For the Children

“The accident was his fault.”

“I’d heard that.”

“Did you also hear that he was drunk?”

“No!”

Valerie nodded, fighting other mental visions she’d spend a lifetime trying to erase. “I’m friends with a couple of reporters who wanted to protect me and the boys, so the accident didn’t get much press coverage. Also, it happened shortly after 9/11….” She paused. “He hit a little girl….”

She stopped abruptly. The morning she’d had, the life she was having, had briefly gotten the better of her. She would not cry.

Tears didn’t help. She’d already shed so many and they never eased the pain.

They couldn’t change the past. They couldn’t bring that little girl back.

Leah was staring at her, an odd mixture of horror, shock and compassion on her face.

“Was she badly hurt?” she asked hoarsely.

Valerie nodded. Scrambled frantically for the detachment that would see her through. “She lived for almost a week, but there was never really any hope….”

“Oh, God, Val, I heard there was some kind of tragedy involved, but I never guessed… I’m sorry— I had no idea… I’m so sorry.”

And this was one reason Valerie didn’t talk about that part of her life. People had no idea what to do or say. After the accident, even though the tragedy had been kept out of the papers, Valerie had found that the friends she and Thomas had shared slowly stopped calling. And she understood why. No one knew what to say.

Because there was nothing to say.

A year later, she’d received her appointment to the bench. She’d started a new job, a new life and was trying desperately to let go of the most painful parts of the old one.

“Susan is the little girl’s mother.”

“You know her?”

“I got in touch with her after…I’d seen Alicia’s obituary. It listed her mother’s name, said she was survived by a loving family and friends, and that was all. But there’d been this picture….”

She drew some more lines. Evenly spaced, even in length and thickness. Parallel in every way. Perfectly balanced.

“I knew there was nothing I could do, but I had to try to help.”

“Why am I not surpri

sed?” Leah’s smile was sad. And full of love.

“She was so kind,” Valerie told her assistant. “Even in the face of her own grief, she was concerned about me and my widowhood. As we talked, we found we had something else in common—our poor choice in husbands. Apparently, the little girl’s father was out of the same mold as my husband. Except that Susan and her husband had already been divorced when Alicia was killed.”

“Oh my gosh! That poor woman!”

“Yeah. She had it pretty rough for a while there. She’ll never completely recover from her daughter’s death, but…” Valerie paused, feeling again that horrible stab of guilt about all the things she hadn’t done that might have prevented the senseless tragedy. “She remarried shortly after the accident and although I haven’t spoken with her, I heard not too long ago that she’s had a new baby. I sent a little outfit.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s calling, then,” Leah said, standing again. “To thank you.”

Valerie hoped so, thinking of the nearly broken woman she’d known. God, she hoped so.

SUSAN DOUGLAS COULDN’T think straight. Alex had been so good to her. The only good thing in her life at a time when she’d thought she’d never be capable of feeling good again. He’d saved her life. Literally.

And then spent many, many months slowly putting that life back together. Handing her the pieces as she was ready to receive them.

And never once, during all of that, had he made her feel as though she couldn’t do it without him. He’d never diminished her. He’d nurtured her.