“I make him weigh in every day. Did he tell you that?”
“No.” And then, “Do the other boys know?”
He sipped slowly, welcoming the heat that traveled through his chest to his stomach, reminding him that although he might feel dead most of the time, he was still very much alive.
“I make them all do it,” he told her. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
“You do that for Brian?”
His eyes narrowed. “I told you, Ms. Simms, I’m on his side as much as you are.”
“Thank you.”
She hadn’t touched her hot chocolate. Other than to run a slim finger up and down the side of the cup.
“It must be rough, raising them alone.”
She grimaced, glanced down as she dipped a finger in the whipped topping that was slowly melting into the chocolate. “Sometimes.”
“How long has their father been gone?”
“Two years ago. But he wasn’t around much before that.”
Kirk set down his cup. “So you’ve basically raised them alone from the beginning?”
“Pretty much.” She looked over at him. “I’ve been lucky, though. They’re great kids.”
“And I guess in your line of work you see the other side of things. Kids who aren’t that great.”
“They’re all great, Mr. Chandler.”
Delivered just as his high-school principal might have done.
“Not even the kids call me that,” he said. “My name’s Kirk.”
“Then I’m Valerie, not Ms. Simms.”
He leaned forward, about to challenge her. It was something about Kirk Chandler that hadn’t changed—his penchant for jumping into situations more cautious people would avoid.
When he was younger, he’d needed the challenge, the relief from endless boredom. And now?
“So, all kids are great, huh?”
“I think so.”
“Even the ones you send to jail?”
“They’re detained. Juvenile facilities aren’t just places to serve out a punishment. Once the kids are stripped of their dignity—once they’re humbled—the system’s designed to give them a new sense of self, to show them some options to a better life.”
Kirk’s memory was biased and many years old. Still, the times he’d spent in detention had certainly never left him feeling anything but worthless.
“And to answer your question—” she took a sip of the chocolate “—yes, even those kids are great. They’re deserving of that effort. Oh, with a few it’s hard to see the good. But for the most part, the kids who end up in my courtroom have had their childhoods stolen from them, one way or another. The original crime was against them. It starts a treacherous cycle.”
Interesting. “So you’re saying the crimes they’ve committed are not their fault?”
“No, I’m not saying that.” She smiled sadly, shaking her head, and as the curls fell around her shoulders, Kirk was struck by what a beautiful woman she was. “We all have free will to choose how to handle our circumstances. There are millions of kids who grow up in bad situations and take another route. Instead of giving in to that influence, giving up, becoming part of it, they hold themselves apart. They climb out and never look back.”
The heroes of the world. That wouldn’t include Kirk.