“I don’t think so, sweetie.” Her eyebrows drawn, Valerie tried hard to read her son.
Blake scrambled close to her on the bed. “I do. I think he can, Mom.” With a hand on the mattress, he leaned forward until his earnest young face was only inches from hers. “You have to talk to Coach, Mom. You’re important. He’ll listen to you.”
She nodded. “And what am I supposed to tell him?”
“That Brian has to play—at least in one game. Just so he can say he’s on the team.”
Arms wrapped around her middle, Valerie took several deep breaths. Calmed herself. Listening. “Why?”
Blake’s gaze dropped. “Because he’s earned it.”
“You know better than that, Blake,” Valerie said softly. “Nothing in life is automatic. Even with hard work.”
The boy looked up again. “But Brian has…problems, Mom. If you tell Coach about him, he can make an exception.”
An expected shard of fear shot through Valerie’s heart. That had sounded far too much like the boys’ father. Instead of honoring the laws he’d studied, he’d used them, manipulating the justice system to his own benefit.
Because he’d felt he was owed.
By whom, or why, she’d never understood.
“It doesn’t work that way, Blake. You do the best you can do, and then you have to be at peace with the results. You have to trust that, somehow, things happen the way they’re meant to.”
Blake smirked, his eyes filled with frustration. And a curious glint of pain. “Not another one of your lectures, Mom. Please. Not now.”
“I’m sorry. But it’s not just one of my lectures. It’s the truth. An important truth.” Sitting there, staring at her troubled son in the darkness, Valerie had never wished more for someone to share the responsibility of raising her boys.
But, as usual, it was only her.
And whatever part of her father’s wisdom she’d retained over the years.
“So you’re just goin
g to let Brian die?”
Had Blake’s face not been so pinched with distress, Valerie might have smiled at his dramatic words. “He’s not going to die,” she told him. “Believe me, Blake, I’m watching very closely. As is your coach. Brian hasn’t lost a pound since you made the team.”
“He always drinks a ton of water before weigh-in.”
Any hint of peace emanating from the day, the music, the quiet of the night immediately fled. Valerie didn’t move, her expression understanding, compassionate, reassuring—and frozen in place. It was the best she could do.
“He’s…not eating?”
Blake shrugged, twisting the hem of his shorts around his finger. “Sometimes.”
Gazing at the top of her son’s head, Valerie couldn’t remember a time she’d felt so completely helpless. She understood now why Blake had come in alone.
And had a feeling he hadn’t said everything he’d come in to say. He was only glancing up at her for seconds at a time. And was about to tear his shorts, they were so tightly twisted.
Leaning forward, Valerie ran her fingers through that curly dark hair. “Blake, look at me.”
It took a long moment, but she waited until he did. “Is Brian skipping lunch again?”
“Sometimes.”
He tried to look away. She grabbed his chin. “What else?”
“Coach said I had to tell you—”