Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card

maybe on a fourth one. And two channels on UHF, one with a dingy-looking old western, and one with a screaming used-car salesman. She should have let the old man hook up the cable. Baptize. Bappy. What a name. Of course she would have to tell Step about what she did today. Leaving the door open like that. Or maybe she shouldn’t, so he wouldn’t worry. But no, she had to tell him, because they didn’t hide things from each other, especially things that made them look stupid. Only this wasn’t about whether DeAnne looked stupid, this was about whether the children would be safe. Step couldn’t be worrying all the time about whether she was keeping them safe, he had to concentrate on work. Besides, if she told him he wouldn’t blame her, he’d blame himself for not being home, for not having been a good enough provider so that now he had to go away all day and leave her alone to take care of everything. No, that would not be a good story to tell him. But she couldn’t leave it unconfessed either. She would write it in the family journal, and tell him later, much later, when she had gone for several weeks—no, months—without leaving the door open like that.
    â€œI want to play Kaboom,” said Stevie.
    She sighed inwardly. He’d rather play a videogame than sit with her. A game that he could not win, a game that always made him so frustrated that he used to hit the computer or throw down the joystick until Step had to ban him from the computer several times, to help him learn to control his anger.
    Anger was the mode he preferred tonight, apparently. “Go ahead,” she said. “I don’t know where the cartridges are.”
    â€œRight here,” he said, going straight to a cardboard box and pulling out a plastic case with slots for all the Atari cartridges. Step had set up the computers the moment all the beds were together, and of course Stevie knew right where everything was.
    It was nearly nine and DeAnne was about to send Stevie to bed when Step finally got home. He knew he had let them down and felt terrible about it. “I’m so sorry. Is he still up?”
    â€œPlaying Kaboom,” she said.
    He went to the family room and knelt down beside Stevie. “Son, I’m so sorry I was late. It wasn’t my car, and we kept finding new bugs in the program, and I kept saying I had to get home, but he’d say, ‘Let’s just fix this one thing and try it,’ over and over again, and it was his car, what can I say? Even as it is he’s mad at me for leaving the thing unfinished.”
    Stevie said nothing, just kept swinging the paddle left and right to catch the little bombs as they dropped from various points along the top of the screen. Then he missed one, and all the bombs on the screen at that moment exploded.
    â€œStevie, your mom said you were upset when you came home from school today. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
    Stevie just stared at the screen, until finally he said, “I don’t want to talk to you about it.”
    That slapped Step hard, DeAnne could see it. “Well, then, who are you going to talk to?”
    â€œMom,” said Stevie.
    DeAnne could not believe what she was hearing.
    Step stood up. “He’s punishing me for not getting home soon enough,” he said. “And probably for not taking him to school this morning.” Step did that—stating out loud how he interpreted the kids’ actions, so that they would see that he wasn’t fooled, or correct him if he was wrong.
    Stevie didn’t correct him, so Step went on. “As long as you’ll talk to one of us, that’s all right. And if you were trying to hurt my feelings, then you’ve succeeded. I really am sorry that I wasn’t here when you needed me, but we explained to you that this is the way it’s got to be for a while. Most fathers have to go to work, and when you go to work, you