My Babies and Me

“Right, but they have these ones where the babies ride side by side, and then other ones where they ride in front of each other.”

Michael frowned. “What are the benefits of each?”

“Side by side, they see each other, can play with each other, and I can tend to both at once.” He looked so good to her, sitting there in a pair of cutoff sweat shorts and white tank T-shirt. So natural. Even surrounded by the colorful wallpaper and clowns on the walls.

“The problem with that stroller is that it’s so wide, which makes it difficult to get in and out of places. Plus,” she added, thinking as she went, “they might fight with each other, pull each other’s hair.”

“So what about the other kind?”

“When I’m pushing, I won’t be able to see the one in front. And they won’t be company for each other.”

“But if one’s crying, the other won’t see and immediately join in.”

She hadn’t thought of that.

“Of course,” he added, “there’s always a chance that the one in back will toss something and hit the other on the head—especially if the one in back is a boy.”

Susan’s heart leapt when she saw the grin on his face. Maybe there was hope, after all.

Just maybe.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SETH MISSED his sojourn across town that Saturday.

“C’mon, Mr. Carmichael, I’m sorry already. Now throw the damn ball.”

Silently, Seth waited, raising one eyebrow at the rough-looking kid. One of the toughest of his friend Brady’s underprivileged kids.

“Shit.” And then, “I meant to say darn, okay?”

It took everything Seth had not to grin. He gave his best effort at looking stern, instead.

“Ah, hell, I didn’t mean shit, neither.” Realizing that he’d just sworn again, the boy hung his head, his arm dropping to his side and the baseball mitt he’d been holding out for Seth’s pass dropping along with it.

Seth relented. “It’s okay, Paul, you’re trying so we’ll let that be enough for now.”

Paul glanced up, his face alight with a real grin—probably the first Seth had seen in the three weeks since he’d first started spending a couple of Saturday hours with the boy. “That’s bitchin’ of you, man...” Paul stopped, grinned again, and said, “I mean, that’s swell, Mr. Carmichael.” He enunciated very carefully.

“Call me Seth.”

The twelve-year-old looked as though Seth had just given him an in with the Cincinnati Reds. “Sure, man,” he said, trying to seem tough. “I mean Seth.”

Seth threw the ball to Paul before the kid embarrassed himself any further. And for the next couple of hours he forgot his own troubles as he tried to make the life of a hardened young man more palatable. Paul had been picked up for shoplifting, but he had a history of expulsions from schools across the state. Other than the shoplifting, he’d never really done anything horrible; he was just disruptive and refused to follow rules.

It had taken Seth maybe five minutes to figure out that the toughest thing about the kid was his mouth. And another five to find something that mattered to the boy. Baseball.

From there, getting him to follow rules was a cakewalk. No rules, no baseball.

But great as it felt to be working with a kid again, to be contributing something useful to society, nothing seemed to ease the ache Seth felt every time he thought of another boy who’d needed him. A boy he’d made promises to. A boy he’d deserted.

He tried not to think of the boy’s mother at all.

MICHAEL HAD completely taken over the third bedroom of the condo. Previously Susan’s study, the room had become his hub. When he wasn’t out at the Miller Insulation plant or in meetings, he was in that room working.

“Michael, we have to talk.” Susan was standing in the doorway.

He didn’t want to talk. He thought he’d made that quite clear to her over the past week. Until he knew what to think, until he understood things himself, he had nothing to say to her.