing again. “To thank you.”

Valerie hoped so, thinking of the nearly broken woman she’d known. God, she hoped so.

SUSAN DOUGLAS COULDN’T think straight. Alex had been so good to her. The only good thing in her life at a time when she’d thought she’d never be capable of feeling good again. He’d saved her life. Literally.

And then spent many, many months slowly putting that life back together. Handing her the pieces as she was ready to receive them.

And never once, during all of that, had he made her feel as though she couldn’t do it without him. He’d never diminished her. He’d nurtured her.

She owed him everything.

She’d chewed the nails of both hands by midmorning that last Tuesday in October. She’d left the message for Valerie at eight, hoping the judge would call before her morning session started. And now it was ten-thirty.

The baby had been up, eaten, had his bath, occupying her for several hours. But now he was asleep again, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Far too alone…