For the Children

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I have nothing to say to that.”

  How could she look him in the eye?

  “And the smoking!” Kirk continued. “That was a probation violation. Did you write him up for that, too?”

  “I can’t comment on any of this, Kirk.”

  Furious, Kirk stood with hands in his pockets, his jaw tight. Willing himself to breathe, to think, to stop himself before he said something he’d regret.

  “No, but that didn’t prevent you from fishing for information, did it?”

  She turned away then, and he grew numb. As though he stood outside himself looking in.

  Damn. Wouldn’t half the business world just love this one? He gritted his teeth. The infallible and dangerous, dreaded and revered Kirk Chandler, taken in by a five-foot-five lady judge.

  It took him a full two minutes to be able to pry his jaw apart, to remember why the business world—and its opinion of him—didn’t matter. To remember that betrayal was his due. To remember his life’s purpose.

  And to realize that he’d just been given the best chance he’d ever get to help Abraham. He was no longer going through a third party. No, he had the sole decision-maker right there in front of him.

  He’d had her beneath him recently, too. Naked. Inviting him inside.

  “Abraham needs his mother,” he said as calmly as he could. “He’s depressed, sinking under the weight of hopelessness. While it might seem somewhat bizarre considering the circumstances, family is everything to that boy. Do whatever you must, put him in whatever programs, give him however many watch-dogs, but let him go home, Valerie, or we’re going to lose him.” She was watching him. Listening. So he continued. “I know you thought the Mortons would be good for him, but their family closeness just makes him feel isolated. Alone. Apart.”

  She started to walk and, hands in the pockets of his jeans, he kept pace. She was quiet for so long he found it difficult to assess his position. In the world of negotiation, silence usually meant you wanted something you hadn’t yet been given. And he’d given everything.

  “Do you really care about these things, Kirk?” Her question, when it came, surprised him. “Do you care about him?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Enough to get over yourself and let Abraham have the help he needs?”

  Heart sinking, Kirk continued to walk. “Why do I get the feeling you didn’t hear a word I just said?”

  “I heard you,” she said, glancing over at him. “And everything you said just strengthened what I already knew. It’s your fault that Abraham’s not accepting the help being offered to him.”

  “My fault!” He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. Thanks, maybe, for caring so much. It certainly hadn’t been blame. “How do you figure that?”

  “Because your presence allows him to hold on to what he had. He has to let go before he’ll be able to see what else the world might have to offer him. That’s why we remove them so completely from the environment they knew.”

  Because this was all about saving a twelve-year-old boy, he did his best to listen with an open mind. “I’m sure that works in a lot of cases,” he said after careful thought. “But nothing is a hundred percent in life. Nothing. Abraham is an unusual kid. A strange mixture of confusion and good sense, of little boy and mature young man.”

  “You think Abraham is the only one of his kind?” she asked him, slowing more as they neared her driveway. “We see kids like him often, Kirk. Yes, he thinks life with his mother is everything, but only because it’s the only reality he’s ever known. If we can get him separated from that reality long enough to realize there’s a world of choices before him, he’ll be on his way to recovery.”

  They weren’t going to agree on this. And if he had to help Abraham on his own, so be it. He could handle it. He’d already been handling it. So coming to Valerie hadn’t worked; he’d just have to think of something else.

  “I’m sorry,” she said at the end of the driveway, hesitating as though she didn’t want to go in and leave things as they were.

  “Don’t be.” He tried to sound sincere. “While I know you’re wrong, I also know you’re doing what you think is right, which is the very best you can do and all anyone can ever expect.”

  “You’d be happier with me if I wrote the order in the morning and let him come home.”

  He almost agreed. And then, the anger losing intensity, had to shake his head. “No, I’m happy with you when you do what you believe is right.”

  It was the absolute truth. And a new level of awareness for Kirk Chandler.

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Positive.”

  Her eyes were shadowed in the moonlight, giving her a vulnerable look as she looked up at him. “You’re still coming for Christmas dinner?”

  He stared at her for a long time, needing to say no—to the judge. At the same time wanting to say yes to the woman. Another internal battle. Always a battle.

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  But he was going to see Abraham, too. On Christmas morning, with a letter from the boy’s mother and a passenger seat full of the presents Carla had bought for her son. At her son’s request he’d called her, made the arrangements. Abraham could tell the Mortons they were from Kirk. What others thought didn’t matter. As long as Abraham knew the truth—that his mother loved him. As long as, somehow, he shared this holiday with his family.

  “MOM!”

  The sound of terror in her son’s voice had Valerie racing from the kitchen on Christmas afternoon, leaving the water running in the sinkful of pots and pans. Kirk, who’d been loading the dishwasher, was right beside her.

  “Bry? What’s wrong?” The boys were in the living room, and never had three rooms seemed so far away.

  “Blake’s sick, Mom! Hurry!”

  Running into the room, she took in everything at once—Blake leaning over the edge of the couch retching, the mess on the floor, the blood, the stark fear in Brian’s eyes.

  “It’s okay, son,” she said, ignoring the floor as she sat beside her crying and violently ill son, rubbing his back. ‘It’s okay, just let it all out. Don’t fight it.”

  “Get us a bucket, a spatula and a clean, cool washcloth, okay, Brian?” Kirk’s voice was calm, reassuring, as though boys throwing up blood were an everyday occurrence for him.

  “I’d say you overdid it on dessert, Blake, my boy.” Down on his haunches, he didn’t seem to even notice the stench and the mess at his feet as he took Blake’s hand, held on.

  “Mom?” Blake was sobbing, his face wet and smeared. Before he could say more, he was seized by another violent spasm. And then another. Until, finally, he seemed to be spent.

  Brian stepped forward with the washcloth. “Thanks, Brian.” Valerie heard Kirk over her softly spoken reassurances to Blake. Was thankful when, after she pulled her son onto her lap and cradled him against her, Kirk gently wiped his face and hands.

  “You’re going to be fine,” she told Blake over and over. “No big deal.” It was the first time she’d ever knowingly lied to her son.

  She had no idea whether or not Blake would be fine. And she knew for sure that the amount of blood he’d vomited couldn’t possibly be a good thing.

  SHE’D CERTAINLY never expected to spend Christmas night at the hospital. Still in shock, Valerie sat in one of the old padded leather armchairs beside Blake’s bed, with Kirk occupying the chair next to her. Blake and Brian were side by side on the bed, heads bent over a new handheld video game they’d received for Christmas.

  “Guess we should’ve known Blake was going to be okay when he grabbed that game on the way out,” Kirk said softly. A sitcom rerun was playing on the television but the boys seemed to be tuning out everything except each other.

  “He just remembers when he broke his arm,” Valerie said. “After the initial fright and pain had worn off, his worst memory of the whole thing was waiting for half a day to have the cast put on.”

  “How old was he
?”

  “Seven.”

  “So his father was still alive.”

  “Yeah.” She glanced at the boys, tense, as always, when their father was mentioned. One of Brian’s legs hung over the edge of the bed.

  “I’m guessing he wasn’t there waiting with his son.”

  That was an understatement. When Thomas had returned home that night, he’d been oblivious to the entire event, having deleted her messages without listening to them.

  “Yeah! Get him!” Brian said as Blake maneuvered the game in his hand. He didn’t seem to be bothered by the limited movement imposed by the IV attached to his hand. Another hour or two, and they should be able to go home.

  “We need to talk about this, guys,” Kirk said, slouched in his chair with an ankle over his knee, one elbow resting on the arm of the chair.

  Both boys, with apprehension in their identical green eyes, looked up at him, the abandoned game in Blake’s hand continuing to emit sound effects.

  His head sliding along the back of the chair, Kirk glanced over at Valerie. “Do you mind?”

  “No, go ahead.” Mind? Didn’t he know how much he’d helped her that day? The strength she’d been able to give to her sons—one while he was subjected to uncomfortable tests and the other while he waited anxiously to find out if his twin was going to be all right—was in large part due to the strength she’d gained from Kirk’s calm presence.

  From the beginning, he’d treated the entire episode like just another day in sunny Arizona. And in the end, things were going to be as fine as he’d made them seem.

  “You heard what the doctor said about the cause of bleeding ulcers,” he said, addressing both boys in a voice sterner than she’d ever heard him use.

  Two dark curly heads bobbed solemnly.

  “He explained that you might have a predisposition to gastric ulcers, but there are certain things that can trigger them or make them worse. Do you understand all that?” Both boys nodded. “The drugs he listed—aspirin and so on—are out. So is heartburn and almost everything else he named.” Though his pose was relaxed, Kirk’s expression was intent. Looking between him and her boys, Valerie was glad just to sit back, not to carry the burden all by herself for once. She could have; she knew that.

  But how wonderful that she didn’t have to.

  “So what does that leave?”

  “Worry,” Brian said. Blake looked down at the blanket.

  “Right.” Kirk’s forehead wrinkled in a way that had grown endearingly familiar to Valerie. “So what do you think was worrying your brother so much that it made him sick?”

  The boys exchanged a glance that brought tears to Valerie’s eyes. Their silent communication had always been a source of awe to her. Tonight, even she could hear the message of shared affection, sorrow and blame.

  “Me,” Brian finally answered. “He was worried about me.”

  “And Mom,” Blake said, peering over at her, his look one of apology, but also of an odd defiance. “She’s always doing everything by herself. Just tells us not to worry and she’ll take care of it.” He met Kirk’s eyes. “We’re going to be teenagers in another couple of months. And she won’t let us help.”

  The smile on her face didn’t falter, but the calm that had settled over her heart after she’d been assured that her son was going to be fine with medication and a carefully watched diet was no longer there.

  She’d caused this?

  “It’s the same with Brian,” Blake continued while Brian stared at the game in his brother’s hand. “Everyone keeps saying he wasn’t eating ’cause he had low self-esteem. Well, how do you think it makes a guy feel to always have his mother taking care of him and never letting him do anything to take care of her? We’re the men of the house, but you sure wouldn’t know it.”

  A long speech for anyone, it was even more astonishing coming from Blake.

  Kirk’s head still rested against the back of the chair, and his gaze turned on Brian. “You agree with your brother?”

  With hooded eyes, Brian glanced from one adult to the other. And then nodded.

  “So what do you guys think can be done to fix this?”

  “I’m going to eat every meal every day for as long as I live,” Brian said with such vehemence Valerie almost smiled. In spite of the tears pressing at the backs of her eyes. And then he grinned. “Kind of hard for a guy to feel worthless when his own brother cares so much he gets sick about it.”

  Valerie did smile then. But they weren’t through yet. “And I guess I’m going to be doing less and you guys are going to be doing more,” she said, knowing how difficult that would be. She’d been taking care of them single-handedly for twelve years. She’d had to. Giving that up was not going to come easy.

  But perhaps it would make their lives easier. In the long run.

  “There’s another thing bugging me, Mom,” Blake said. He looked at his twin and Brian nodded. “They’re going to split us up when we go into eighth grade next year,” he finished for his brother.

  “Yeah,” Blake took up. “Mr. McDonald said we have to be on a whole different track from each other.”

  “It means we won’t even be in the same classes.” Brian sounded as though he’d been sentenced to life in prison.

  Suddenly aware of Kirk beside her, of his tough-love approach to her boys, she smiled at the two of them. “Let’s talk about this later,” she said. “Everything’ll work out. You know it always does.”

  She’d go see McDonald as soon as school was back in session. She’d ask him to reconsider his decision for next fall, explain why it wasn’t a good one.

  “You know, if you guys do get separated, it won’t be the end of the world,” Kirk said lightly. “You’ll have that much more to talk about when you meet up again.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Nothing is ever going to break the bond that draws you two together,” Kirk interrupted. “Unless one or the other of you chooses to break it.”

  He was right about that. But she didn’t think her sons should be separated. Especially not now that they were both on the road to recovery.

  Let them just be happy and well. It was the only thing in the world she wanted.

  As long as she didn’t look at the man by her side.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “FAX ME THE PAPERWORK and I’ll fly down over the weekend and get him to sign.” Cell phone to his ear, Kirk paced around a dining-room table filled with manila folders labeled alphabetically for immediate access.

  “It’s the day after Christmas, man. I’m taking the rest of the weekend to spend with my sister and her kids.”

  Yeah, he’d just bet Troy was spending four days with a sister he could barely tolerate for four hours.

  “We’ll lose the deal if we don’t move now,” he said. There was an old man dying in a hospital who wanted to know that his eighty-nine-year-old widow wouldn’t have to worry about the business he’d run for nearly seventy years. Kirk had found him a buyer.

  One who’d called Troy to renege on the deal when his son told him the investment wasn’t sound. Kirk knew it was. Knew, too, that he could convince his buyer.

  He looked at the table. “And while you’re at it, get a flight to Phoenix. I have a week and a half before school starts again and three weeks’ worth of work to get through.”

  “Which we’ll knock off before school starts if we have to stop the clock to do it.” Troy didn’t sound as upset about that as his words might imply.

  “If we don’t move, we lose,” Kirk said softly, his mind on a merger between two family-owned regional hardware chains that were both going under beneath the buying power of the national home-improvement conglomerates that had risen up all over the country. Unless he could find common ground for them. They each had their own terms, seemingly incompatible terms, but Kirk had some ideas.

  “We don’t move, we lose.” Troy’s nostalgic tone, more than the words, suddenly registered.

  “What?” he asked,
frowning as he studied a piece of art his mother had bought years ago; it had never really gone with anything but it continued to grace the walls of this room.

  “You’re finally back,” Troy said.

  Kirk immediately launched an adamant denial. Refusing to give voice to the secret fear inside him that his friend and lawyer might be right.

  He’d changed. He had to have changed. He couldn’t face his daughter, or himself, if he was the same man today that he’d been the day he’d received the phone call about Alicia. The call that said she’d been hit by a car and wasn’t expected to live. He’d been involved in a multibillion-dollar hostile takeover.

  And had signed the deal before he’d let anyone interrupt him with the news.

  Those precious hours were the last that Alicia had been conscious.

  “V-V-VAL-ERIE?”

  Her mind on the report in front of her when she picked up the phone, Valerie quickly focused on her caller.

  “Susan?” There’d been so many tearful calls from the other woman two years before.

  “Y-yes.” The next sentence was so badly garbled with hiccups and whispery sobs that Valerie couldn’t decipher the words.

  “Calm down, Susan,” she said, speaking in the judge’s voice she used with kids who were losing control in her courtroom. “I can’t help you if I can’t understand.”

  It took the woman a long minute of deep breaths and failed attempts, but finally she managed to get out an entire sentence.

  “I’ve been ordered to take Colton in for a paternity test.”

  Oh. God. Kirk was getting nowhere with his pursuit and some cold controlling bastard was awarded a test.

  “Have you told Alexander about any of this yet?” she asked. When she’d last spoken to Susan, advising her on what to have her lawyer do, she’d practically begged the woman to tell her new husband what was going on.

  “No.” A couple of ragged breaths followed. And then, “I just couldn’t. He’s been so good to me. I couldn’t tell him I slept with the bastard.”