She shook at the thought. Low self-esteem was at the root of Brian’s problems. There was no way she could expose him to something that would make that worse.
“You’d be surprised,” Chandler said, his conciliatory tone rankling her. “A lot of times it’s something like this that becomes a significant turning point in a boy’s life. If Brian wants to be on the team badly enough, he’ll get himself there.”
“No, he won’t, because I can’t let him do this.” Her words were sharper than she wanted. “Brian’s borderline anorexic, Mr. Chandler. Putting him out there every day, in front of his peers—as someone who can’t make the grade—could kill him.”
“The choice is yours,” he said, his gaze steady as it held hers. “But I think you’d be making a mistake. Brian wants to play basketball. If I thought there was any chance he could keep up, I’d have put him on the team for his heart alone. Instead of ‘killing him,’ as you say, this challenge could very well be what saves him.”
“Do you have children, Mr. Chandler?”
It was something she’d wondered more than once.
“No.” His gaze had returned to the swings and slide and open field ahead of them.
“I didn’t think so.”
“I was a boy once, though.” With the soft words, an odd tone had entered his voice.
“I’m guessing, however, that you didn’t have problems with low self-esteem.”
“Every kid experiences some of that.”
“The normal bouts, yes. Brian’s bout isn’t normal.”
“The only way he’ll ever play on my team is if he comes out to practice and shows me he can keep up. Yesterday he couldn’t.”
“If Brian doesn’t play, Blake won’t, either.”
“What?” He turned, frowning, his eyes filled with such intensity she was shocked. There was a lot more going on inside this man than the world saw. “You’d actually hold Blake back, punish him, because his brother has problems?”
“Of course not…”
His eyes cleared. And that mattered to her.
“Blake made that decision.”
“And you’re going to let him?”
“You obviously don’t understand twins, Mr. Chandler,” she said, suddenly weary. So often it felt like life was Valerie and her boys against the world. Trying to find their own place…
“What’s to understand? They’re two kids with the same birthday.”
If she had more time, she’d tell him how wrong that was. She’d tell him how, when the boys were little, one would always know when the other didn’t feel well. When Blake had the flu, Brian—at three years old—refused to leave the room and sat quietly beside his brother, eating only the soup that Blake ate, until his brother was better. She’d explain how the boys knew what the other was thinking, completing sentences and thoughts for each other as naturally as if they were their own.
She’d tell him, but she had a feeling he still wouldn’t get it. Kirk Chandler was turning out to be an irritating man.
“My boys do everything together,” she said now. “They’ve been in the same classes every year, they play the same sports, they have the same friends. I’ve got nothing to do with this. It’s a natural outgrowth of the bond they share. And,” she said with emphasis when he took a breath as though he was planning to interrupt with more of his unfounded opinions, “it’s been a gift, giving them the strength and security to weather whatever challenges come along. Including the death of their father.”
“And that’s why Brian is borderline anorexic, because of all this strength and security.”
It wasn’t a question.
And Valerie didn’t have any more time. She had to get back to Mesa for her afternoon calendar.
“The boys are coming to practice today,” she told him, “but don’t expect to see them tomorrow.”
“The choice is yours,” he told her again. “But, for both their sakes, I wish you’d reconsider.”
“And I wish you would,” she told him, then turned and walked away, leaving him standing there staring out over an empty playground.
An unusual man, a poorly paid servant with a mind of his own and a will of iron.
A man who apparently had the power to ruin her son’s life.
And an open spot on his basketball team.
Open spot being the operative words, Valerie reminded herself as she climbed in her Mercedes, put it in gear and accelerated, turning out of the lot.
She’d take care of this somehow. She always did.
CHAPTER FOUR
AT HIS CORNER early as usual the next morning, the day before Halloween, Kirk sipped from a paper cup of coffee and enjoyed the quiet. He had another fifteen minutes before he needed to don the orange vest and take up his sign.
The air was a little chilly, not that he minded. By midmorning, he’d be rolling up the sleeves of his flannel shirt. A lone car pulled up. Stopped. Moved on. Kirk enjoyed these stolen everyday moments. Somehow they never failed to instill a sense of peace in him, along with the assurance that he was on the right course.
Another car approached. This one stopped at the curb a few feet behind Kirk and someone got out. Odd. It was too early for the kids. But he recognized the car. Pulling on his vest, Kirk watched from the corner of his eye.
Abraham Billings didn’t wait for his mother’s kiss on the cheek. And she drove off before he’d even shrugged his backpack onto his shoulders. Kirk frowned. The woman always waited to watch her son walk into the school.
She always brought him right before the first bell, too. This morning there wasn’t another kid in sight.
Head down, the boy, in his customary freshly laundered jeans and T-shirt, ambled to the corner. Kirk held up his sign, although there was no traffic. Abraham didn’t seem to notice.
“You got something to do before school?” Kirk asked as Abraham stood there.
“No.”
Abraham was looking down the street in the direction his mother had gone, his features drawn into a sullen mask. Still, he made no move to cross the street.
“What’s up?”
“Nothin’.”
Eyes narrowed, Kirk nodded. There was a job for him to do here; he knew it. He just had to figure out what it was.
And he would.
“Practice is at three today.”
Abraham’s head swung toward Kirk. “So?” The word was almost thrown at him.
Was that liquor he smelled on the boy’s breath? Or something else? Abraham could have gotten into his father’s cologne. This was the age for potentially embarrassing experiments.
“I want you there.”
The boy’s chin tightened. “I didn’t try out. I’m not on the team. I can’t play.”
Three sentences, Kirk mused. He was getting somewhere.
“Come, anyway.”
“What for?”
“I left a spot open. Today’s practice can be considered your tryout.”
Abraham didn’t respond. Just stared down the street where he’d last seen his mother.
“You