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And she’d let that feeling get in the way of doing her job. If she’d followed her first instinct and removed Abraham from his home the last time he’d been here, the boy wouldn’t be so bruised that he couldn’t even sit back in his chair. She could have spared him that, at least.
Tears streamed silently down Carla’s face. And Valerie wondered if she’d done the physical damage to her son.
She turned to the C.P.S. officer. “Martin, before you place Abraham, I want him to have a complete medical examination.”
“Place me?” Abraham rose perceptibly in his seat, his voice ricocheting off the walls of the small court. His eyes, wide and frightened, were trained on his mother. “Place me where?”
“You are, at least temporarily, in the state’s custody, Abraham. Mr. Lewis will be finding a place for you to stay.”
“Mom?” The boy continued to stare at his mother, as though she were the only person in the room.
Carla opened her mouth to speak, but a huge sob tore through the room. Wordlessly, she nodded.
“For missing school one day?” he asked her, his voice high.
Shaking her head, his mother reached for both of his hands, squeezing them. “For the bruises, Abie.” She spoke so softly Valerie could barely hear the words. “They don’t believe you fell.”
“I did!” Abraham cried. “I did fall! Tell them I fell.”
When Carla pulled the boy onto her lap, Valerie nodded at the officer, who’d risen behind mother and son.
“Come on, Abraham, it’s time to go,” Martin Lewis said from behind them. He reached for the boy and then withdrew, and Valerie knew he was thinking of the bruised flesh they’d seen. And the fact that they had no idea how many more bruises were hidden under his clothes.
Valerie had no idea who’d done this to Abraham, but she knew she’d do everything in her power to make absolutely certain it never happened again.
Abraham clung to his mother so tightly, Valerie realized he must be hurting himself. She nodded at Lewis again.
“Abraham, it’s time to go,” the man said more firmly.
And when the boy still didn’t react, Lewis took Abraham’s hand.
“No!” The single, shrill word shot out, followed by another. And then another. The tough young man she’d seen at school with her sons was crying, begging, screaming, clinging to his mother. Refusing to let go even when Martin Lewis held him by both arms.
At that point Valerie had to leave the room.
HE WAS NOT HAVING a good afternoon. For the second day in a row his star player had cut practice. There was no way Billings was going to be ready for the play-off game on Wednesday. But Kirk didn’t give a damn about that.
He’d been trying to get Valerie all day to tell her his fears about Abraham. To ask her advice. She hadn’t picked up.
And he hadn’t left a message. He’d been hoping Abraham would at least show up for practice. Basketball meant so much to him.
So where
the hell was the boy? Kirk didn’t even wonder if Abraham was okay. He knew he wasn’t. Abraham Billings had not been okay the entire time Kirk had known him.
He’d been planning to change that.
Pushing in the number to Valerie’s cell phone before he left the school parking lot on Tuesday evening, he held the phone to his ear with one shoulder, started the Corvette and pulled slowly into the street.
She picked up on the sixth ring. And after only minimal cajoling on his part, agreed to walk with him that night after her boys were in bed. That meant he had four hours to kill.
As he headed home, he listened to the messages that had come through on his cell phone that day. One from his mom and dad in Florida, their monthly call telling him that the weather was great and the golfing even better.
It was all the conversation any of them could manage with each other and keep up the appearance of a happy family. Unspoken recrimination lay so close to the surface that any talk more personal than that posed too big a threat.
The elder Chandlers had plenty of money to live out the rest of their lives in easy luxury. And, because of Kirk’s heartlessness in pursuing his father’s business in a hostile takeover—for financial reasons and financial reasons only—his father had no life that he cared about anymore.
He wouldn’t say so, though. Kirk’s whole life, his parents had justified his actions, spinning gossamer fictions around them. Unfortunately, this last web was just too thin to hide the ugly truth.
