For the Children. Tara Quinn Taylor

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      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 think your mom would mind if you came?”

      “No.”

      “We could go to the office and call her at lunch, just to be sure.”

      “She won’t be there.”

      “She at work?”

      Abraham’s body signals were telling Kirk to shut up and leave him alone, but he wasn’t going to. Not while the boy was finally talking to him.

      “No.”

      “I see her drop you off here in the mornings. Is it usually on her way to work?”

      “No.”

      Kirk nodded. He had a stay-at-home mom. That was good. Unusual. But good.

      “How about your dad? What does he do?”

      “I don’t know.”

      Had Alicia known what her daddy did?

      “I don’t know who my dad is.”

      With the worst possible timing, a couple of kids came up the street. One on a skateboard, one on in-line skates. Bobby Sanderson and Scott Williams.

      Seeing them, Abraham stepped off the curb. He should have called the boy back, warned him to wait until he’d raised the stop sign.

      Kirk watched him go instead, hoping the kid showed up at practice that afternoon.

      “Hi, guys,” he said, signaling that Bobby and Scott should cross the street. But his mind wasn’t on the loud and rambunctious seventh-graders.

      If Abraham Billings didn’t have a father, that probably hadn’t been his dad’s cologne Kirk had smelled.

      Fifteen minutes later, Valerie Simms’s Mercedes stopped across the street, farther down than usual.

      “Katie, Cassandra, you have orchestra today, I see.” Kirk smiled at the two Japanese-American friends who were standing with him, each toting a violin case.

      Looking at each other, they giggled, nodded and, as he signaled, ran across the street, their violin cases banging against their knees.

      “Hi, Coach.”

      He turned, smiled at the twins, took a quick look at Brian.

      “Hi, guys. Sore from practice?”

      “I sure am.” Blake grinned, wrinkling his freckle-covered nose.

      “Yeah, he’s a lot worse off than I am, Coach,” Brian said, elbowing his twin. “Our legs hurt, but his arms hurt, too.”

      “That’s good!” Kirk stepped out into the street. “Your bodies are getting conditioned.”

      The boys nodded enthusiastically. “See you this afternoon,” he called.

      And then he wondered if he should have. If the twins’ mother had told them they couldn’t be associated with the team, he had to abide by that.

      Even if he disagreed with her completely.

      But perhaps she’d changed her mind. The boys hadn’t given any indication that they weren’t allowed to play.

      “Hi.”

      Turning, surprised, Kirk saw the subject of his thoughts. Her presence on his corner explained why she’d stopped the car farther down. She’d actually parked it.

      “Good morning,” he said. It was the first morning since the beginning of the school year that he didn’t smile at her. He had a pretty good hunch this wasn’t a smiling moment.

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