“Keep your hand there,” she murmured, so quietly it was barely even audible. “I don’t know why, but it’s calming me down a little.”
I smiled as I adjusted her on my lap so I could reach her back easier. “Go on, baby. Open it.”
Taking a deep breath, she took the rubber bands off of the box and opened it, and the first thing we saw was an envelope addressed to her lying on top of a bunch of tissue paper. I felt her trembling a little as she picked up the envelope, pulled the unsealed flap out of the back, and retrieved two folded sheets of notebook paper.
As she unfolded and read the letter, tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over her cheeks, and soon she was full-on sobbing. After several minutes, she held the papers out to me.
“Read it,” she choked out through her tears. “I…I can’t…”
“Shh,” I soothed her, kissing her forehead and trailing my fingers up and down her back. “It’s okay, Dar. Let it out. I’ve got you.”
Darla curled further against me, wrapping her arms around my neck and burying her face in my shoulder as she cried. Planting another kiss on her head and tightening my arm around her, I looked at the letter, which I immediately noticed was stained with not only Darla’s tears, but also Gloria’s.
My dear, sweet girl,
Words can’t express how sorry I am that it’s come to this. I tried for so long to protect you from ever knowing about the nightmare I’ve lived in since the day I married your father. I never thought he’d show you the dark and dangerous side of himself that I’ve come to know all too well, but I underestimated him. For years, although I hated seeing how hard he was on you and how strict he was with you, he kept his interactions with you just this side of acceptable, and I thought that knowing you were his flesh and blood would be enough to protect you from him. But I was so very wrong.
The night I realized that horrifying truth will be burned into my memory for the rest of my life. It was the night of your homecoming dance in your freshman year, when Brendan brought you home early. When I heard your screams that night, your pleas for help, I knew it was a turning point. You’d gotten older, your father had started to hurt you the way he’d been hurting me for years, and there was no coming back from that.
Maybe the way he looked at you changed when he saw you wearing that semi-formal dress with your makeup done perfectly, looking so beautiful and grown-up. Or maybe he saw Brendan kiss your forehead in the car before you got out, like I did from the bedroom window. I know that was the first time I realized that you were becoming a woman. I remember wondering where the time had gone and what had happened to the impish little girl in pigtails and overalls who used to draw on the walls and get watercolor paint all over the kitchen table. Somehow, overnight, you’d turned into a beautiful, smart, compassionate, brave young woman, who I couldn’t have been prouder of.
I can’t believe my first instinct that night was to blame you, sweetheart. I still remember asking you what you’d done and why you’d set him off, and it still makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve asked myself so many times since then why that was the first thing that came out of my mouth as I knelt next to you and examined that dislocated shoulder, and the only answer I can come up with is that it was the same thing I’d been asking myself for years. Every time he hit me, every time he forced himself on me, I always asked myself what I’d done and why I’d set him off when I knew exactly what the result would be.
It wasn’t your fault, baby girl. None of what’s happened to you has ever been your fault, and I’m so, so sorry that I wasn’t strong enough to protect you from it. But you have someone else who IS strong enough, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.
After I tucked you into bed that night, leaving you with an ice pack strapped to your immobilized shoulder and a double dose of over-the-counter painkillers, I knelt down in front of your bedroom door and I prayed. I prayed for the Lord to help me keep you safe, and I prayed that you’d never know this kind of fear and pain ever again. And I swear, I heard Him speaking to me just like He was standing right next to me. He told me that He’d already sent you a man who would spend the rest of his life loving and protecting you. But He also told me that the day would come when you would have to leave home before you were really ready to, and that I needed to prepare for that day so I could help you start your life with Brendan.
Okay, so He didn’t tell me that Brendan was the man He’d sent into your life, but I could read between the lines. I could see the friendship between the two of you growing stronger and stronger by the day, and the look on his face when he kissed your forehead that night was enough to tell me all I needed to know.
I’m so sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell me about him, honey. I wish you could have told me all about the first time he kissed you, the first time he told you he loved you, the first time he held you as you cried and promised you that he’d never hurt you the way your father had. I still pray that the day comes when you can tell me about all of those firsts, and I’m holding onto the hope that it will.
Ever since that night, I’ve been skimming from every single collection plate I counted at church. I put a little bit aside each time I counted the tithes and snuck it into this shoebox. I took enough for it to start adding up, but not enough that your father would ever notice it was missing. I know stealing is a sin, but the way I look at it, this wasn’t stealing. This money WAS going toward helping those in need. Our parishioners just didn’t know that YOU were the one in need, and they didn’t know how great your need was. There’s just short of five thousand dollars in this box. I know it’s not much, but I hope it’s enough to help you and Brendan find a safe place to land. I also put some of my jewelry in here. If you want to keep it as something to remember me by, you’re welcome to, but it’s all real, and you can sell or pawn it if you need to. I wish I could have given you every single piece I own, but your father would notice if it was all gone.
I love you so much, my brave girl, and I am so proud of you. I know you’re going to hate leaving me behind, but I made my choices a long time ago, and I accept them. Please don’t come back for me. Don’t try to help me. If I can help you get far away from here, then I’ll have done what I was put on this Earth to do. I’ll have protected you like I should have. The best gift you can give me is to go and have a beautiful, fulfilling life with the man I know would die before he ever laid so much as a finger on you. So go spread your wings, fly, and be free. And know that I love both you and Brendan more than you can even imagine.
Love,
Mom
I was frozen in shock by the time I was done reading the letter. I wasn’t sure why reading about the night of that dance, the night my life as I knew it changed forever, in Gloria’s words made it so much worse. So much more real. So much more terrifying. I couldn’t even imagine living in constant fear every second of every day for the past…God, how long had they been married? It had to have been going on twenty years.
And then there was the end of that letter. It just felt so final. Like a goodbye. It didn’t really feel like a suicide note, but it did feel like she’d accepted the possibility that she might end up dead because she’d helped us. That broke my heart. I’d known this woman for pretty much my whole life, and realizing that she’d given up her own hope and her own chance for freedom in order to protect her daughter was devastating.
I couldn’t let this be the end of it. I couldn’t just run away with Darla and never look back. That monster belonged behind bars, and I needed to make sure that was where he ended up.
I set the letter down on the bed and folded my other arm around Darla, kissing her head and choking down the lump in my throat.
“I have to help her, Brendan,” she sobbed. “I can’t…I can’t leave her there.”
“I know,” I whispered. “And we will. But we’re going to make sure you’re safe first. That’s what she wants. She wants to know that you’re okay. But I promise you, I won’t stop fighting for you and your mom un
til your father is rotting in jail where he belongs.”
As for how I was going to accomplish that? I didn’t have the foggiest idea.
Chapter 27
Brendan
I’ll Fight
THREE WEEKS LATER
“So, Nay was talking about the gang going down to Savannah next weekend,” Alex said as we walked into our first day on a new construction site. “To celebrate their graduation.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I know. I asked Uncle Paul for those days off. I’m going to meet them down there.”
Maybe it was stupid, but I figured that would be a great opportunity to finally give Darla the ring that was burning a hole in my pocket. I’d had plenty of opportunities since I’d bought that ring, but I wanted it to be perfect when I asked her to marry me. She had so much pain and heartache in her life, and even all of the best moments of my life – our first kiss, the first time we said “I love you,” the first time I held her as she slept, the first time I made love to her – were all tinged with sadness. I just wanted to be able to give her one memory filled with nothing but love and happiness, with no dark clouds looming over the horizon.
“I was thinking about it too,” he agreed. “I could use a damn vacation.”
“You and me both,” I chuckled. “I’m just glad Darla’s finally out of school. I swear, I couldn’t even take a full breath every time she was in that building. He knew exactly where she’d be and when, so I’m just glad he never showed up there and tried to drag her back home.”
He sighed. “I have a theory about why he didn’t, but you’re not going to like it.”
“He wants to get her alone,” I said before he could. “He thought she’d already told someone at school about what he did to her and they’d call the cops instead of letting him take her home. So he’s waiting until she’s alone so he can have the upper hand.”
“Yep,” he muttered. “He might act all tough, but when it comes down to it, he’s a coward.”
Oh, no he wasn’t. He was prepared to kill Darla and Gloria. But he was patient and smart. He was willing to wait for the right time, when he could get away with it without consequences.
“No, he’s not. He’s a fucking psycho who threatened to kill his wife and daughter if they ever left,” I growled. “And somehow he’s got the biggest church in town completely fooled into thinking he’s the second messiah.”
“Not everyone. I don’t think that, and neither do Peter and Marie.”
Before I could come up with a response to that, I froze when I saw who was standing on the construction site talking to my Uncle Paul.
I almost didn’t recognize Ethan Smith. The last time I’d seen him, he was a bulky, but awkward fifteen-year-old with shaggy, unkempt hair, a blank look in his eyes, and a chip the size of Texas on his shoulder. But after he’d shown up at church drunk and high on the day we went to see Jars of Clay, his parents had sent him to military school, and we hadn’t seen him since, not even at church when he was home visiting.
Where there used to be disheveled brown locks on his head, now there was a buzz cut. His previously disproportionate frame had filled out and was clear proof of the physical demands of the school he’d gone to. And there was a spark of life in his eyes and a smile on his face as he chatted with my uncle.
“Is that…” Alex trailed off.
“Ethan Smith,” I finished for him.
Despite the time that had passed and the apparent one-eighty he’d done, I had absolutely no desire to be sharing breathing space with Ethan. There was no way he hadn’t had some idea of what Darla’s dad was doing to her, even if he didn’t know how bad it was. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have tattled on her every chance he got just because he liked to see her squirm. And obviously he hadn’t cared about what would happen to her once he told.
The problem was, literally everyone on this crew knew about Darla. None of them went to church with me except for Alex and occasionally my uncle, so they didn’t pose a threat to us. But Ethan? I still didn’t trust the little punk as far as I could throw him.
“Brendan!” my uncle called. “Come here for a minute!”
“What’d you do to piss him off?” Alex teased, shoving my shoulder.
I snorted. “Hell if I know.”
I tried to bury my simmering anger as I trudged in the direction of my uncle and Ethan, who I was guessing would be shadowing me for a while. Because that sounded like my idea of an enjoyable workday. Not.
“What’s up, Uncle Paul?” I asked.
“How many times do I have to tell you, when we’re on a job, it’s just Paul?” he said, smiling a little. “This is—”
“Ethan,” I clipped out.
“Hey, Brendan,” Ethan mumbled uncomfortably. “Been a while.”
I nodded at him and forced a smile, but I didn’t say anything else.
“Looks like you two already know each other,” Uncle Paul chuckled awkwardly. “Anyway, Ethan’s new around here. Think you could handle showing him the ropes?”
“Sure,” I muttered. “I hope you’re ready to work, Smith.”
He held up his toolbox, which I was surprised to see was stocked with good-quality, industry-standard tools. Most of the newbies who started with us had crap-ass hardware store tools that broke within three days. Those tools were fine for household jobs, but they weren’t built to withstand the use and abuse that they were put through on a professional construction site. The good tools, the ones that professionals used, were expensive, and most newbies didn’t spring for them when they were just starting out.
Okay, so Ethan had earned himself a few points in my book.
“Ready and willing,” he told me.
“Then let’s get to it.”
I started to head in the direction of the foundation that the first crew had finished last week, but as soon as we were out of my uncle’s earshot, Ethan grabbed my arm. I spun around, ready to dish out the verbal ass-kicking that he’d had coming to him for almost four years, but the look on his face made me stop in my tracks.
What was worse than sadness? Anguish? Despair? Whatever it was, that was what I saw in his eyes, as clear as day.
“Listen, Brendan,” he sighed. “You have every reason to hate me, and I can tell you have something you want to say to me. But will you give me two minutes first?”
I huffed out a breath. “Fine. Two minutes.”
“I need you to know how sorry I am for how I treated you before my parents sent me away,” he said, his voice breaking a little. “You tried to reach out to me, despite what I was doing to the girl you loved. You tried to warn me about the crowd I’d fallen in with, and instead of recognizing that and thanking you for it, I lashed out some more. I know it’s no excuse, but I was going through some things. Things I don’t really want to talk about here. I was in a lot of pain and I was trying to do something, anything, to make it go away, but all I ended up doing was hurting a lot of people I cared about.”
The freight train in my head that had been barreling forward at full speed suddenly skidded to a stop as I processed what he was saying and the genuine anguish in his voice. Even a professional actor couldn’t have faked that much heartache and distress.
Looking back, I realized that even Darla had seen that something was going on with him. I remembered her saying on the day we went to the concert that she could tell he was in a lot of pain and she felt bad for him, despite how horribly he’d treated her. I’d been too preoccupied with my anger and my desire to protect her to see it from that perspective, but now I had to wonder what he’d been going through that had made him lash out at the world like that.
In any case, I wasn’t ready to just accept him with open arms, but maybe I could at least give him a chance. Let him show me that he really had changed.
“Apology accepted,” I told him. “But I think you and I both know that I’m not really the one you should be apologizing to.”
“I know that. And that was actually the other reason I wanted to talk
to you,” he mumbled. “Um, I know Darla won’t give me the time of day if I try to reach out to her on my own. I deserve that, but I was wondering if you might be able to convince her to meet up with me. I know you’ll want to be there too, and I don’t have a problem with that, but what I have to say to her shouldn’t be said in a public place.”
“How do you even know if we’re still friends?” I challenged. “It’s been over three years.”
“Because I know her. She’s shy, but once she chooses to open up to someone, they’ve got a friend for life. And the people she does open up to are the luckiest people on the planet, because they’ll never find anyone more loyal or kind. And I also know you. I knew how you felt about her then, and I can tell just by how protective you’re being right now that that hasn’t changed. She’s lucky to have someone who cares so much about her, because God knows her father doesn’t.”
Wait. What?
How did he know anything about her relationship with her father?
I really, really wanted to ask him, but at the same time, if he was just making an educated guess based on the interactions he saw at church, I damn well wasn’t about to volunteer any information about my girlfriend’s life. I might have been willing to forgive him, but that didn’t mean I trusted him yet. Trust was earned.
“I’ll talk to her,” I sighed. “But I can’t promise she’ll agree to meet you. I don’t think you get how much you hurt her, Ethan.”
“No, I do,” he insisted. “I’m not really expecting her to say yes, but I have to try. I hurt a lot of people, and if they’ll let me, I want to make it right. As much as I can.”
“Seems like military school actually worked, Smith,” I said with a nod.
My Vows Are Sealed (Sealed With a Kiss) Page 30