For the Children

didn’t, exactly.”

His friend was back. At least tentatively.

Kirk sat down, reaching across to lift her chin so he could see her eyes. “I know you agonize over every decision you make here,” he told her with complete honesty. He’d known that the other night. “So does probably every other judge in this building.” As an adult, he understood that juvenile court was a breed different from the rest. Here they tried to re-shape lives instead of just punish. Here they believed there was still time.

“You save lives, Valerie,” he said, his words no less intense for their softness. “Every day, while most people are out eating fast food on the way from one appointment to the next, driven by the mighty dollar, you’re on a path that makes a real difference.”

He was evidence of that.

“Thank you,” she said, studying him as though she wasn’t sure what was going on. “I think. Sounds like you just laid a whole lot of pressure on my shoulders.”

“You’re going to tell me that’s not what you do?”

“I…”

“Tell me you don’t stay in contact with every single one of your kids, one way or another, follow up on them, make sure they’re doing okay or haul them back in here to find out why not.”

“It’s my job to watch out for them.” Her dark blue eyes were luminescent, touching a chord in him he didn’t understand. “They’re under my care.”

“Exactly.” He stood, needing to move, to get out—almost as much as he wanted to spend a few more minutes with her. “Instead of writing them off as troubled kids, you see value in them and give them every chance at a successful life.”

Valerie stood, too, frowning. “You’ve certainly had an epiphany in the past few days.”

He’d said too much. Or maybe not enough.

“Can you take a walk?”

Her morning calendar had been short. She said she’d have some time to see him.

“Sure.”

Her calf-length black skirt swirled as she came around the desk, walking as easily in those high heels as she did in tennis shoes.

There weren’t many places to walk near the juvenile court facility. An RV dealership. Other industrial property. And a wide sidewalk.

In deference to those heels, Kirk chose the sidewalk.

“You seem to know your way around,” she said.

He slid the tips of his fingers into the front pockets of his jeans. He seemed to be doing that a lot, lately. Maybe it was time to wear something other than jeans. Until a year ago, he hadn’t even owned a pair. “I’ve been here before.”

“Testifying?”

He supposed that could be a valid explanation, considering he worked around kids all day. Maybe there’d been a ruckus on the playground that had gotten out of hand… No, he decided. Too complicated to lie. And what would be the point.

“I was here…before.”

“For what?” She’d put on sunglasses. Which made her look, in her long skirt and stylishly tight gold sweater, like a Hollywood star. “When?”

“Sixteen or seventeen years ago.”

“What, you were here for a tour? I know they used to bring all the kids in for a ‘scared straight’ type of experience.”

Once they were away from the front parking lot, there were very few people around. Just an occasional car driving by on the street. A voice calling somewhere off in the distance. The rumble of the nearby freeway. The birds. And the blue sky and sunshine.

“I had kind of a tour,” Kirk said. “And I’d like to say it scared me straight.”

She glanced over at him. “You’re trying to tell me you were here as a perpetrator?”