Child by Chance

“Nooo.” Kent’s grin was all little-boy then, and it struck Sherman’s heart clear through. “I was just hoping you were feeling bad enough that we could skip the cleaning part.”

“You want to live in a pigsty?”

“No.”

“You got money to pay a cleaning lady?”

The boy’s sigh was long. “No, Dad. You know I don’t.”

“Guess that means it’s up to us to get the cleaning done, doesn’t it?” Sherman stood, both hands on his son’s shoulders as Kent did, too. “At least you got out of vacuuming this week.”

Kent threw another killer grin over his shoulder. “Why do you think I stayed in bed?” he asked. “I waited until I heard it in every room before I got up.”

Sherman’s burst of laughter surprised the hell out of him.

* * *

SHE COULD LEAVE a written report with Mrs. Barbour and walk away. Professionally, anyway.

Doing so would be appropriate.

Late Sunday night, after stopping after work to see her family—adamantly avoiding any mention of Kent Paulson—and then finishing the last of her online homework, Talia pulled a jacket on over her sweats, took her laptop out to the deck on the back of her borrowed beach cottage and sat down with the ocean she could hear but not see.

She saw a couple of lights bobbing in the far distance. Ships out to sea? There was nothing but blackness where she knew the beach to be—the stretch of space between her deck and the water.

It fit her, this little cottage. Alone, she didn’t need a lot of space. And yet, she never truly felt lonely here. How could you when all of life was spread before you just by sitting on your back deck?

Maybe someday she’d actually be able to afford a place like this. And not have to rely on handouts from the family she’d let down so badly.

As she sat there, not yet opening the laptop, Talia stared out into the darkness and replayed a scene from earlier that day. She’d just finished ringing up a fifteen-hundred-dollar sale—a couple of outfits with the highest quality costume jewelry embellishments—when the store’s manager approached her.

“Have you got a minute?” Mirabelle had asked.

“Of course.” Even if you didn’t, you found one when the head boss sought you out.

“You’ve been working here for well over a year now,” the savvy, middle-aged woman said, as though Talia didn’t know the length of her employment.

“Yes.”

“Since your first month you’ve been one of our top earning associates.”

She nodded. Helping people look good wasn’t all that tough. Getting them to spend their money on looking good hadn’t been her doing. That was human nature coming into play. Their own, not hers.

“While finishing up a four-year college degree in three years.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I hear that you’re in school again, adding psychology to your major?”

“That’s right.” Though her original employment had been granted partially on the basis of her performance in the fashion area of study, surely the store wouldn’t have a problem with her continued education. She had her fashion merchandising degree with a dual in fashion design. And her work wasn’t suffering.

“What’s the starting salary for fashion design grads who are psychology students in California these days?” Mirabelle, decked out to the nines in a red suit with black trim, gave her an assessing look.

As far as she knew she’d have to have a doctorate in psychology to actually work in the field of psychology. She was only going for a master’s degree. She told the woman a little bit about her collage program—starting with the experience with collage that she’d received as part of her fashion design degree. And then she admitted that, so far, her collage work was all done on a volunteer basis.

The older woman nodded. Talia held her gaze. She needed this job. The store paid the highest sales commission by far. With only two days a week to work, Talia had to make those hours count.

“Good,” Mirabelle said after several seconds, a small smile forming on her face. “I’d like to offer you an opportunity to do far better than that,” she said. “I have an opening for a full-time buyer for women’s fashions and accessories. You’d have full purchasing privilege in all of the best houses around the world. I’ll pay your travel expenses and a small salary. In addition, you’ll get a percentage of each of your items that sell in our store.”

Mirabelle named an amount she could expect to make that astounded her.

“I...” She was tempted. She could buy a beach cottage. Be able to help her family if they ever had need...

She’d get to travel the world without selling her soul. She’d have respectability.

And she’d be spending a good part of her life traveling. She knew what being a buyer meant. Her nights would be largely spent in hotel rooms. Far away.

“What would the small salary be?”

“Twenty thousand a year. But if you do half as well as the woman you’re replacing you’ll make more than I’ve just told you to expect.”

After her items arrived and starting selling, of course.

Twenty thousand was less than she’d made at eighteen.

But the commission was more than she could hope to make anytime in the near future.

Still, she’d be gone most of the time. Away.

Mirabelle had given her two months to think about the offer. The position wouldn’t be available for another three months.

She had time to weigh the pros and cons. But her gut was telling her that she couldn’t take the job. She wasn’t going anywhere until Tatum had graduated from high school and was settled in college. And then she still wasn’t leaving. She’d learned that in her life family came first, and for her, because of her past, that meant that she had to be where they were. In case they needed her.

So that they knew she was there for them.

She opened her laptop. Opened a blank word processing document and started to type.

About a little boy who was hiding things. Who had thoughts about violence. And a gentle heart. A boy who was angry, and who loved to read and have family picnics. Who wanted to lash out and liked puppies. A boy who was smart enough to keep his true feelings hidden, talented enough to mask his feelings with an artistic presentation, tender enough to see the value in doing the project at all and young enough to put his frustrations right there for all to see. If they looked.

She was telling the story that she saw when she looked at Kent Paulson’s collage. She might be right. Or not. She could be reading him spot-on, or be a bit off the mark.

But she knew she wasn’t completely off. Talia had a special talent for interpreting people’s collage work. Her instructors in college had seen it. The psychologist who supervised her master’s thesis work, a project involving the use of collage in assessing children, saw it.

She finished the report. Sent it to Sedona’s home printer. Only one light bobbed on the ocean now. Didn’t mean it was the only boat out there. Inevitably there were others. But it looked like the only one. Looked starkly alone.

Like her. She wasn’t alone. She had family who loved her. Really and truly loved her. They’d have to really love her to see the real her in spite of her past.

Yet as she sat there, contemplating the report she would deliver in the morning, she had never felt so starkly alone.

For one week, she’d almost felt like a mother. From a distance. On the outside looking in. But still...

And now, she’d see Mrs. Barbour in the morning and then just be Talia again. A woman who’d given up her son for adoption seconds after his birth.

Not if you’re doing it for me. And him.

Tatum’s words had been playing in her head all weekend. Her little sister wanted to meet her nephew. Her only nephew as far as any of them knew. Tatum needed family almost as bad as Talia did.

And what about Kent? She’d abandoned him once. Was it right or wrong to do so again? He’d seemed to like her.

Maybe he’d just liked her art project.

His “see ya” hadn’t sounded particularly...anything. Just polite. It certainly hadn’t seemed to faze the boy that they were never going to see each other again.

If ten-year-olds even thought that way. She had. But then, she’d been an adult at five.

What if he thought she’d still be around the school? That he’d be seeing her just like he saw all of his other former teachers?

Was she really thinking about seeing him again?

Could she keep pretending she wasn’t looking for a way?

But it had to be for the right reasons. She had to do it for others. Not just for herself. Not to give her a sense of self-worth or because it felt good in the moment.

The thought was followed by another. She wasn’t in a position to determine what was best for Kent.

She should just let it be. Deliver her report to the principal and leave well enough alone.

Unless she really believed she could help him.

What if he looked her up as an adult and she found out that he’d suffered something she could have prevented?

She had a plan. Not that she’d told anyone. But she knew about a program that might help Kent Paulson.

If she dared take this any further.

If she dared... Because she might get hurt? Or because someone else might?

The truthful answer to that was both.

One o’clock passed. Then two. Talia sat on the back porch, watching the bobbing light become two again. And then three. Ships passing in the night.

She held her coat close, shivering. Because she couldn’t do anything else. She was frozen on the precipice of making a new life with better choices, or remaining in the old one in a new city with the same old mistakes.

How did she trust herself to know the difference?

She’d thought, when she’d run away at sixteen, and then again at eighteen, that she was doing the right thing. Not all women grew up innocent. Not all were mother material...

She sat there until her mind quieted and there was only resolution left. She stood, just before three, and went inside to go to bed. She would have to get up in a few hours, but she knew what she was going to do when she did.

CHAPTER EIGHT

BY TEN O’CLOCK Monday morning Sherman had already chaired a couple of productive meetings. His staff was scurrying about the office, making things happen. He’d suffused the air with a positive energy that would make him a mint if he could sell it.

And every time the phone rang his stomach lurched. Kent was back in class today. They’d had a fairly decent weekend. If you didn’t count the rudeness at the table when he’d taken him to meet the representative of an animal rights coalition for lunch on Sunday. He’d thought Kent would enjoy hearing about the animals. Had even contemplated the idea of adopting a pet, if Kent asked him.

But his son had put on the headphones to the video game Sherman hadn’t even known he’d brought along and ignored every attempt he made to quietly get Kent to put the thing away.

At eleven, when Gina stuck her head into his office, announcing that Kent’s principal was on the phone, he was almost relieved to get it over with. The principal had mentioned a private school to him a couple of times, a place where troubled boys went. He was not sending Kent to one of those places.

But he might have to find an alternative. A private school that he could afford. So that Kent could get himself kicked out of there, too?

“This is Sherman,” he said into the phone, his eyes closed as though he could block what was coming.

“I’m sorry to bother you...” Sherman leaned as far back as his chair would go, throwing an ankle up over his knee, as Mrs. Barbour rattled on about another teacher, one he hadn’t yet heard of, who’d come to her about Kent. Eyes still closed to the rest of the world, he let her prattle on, knowing that somehow they were going to get through this.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. His old man’s words to him before he’d left with his army unit for the overseas mission that had killed him. Remember that, son. His father’s last words to him.

“I’ve read the report, Mr. Paulson, and I think it would be in Kent’s best interest if you at least met with her.”

Wait. What? Foot landing on the ground with a thud, he sat up. Opened his eyes and said, “Why does she want to meet with me?” An art teacher had found signs of anger in Kent’s work. Unfortunately, this wasn’t groundbreaking news to him.

“She’d like to tell you that herself, sir.”

“Who is this woman?”

“Her name’s Talia Malone.”

“And you said she took time out of her day to work with my son every day last week?”

“Yes, sir. Her collage program, which is also part of her master’s thesis, has been tentatively approved by the school board and she was in our building, anyway. I didn’t feel there was any harm in giving Kent an opportunity for some one-on-one time with her. You told me you trusted me to make appropriate decisions for him during school hours and—”

“Yes, yes...” he cut in. “I’m...grateful for all that you’re doing. And of course I’ll meet with anyone who thinks they can help Kent. I’m sorry. I thought... I expected...”

“You thought I was calling because Kent was in trouble again. I understand.” Mrs. Barbour’s soft tone reminded him of his mother. Anita Paulson had remarried a couple of years after his father passed away. Another military man. Sherman had been in high school then. Unwilling to be uprooted yet again by military life. His mother had reluctantly allowed him to stay with a friend’s family while he finished high school. From there it had been college. And Brooke. His mother, on the other hand, had lived in four different states and was currently in Belgium where her husband, a full colonel now, was serving his last term before retirement. She’d seen Kent a handful of times. Brief visits that always ended with promises for more time soon.

Mrs. Barbour was listing off times when this Talia Malone would be available to meet with him.

“Whatever works best for her,” he said, not making note of any of them. Didn’t matter to him when it was. As long as it happened. “As soon as possible, whatever’s best for her,” he amended. If he had something on the calendar he’d switch it.

“Tomorrow, then? Just after lunch? Which would be one o’clock. I can give you the conference room down the hall for as long as you need it,” she said, all business as usual.

Grabbing a pen, Sherman took down the pertinent details. An appointment for a new lease on life.

That was right up his alley.

* * *

TALIA DIDN’T HUG a water fountain for comfort. She didn’t throw up. She also didn’t tell anyone, most particularly Tatum, that she was meeting her biological son’s father that Tuesday afternoon. She dressed in conservative black pants, a white blouse and her tweed blazer, twisted her hair back into a bun, glued the wayward tendrils down with professional-quality freeze spray and walked into that meeting with her big-girl panties firmly in place.

She hadn’t set out to do any of this. Had only wanted a glimpse of her son, to assure herself he was fine before she went on with her life and left him to his. She’d needed the closure of the life she was leaving behind.

But he’d been in trouble, and she’d been able to help. Not as his mother. As the person she was becoming in her new life—the professional Talia.

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