“Deal,” she had agreed.
In the middle of the second ring, someone picked up the phone. “Hello?” said a high girl’s voice.
“May I speak to your father?”
“Who is calling, please?”
Robin smiled at the child’s by-rote manners. “Robin McKinnon. Brett’s teacher.”
“Ohh! Is Brett in trouble? I’ll get Daddy.”
He came on a minute later, sounding guarded. “Ms. McKinnon?”
“Please, call me Robin.” Alarm flared in her chest. What? She was trying to get friendly with a man who might have killed his wife? She cleared her throat. “Um, I spoke to the coach. He says it’s fine if Brett wants to rejoin the team.”
“Really?” Craig Lofgren sounded stunned.
“You didn’t think he’d agree,” she realized. Or did he not think she’d even bother to ask?
After a moment, he said, “No. I didn’t.”
Something in his voice gave her pause: a kind of grief, perhaps, that she had never heard before. The truth was, he didn’t expect anyone to give his kids a fair shake. The understanding made her sad and even more determined.
“Will you talk to Brett? The sooner he starts practice, the better. He’s already missed two games.” She hesitated. “The coach doesn’t promise a lot of playing time. Since he’s so late starting.”
“Brett will understand. The others have earned their positions.” He was quiet for a minute. “I talked to Brett about his journal. He claims to have been venting.”
“I showed it to the principal,” Robin told him. “I had to, you know.”
“Is he going to expel Brett?”
“No. I persuaded him to let me handle the situation, for now. He does insist on a psychological evaluation.”
Craig swore.
Robin clutched the phone. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” His voice was deep, raw. “You’re going out of your way to help. I shouldn’t have said that.” He paused. “He may even be right.”
She hated to concede that Brett could be so troubled. Robin feared her own guilt was manipulating her in uncomfortable ways. She had failed him, so now she had to make him better. But if he wasn’t really disturbed, that meant what she had or hadn’t done wasn’t very important. For entirely selfish reasons, she needed this one sullen boy to be okay.
And she hated to admit even to herself that her motives were at least partly self-centered.
She told the boy’s father which field practice would be held on and what time they started. “Will you be able to bring him tomorrow?”
“I fly out in the morning. My father stays with the kids. I’ll ask him.”
“Good. I’ll look for Brett.”
“Thank you,” Craig said, with a depth of emotion impossible not to hear.
“It wasn’t any huge effort. I’m just…nudging.” That was how she often thought of her job: tiny prods, scarcely noticed, that gradually steered kids in a different direction, or made their parents react differently. She couldn’t demand, couldn’t order, couldn’t produce revelations that would change people’s lives. What she could do was nudge. “But you’re welcome,” she added.
“Will you let me know how the week goes?”
“Of course I will.” She had a thought. “In fact, I’ll e-mail you, if you like. Brett supplied your address for school records. I don’t know if you check it when you’re out of town…”
“I do, when I can.”
“Then I’ll give you an objective view of how the first practice goes.”
“Great. Thank you,” he said again.
At school the next day, Brett was quiet and withdrawn, but he did get a 90% on a pop spelling quiz. She smiled at him when she handed the graded quizzes out after lunch. Robin thought she saw a quick flush of pleasure on his face.
She’d already talked to her son about Brett, but she repeated herself on the way to practice that afternoon.
“Brett may not want to come back if he feels ignored.”
“Mom…”
She frowned at a red light. They couldn’t be late today. Not today! They just had to be at the field ahead of Brett and his grandfather. “You’ll kind of stick with him, right? Make sure he’s not sitting off by himself?”
“Mom…”
The light finally—finally!—turned green and she rocketed forward, ignoring her son’s exaggerated grip on the armrest. “His soccer skills may be rusty. Maybe you could give him tips. Not obviously. Make it casual, so he’s not embarrassed, but…”
“Mom!”
“What?” Startled, she shot a glance at her lanky, almost-twelve-year-old son, who was tugging wildly at his brown hair.
“I heard you the first time! Brett’s cool. Okay? Nobody’s going to ignore him. Jeez, Mom. It’s not like we stand around. We’ll be doing drills or running laps. Okay?”
She took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m just kind of nervous about this. Since I set it up.”
“I can tell,” he said with heavy irony.
Robin grinned at him. “Have I mentioned lately that I love you?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, like, ten times a day.”
“I love you.”
“Don’t say that in front of anybody.”
“I’m not a complete idiot.”
They both laughed. He trusted her; she trusted him.
They turned into the gravel parking lot and crunched their way to the far end, closest to today’s field. Malcolm leaped out, freed his soccer ball from its net bag and tossed it to the grass. Turning back, he grabbed his water bottle.
Robin popped the trunk and pulled out her lawn chair and the tote bag in which she carried a book and a can of soda. Just as she slammed the trunk, a red Honda van pulled into the next slot.
A dizzying sense of déjà vu swept over her. Julie would leap out, calling out, “We made it! Hold up, and we can walk over together.”
Julie had loved her van for everything she could pack into it and for its shiny strawberry-red color. She’d always been willing to drive to any activity, to run anybody’s kid home, to whisk across town for someone’s forgotten shin guards or jersey. She was every team mother, every room mother.
Robin felt a painful squeeze in her chest, as if only at this moment did she understand that her cheerful, generous friend was truly gone.
How? Why? she begged incoherently, knowing there would be no answers. And then, I’m trying to take care of him. She tried to tell Julie, hoping she could somehow hear, know.
Out of the driver’s side climbed an older man who looked a great deal like his son. Robin remembered seeing him at games, although he’d tended to be down on the sideline rather than sitting in the bleachers with her and Julie. With dark hair cut short and an erect carriage, he had the air of retired military. Wearing a polo shirt and shorts, he glanced around, his expression wary when he met Robin’s gaze.
“Mr. Lofgren?”
“Yes?”
She smiled. “I know we’ve