Once in a Lifetime(75)

“I know it. I’ve never doubted it.”

Her eyes looked a little damp as she looked him over again, but she nodded firmly. “You’ll get through this.”

She was right about that; he would get through this. He didn’t see much of a choice. Life was funny that way. When it threw him a curveball, sometimes it hit him between the eyes and sometimes it hit him in the gut, but he always kept coming back to bat.





That afternoon, Ben stood bleary-eyed in front of the Craft Corner gang. He was teaching the kids how to make the kite he’d learned to build from some kids in Haiti, when what he really wanted to do was something far more physical.

Like night surf. He was feeling more than a little out of control, but he knew he needed to keep it together, because he still had to go back to work after this. He could have sworn he was keeping his bad mood from the kids, but just as though he’d projected it out there, a fight broke out over a roll of twine between Pink and a scrappy, tough little girl named Dani. “Hey,” he said, striding over and breaking it up. “Cool it. There’s enough twine to go around.”

“That’s not what this is about,” Pink said, still glaring at Dani. “She’s being mean.”

“Am not,” Dani said.

“Both of you knock it off,” Ben said.

But the girls continued to stare each other down, neither one of them speaking.

Jesus, Ben thought. Girls really were aliens. “Kites,” Ben said. “Make your kites.”

Neither backed down until Ben gave them each a nudge.

Three minutes later the fight was back on.

“Okay,” Ben said. “That’s it. You have two seconds to tell me what’s going on, or we’re done here.” He looked down at the insistent tugging on the hem of his shirt and found Kendra staring up at him, her eyes filled with anxiety.

“You aren’t going to quit, right?” she asked in a small voice.

Ah, shit. Guilt swamped him, and he crouched down to look into the eyes of the little girl who hadn’t spoken once in all this time—until now. Apparently her abandonment issues trumped her social anxieties. “I’m not going anywhere,” Ben promised. “We’re all going.” He took Kendra’s hand in his and rose to his full height, staring at the entire class. “Get your hammers.”

Ben had asked Sam for advice on what to do with the kids. Sam built boats by hand and knew his way around tools. On his suggestion, Ben had ordered and bought thirty-five small hammers from the hardware store, along with work aprons and some other tools for the kids. He figured they’d go out to the railroad ties surrounding the yard and hit the shit out of the wood until aggressions were released. It’d always worked for him. “Field trip,” he said.

They got halfway down the hall before Ms. Uptight Teacher stuck her head out of the office. “Where are you going?”

“Field trip,” the kids yelled excitedly.

The teacher shook her head. “No permission slips.”

“We’re not leaving the yard,” Ben said.

The kids all sighed in disappointment.

The teacher didn’t look relieved. “Why are they all carrying hammers?”

“Anger management,” Ben said.

Ms. Uptight Teacher was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “No.”



He wondered if she practiced saying no to everything, or if it just came to her as naturally as her pinched expression did.

“If you all need a time-out,” she said, “there’s a basket of kick balls in the yard.”

Fine. Ben took the kids to the yard, marching them to the far end. “Okay,” he said, lining them up. “New lesson. Anger management.”

“What’s that?” several kids asked.

“It’s when you expel your pent-up negative energy through physical exertion,” he said.

They all blinked in collective confusion.

“You know how sometimes you just want to hit someone?” he asked them.

“You mean like when someone tells a lie about you?” Pink asked, glaring at Dani.

“Or when they steal your string for your kite?” Dani asked, glaring back at Pink.

“Yes,” Ben said, stepping between them. “Just like that. But we’re not going to hit anyone. Instead we’re going to hit something. Something that won’t get you in trouble. In this case, the fence.” He set a kick ball in front of each kid, separating them widely enough so that no one could level anyone else, accidentally or otherwise. There he stepped to an empty spot with his own ball. “Go,” he said.

Everyone kicked their balls at the fence, which made a very satisfactory sound as it was hit. The balls went flying, and the kids raced after them. They lined up again.

And again.

Ten minutes later each and every one of them was panting in exertion and…smiling.

Except for Ben. He drove Pink and Kendra home and finally found something that did make him smile.

Dan was sitting on the front steps of the house, waiting for his kids.





Chapter 26



Aubrey hadn’t had very many shitty days lately, not since Ben had come into her life. But the past few days had been real doozies. It was horrifying, demoralizing, devastating to realize how badly she’d messed up. Earlier she’d opened the bookstore determined to hold her head up high. What was done was done. She’d had the best of intentions when she’d confessed her misdeed to Ben, and though she still had to somehow make him understand that, she also had to go on.