The short story of Spikes in the Werewolves In Their Youth book describes a man named Kohn and his past issues with his marriage, as well as his interaction with a child neighbor. After reading the story, I thought that there could be an explanation for Kohn's decision to miss the meeting with his lawyer and stay at Bengt's baseball practice. Earlier in the story, Kohn's loss of his son is explained, which aslo descibes why his wife left him. The tragedy of losing a son was too much for her to bear, so she moved as far away from where it all happened while Kohn stayed in town with those emotions always on his mind. An explanation for why he stayed with Bengt could be because he felt like a father again by staying with the child, spurred by the presence of the other fathers there, and he thought that his decision may help him to feel like he had a son again. His lack of concern for missing the meeting can be explained as his wife left because of the emotions from losing a child, so Kohn probably thought that regaining some of those fatherly feelings must have been much more important than settling the legal situation with his wife who ran from her own misfortune of parenthood.