For the Children

“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.