His mother’s statement was rife with confusion, helplessness, an engulfing desire to do what was best for her son and the honesty to admit she had no more ideas.
“Do you have anything to say?” she asked Ben, pinning him now with her most serious stare. Unless something happened in the next thirty seconds to convince her otherwise, Ben White had just sealed his fate.
“No, Your Honor.”
“Okay.” Valerie scanned the pages in front of her once more, making absolutely certain she’d seen everything—every note, date, justification, charge, recommendation and previous disposition. She was warm in her robe. Warmer than normal. She was aware of the heavy circular metal plaque on the wall behind her, almost as though it were radiating heat. Its words were emblazoned on her mind. Great Seal of the State of Arizona. 1912.
The state of Arizona had entrusted her with this decision.
“Ben, based on the number of times I’ve seen you in this court, and based on the fact that you’ve violated the terms of your intensive probation, I am going to have you detained, here at Juvenile Detention for a period of ninety days.” In spite of the sharp intake of breath she heard from the dais, Valerie continued, explaining legalities, conditions. “Do you understand what that means?”
She gazed at the boy. Not at his parents. His mother’s tears were not going to help Valerie do her job.
The boy was stone-faced, as usual. Until he opened his mouth to speak.
“No! Your Honor, no! Please don’t send me there! I’ll do everything just like you say, I promise.” With tears streaming down his face, he looked frantically over to his parents. “Please, don’t let them take me away from you….”
Basketball tryouts. Today Blake and Brian had basketball tryouts.
“Please!”
She read him the rest of the disposition.
Detention was this boy’s only hope.
She believed that.
The thought carried her from the room and down the hall to her office, but it didn’t erase the sight of that terrified face from her mind’s eye. Or stop her from imagining the next hour and the way the boy’s life was going to be drastically changed.
Ben had reason to be terrified. Juvenile detention stripped a kid not just of his freedom, but of any false pride he might retain. Her hope was that reducing Ben White to the most basic aspects of existence, he’d be able to begin again, to rebuild his life, to find a positive direction.
Her other hope was that neither of her sons ever had reason to look like that.
CHAPTER THREE
LEAH LOOKED UP from her desk outside Valerie’s office when Valerie entered their suite. “Did you detain him?”
“Yes.” She didn’t stop to chat.
In her office, hanging up her robe, Valerie concentrated on detaching herself from the image of Ben White. She couldn’t do her job if she didn’t. Nor could she be a good mother outside the job….
“What’s the little smile for?” Leah asked, walking into Valerie’s office a couple of minutes later.
She told her J.A. about the boys’ basketball tryouts that afternoon. And how their enthusiasm had completely consumed them. They just had to make that team.
“Do you know who the coach is?”
“Yeah, he’s that crossing guard I told you about.”
“The one who looks far too sexy to be a crossing guard?”
“I never said that!”
“Not in words, maybe!” Leah grinned, dropping into the chair in front of Valerie’s desk.
“What I’ve said is that it’s hard to believe someone who moves with his confidence is content standing on a street corner with a stop sign.”
“Do you have any idea how many times you’ve said it, though?”
Was she really talking about the man that much? She made a mental note to stop.
“It’s just that something about him strikes me, you know?” she said now, thoughts of the smile he’d given her that morning starting to replace the memory of the look in Ben’s eyes.
“Yeah, I know,” Leah said, her grin growing wider.
“Not like that.” Valerie picked up a pen, drew some lines on the top of a small pad of sticky notes. “He represents everything I haven’t known in a man,” she continued slowly. She and Leah had never spoken about anything like this before. “He sees the incredible value in children. He gives his time to them.”
“Isn’t that what Hal and the other male judges and probation officers and C.P.S. workers and attorneys do every day?”
“Of course.” Valerie glanced up. She couldn’t explain what made the guard different. He just was.
“So you think the boys will make the team?”
“I pray that they do.” She’d been offering up little prayers for days. “Neither of them is particularly tall or talented at handling the ball, but Brian’s a great shooter.” She chuckled. “I can vouch for that. We spent more time on the driveway this weekend than we did in the house.
“Besides, it’s just a junior-high team. At that age they let everyone who tries out have a place on the team, don’t they?”
Leah didn’t know.
Valerie didn’t, either. She just hoped to God the boys were chosen. Basketball was going to be Brian’s lifeline.
“You had a call from someone named Susan Douglas.” Leah passed a note she’d been holding across the desk. “Said she’s a friend of yours and needs to speak with you today. She was hoping before your morning calendar.”
Susan Douglas. It was turning out to be a day for difficult situations. She reached for the note. “I’ll call now.”
Leah stood. “I’ve never heard you mention her before.”
“I told you my husband died two years ago, in a car accident….”
“Yeah.” Her eyes filled with compassion, Leah sat down again.
“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