For the Children

“He’d miss school plays, Cub Scout functions, parent-teacher conferences, Sunday dinners. I’d tell him the boys needed their father. He’d say they had a father who worked night and day to provide for them. A father who was making the world a place in which his sons could succeed.”

“It’s all about control.” Kirk said, glancing at her through lowered lids. “If he controls the world, or his portion of it, he has something solid to pass down to his children. Which is just an illusion, of course. The only true freedom comes from an ability to surrender and not lose self.”

Valerie stared. Nodded. He understood—and he was attributing nobler motives to Thomas than her deceased husband deserved.

Kirk’s sense of perspective, of the balance between public and private, between the material and the spiritual, made him as different from her husband as a man could be.

“I used to wonder how he could look at the boys and me and not see what he was doing…”

And then she’d just stopped wondering.

“Sounds to me as though he probably didn’t look.”

He was right.

Of course.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“YOU COMIN’ Billings?”

“Nah, you guys go ahead.”

Walking around the corner in the mostly deserted locker room after practice the Monday before Thanksgiving, Kirk stopped suddenly, listening as his players gathered their things and jostled their way out. He wasn’t interested in eavesdropping. But he’d learned to pay attention to his instincts. And his instincts were telling him to stay right there and listen.

The door had closed. They might all be gone. Still, leaning against the wall, a basketball tucked under each arm, he waited.

“What’s the matter with him?” Abraham’s voice echoed between empty lockers. There was no other sound. No rustling of clothes or collecting of personal belongings.

But someone was still there.

“Nothing.”

Brian Smith, in protective mode.

Abraham and the Smith twins. Blake’s stomach must be giving him problems again. If Kirk didn’t miss his guess, the boy was sitting on the bench between the lockers, doubled over.

“I ate something bad.” Blake confirmed at least one of Kirk’s suspicions.

Silence fell and Kirk pushed against the wall, righting himself.

“What?” That was Brian again. Kirk stopped.

“Don’t know,” Blake muttered.

“Why didn’t you go with the other guys?” Brian challenged Abraham. To distract him from Blake?

“Didn’t feel like it.”

“So what’re you hanging around here for?” Brian asked, with none of the usual insertions from his twin.

“No reason. You got a problem with that?”

“Maybe.”

About ready to make his presence known, Kirk grinned at the entire exchange. Male bonding at its best.

“So what’s the matter with you?” Abraham was obviously talking to Brian now. His tone had changed, softened as much as a twelve-year-old tough guy’s voice could, stopping Kirk yet again.