Free The Drifter by Kate Hoffmann

pass her by?
     
    “T HIS IS WEIRD, ” C HARLIE said, glancing over his shoulder at Jack’s two kids sitting silently in the backseat of the SUV. “I haven’t spent a whole lot of time around kids.” He lowered his voice. “They’re kind of scary.”
    “Yeah, just don’t look them in the eye or they’ll throw themselves on the ground and pitch a fit.”
    “Don’t they talk?”
    “Sure,” Jack said. “But if they’re quiet in the car, we stop for ice cream. I have them trained well. Their mother doesn’t like them to have sweets.” Jack looked in the rearview mirror. “You guys can talk. You’re starting to scare Charlie a little bit.”
    The boy and girl both grinned then launched into a series of unrelated questions. Was his watch waterproof? Did he own a dog? How many pieces of bubblegum could he fit in his mouth at once? Was he going to get ice cream, too?
    They were odd kids. The boy was nearly nine and the girl had just turned six. According to Jack, they were both quite bright and inquisitive, but easilybored and distracted. Though they were on their best behavior at the moment, Jack had warned Charlie that they could have a meltdown at any moment, for any reason.
    Charlie tried to answer their questions, one by one, and the conversation slowly disintegrated into silliness, with a long series of poop and fart jokes. Jack seemed completely oblivious to it all. Charlie was almost relieved when they pulled up to the park. The kids jumped out of the car and ran toward the playground equipment, while Jack grabbed the basketball from the cargo area.
    “Aren’t you worried about them?” Charlie asked. “How are we going to play ball and watch them at the same time?”
    “Don’t worry,” Jack said. “As a parent, you develop a very keen sense of where they are at all times. It’s like they have a built-in global positioning chip. If they wander too far, an alarm goes off in your head. And then there’s always their instinct to tattle on each other. If one does something wrong, the other will scream bloody murder in a matter of seconds. They monitor each other’s behavior.”
    Charlie shook his head. “I don’t know how you do it. It’s got to be overwhelming. You’re responsible for making sure they don’t both turn into a couple of losers.”
    “You just do your best,” Jack said. “They’re good kids. Most of the time. Hell, look at you. You didn’thave a dad for most of your teenage years and you turned out all right.” Jack dribbled the ball, then took a jump shot. “Do you want to play some one-on-one or should we play HORSE?”
    “I think we should stick to HORSE,” Charlie said. “I haven’t played basketball in a couple years. There aren’t a whole lot of courts at base camp.”
    Jack tossed him the ball. “You start. For every one you miss, you get a letter and you have to answer a question.”
    “A question about what?”
    “It can be about anything. But you have to be completely honest.”
    Charlie smiled as he remembered. It was the same way they’d played it when they were in college. It was so much easier to talk about sticky subjects when they had basketball to focus on. “All right.” He took a shot from the baseline and missed.
    “How is it going with the girl? Eve, is that her name?” Jack asked.
    “It’s going well. Really well. We spend every night together. The sex is incredible. She’s funny and smart and she’s an incredible cook, even though all she cooks is vegetables. I’m taking her camping tomorrow, so she might even like the outdoors.”
    Jack took a shot from the top of the key and missed. Charlie scooped up the rebound and dribbled over to the right corner. “Your turn,” he said. “Wereyou there when your kids were born? I mean, did you see it all?”
    “Sure,” Jack said. “It was pretty cool. I got to hold them right away and cut the cord. They were all slimy and red. They looked like hell. But they got a lot cuter after a few