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He waited until I began walking before he went with me. “So, you were a troubled kid?”
I side-eyed him. “Really?”
“Well, I can’t very well pretend I haven’t already put it up for consideration. Unless you’d like to pretend we simply don’t know each other.”
I rolled my eyes. “You were right and wrong with both ideas.”
“Oh?”
“Why do you sound so happy about being wrong?”
He turned his gaze into the crowd, and I followed suit, watching as a drunken angel, a stumbling cherub, and a giggling witch all bobbed for what were apparently ‘liquor-soaked’ apples. “Because people are generally not that hard to figure out. Especially in my life. You find the same sort of people, and after a while, you learn to figure out the patterns. It doesn’t matter if it’s someone in the practically incestuous circles my family has run in for generations or the people who see a rich kid with good looks. People are predictable. But when someone comes along and proves me wrong, or even shows signs I might have the wrong idea, well…that’s interesting.”
I couldn’t relate to his exact situation, but I could admit it made a great deal of sense. He probably did run into the same sort of people day in and day out. It was probably no different than my long run of customer service jobs and how after a while, I could spot a problem customer coming a mile away. I suppose if my whole life had been like that, I too would have craved a little variety, even if that variety came in the form of being wrong.
I sighed, taking a deeper drink. “My parents died when I was a kid.”
“Oh. I’m…not sure what to say about that.”
“Well, it’s different from all the people who immediately tell me how sorry they are.”
“I imagine you hear that a lot.”
“It gets better when I tell them I ended up living with my grandmother only for her to pass away a few years later.”
Shane turned his head slowly. “That…is certainly a great deal of misfortune for someone, especially a child.”
I shrugged. “After that, I ended up in the system. Fostered out and all that. Problem was, I wasn’t ready to be in another family or deal with the world. I was a pretty angry kid ready to fight anything and everything that even remotely irritated me.”
It was the sort of pain and anger that stayed with me well into my adult years. By then, of course, I had come a long way and learned to work through my problems with more than angry fists and words. At the same time, I wouldn’t have been the same person if it hadn’t been for Diane and Tony.
“Eventually, I was placed with people who were pretty good with problem children,” I told him with a shake of my head. I honestly couldn’t think of anything worse to call a child who was already struggling and hurting. Nothing quite like making those same kids feel like an extra burden than they already did. “If it weren’t for them, I probably wouldn’t have learned how to control myself. I’d already been in several fights and a few scrapes with the law by the time I got there and then a few more when I was there. They never gave up on me, though. They never stopped trying, and well, if you knew them, you’d know there’s no telling them ‘no’ if they have their minds set on something.”
“They had the magic touch then?”
“Pfft, no…and yes. It’s more that they have the patience most people aspiring to sainthood would envy, and they’re just as stubborn. They don’t always manage to get through to the kids, but they have a solid track record.”
“They’re still fostering?”
“To this very day. They’ve got a couple living with them right now, have for a couple of years now. And from the sounds of it, they’re going to be another success story. Though Diane would say, the kids are the ones who succeeded.”
Shane laughed as we turned to continue wandering aimlessly. “Well, I suppose it would be something, growing up with that. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to feel a twinge of shame.”
I glanced at him, raising my brow. “And why’s that? Because they live their lives helping other people?”
“No,” he said, and I sighed, not at all surprised. “Because they have purpose.”
That caught me by surprise. I stopped where we were at the end of one of the smaller walkways that cut through the main thoroughfares and turned to face him. “What?”
He stopped as well, stepping closer. “Was that confusing?”
I was suddenly aware that our wandering had taken us away from the crowd and he was nearly as close as he had been back in the kitchen. “I’m asking for clarification.”
“It’s simple, I envy their sense of purpose, that they have something they wholeheartedly throw themselves into. The same as I might envy someone who starts from scratch, works their way through law school and becomes a high-powered attorney, goes high in politics, or a religious order,” he told me, his eyes boring into me. “I’ve never been worried about being a ‘good’ person.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”
“Now, now, you promised you would behave.”
