The question was from Blake. Brian wouldn’t care.
“Chinese.”
“Cool.”
Blake turned back to some basketball game they’d been watching on one of the cable sports stations.
“Basketball season hasn’t started yet.”
Brian glanced at her. “It’s a rerun.”
“We do have a large-screen television set in the family room.”
“We were waiting for you.”
Valerie set the bags of food on the counter, going to a cupboard for glasses and paper plates. She dropped a kiss on each boy’s head as she passed.
Every day without fail, since their father’s death, she’d found the boys waiting for her when she came into the house through the garage door that led to the kitchen.
They were good boys. She paused, hand in midair over the shelf of glassware, as Brian leaned his shoulder into his brother. Blake accepted the extra weight.
They were the best.
Which didn’t mean that raising them alone was an easy task.
“How was your day at school?” she asked them five minutes later. Television off, they sat together at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. Takeout was always eaten there.
“Good,” Brian told her. “We’re trying out—”
“For basketball,” Blake finished. “Tryouts are—”
“Next week.” Brian jumped in as his twin took another bite of egg roll. Brian didn’t have to deal with the problem of a full mouth. He wasn’t eating much.
The boys talked more about the tryouts and Valerie delighted in their enthusiasm.
“How was your day in court?” Brian again. Her little nurturer.
“Fine,” she told them, making herself think about the great job Leah was doing so she wouldn’t be telling them a lie.
Before she was sworn in as one of the youngest female Superior Court judges in the state of Arizona, she’d promised herself that she would not bring her work home.
Her day in court. The hostile teenager who’d spit at her when she’d given her ruling, committing him to a secure facility due to his repeated failures to follow the terms of his probation; the fifteen-year-old girl seeking an abortion against the will of her parents—these were not things that belonged in the home she’d built for her boys.
“Come on, Bry, eat up,” she said. “There’s still enough light to shoot some baskets before you do your homework.” And before she tackled the load of jeans that was waiting for her, the bills she’d been putting off for almost a week, a call to the landscaper to tend to the sprinkler head that was spraying wide and a return call to her parents back home in Indiana. At some point she had to get to the grocery store, too. This was the third night that week for fast food.
“I’m not hungry.”
Brian’s reply was not a surprise. “Did you guys have a snack when you got home?” she asked. Please let his lack of appetite be because he’s full.
“Naw. There’s nothing here to snack on,” Brian said, pushing rice around on his paper plate.
Valerie’s appetite suddenly matched her son’s. “Did you have a big lunch?”
Blake dropped his fork with a sigh. Refusing to look at his twin, he pinned her with green eyes that were so like their father’s. “He hasn’t eaten lunch all week, Mom.”
Brian continued to arrange little mounds of rice.
“Is this true?” she asked him, the tension gathering in every nerve.
Blake looked at Brian, who finally lifted his head and stared back at his brother. “I guess.”
“Brian Alan Smith, do you mean to tell me you’ve been going without meals again?”
The boy opened his mouth, but she didn’t wait to hear what he had to say.
“You looked me in the eye and promised me you’d eat!” Her voice, trembling with disappointment, had almost reached shouting volume.
He tried again to speak.
“You lied to me!” Her throat hurt with the force of her yell.
Both boys stared at her. Silent. Their eyes wide. And sad.
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” she asked her youngest—by six and a half minutes—son.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you want to die, Brian?” She wasn’t yet capable of sounding calm.
He shook his head.
“Do you?” she yelled at him.
“No!” A healthy dose of life accompanied the declaration.
“Well, you’re going to,” she told him, hating the derision she heard in her voice. Hating even more the sense of panic that was driving her to treat her son so abominably. Hated the fact that there were times when the weight of raising these two all alone overwhelmed her.
“No, I’m not, Mom,” Brian said, his tone soothing.
His twin sat silent, face straight, eyes revealing a hint of fear.
“You heard the doctor, Brian,” Valerie said, forcing herself to speak at a normal level. “Three times in six months, you’ve heard the doctor. You’re borderline anorexic and if you don’t eat you’re going to kill yourself.”
“I’ll eat.”
“Then do it.”
“Okay.”
“Now.”
“Mom…”
“Now! Brian.” Her voice started to rise again. And then, as though she’d used up all her anger, her heart softened. She looked at the young boy who’d needlessly burdened himself with an adult’s concerns—with the responsibilities he believed his father had held.
“You’re going to stunt your growth, Bry,” she said gently. “You and Blake are just entering your biggest growth years. He already weighs ten pounds more than you do. And if this keeps up, he’ll spring right up—but you won’t.”
With pinched cheeks Blake turned to his brother. “Eat a couple of egg rolls, Bry, and then we can go shoot some hoops.”
Giving a troubled nod, Brian did as he was told.
CHAPTER TWO
KIRK
