Page 135 of My Vows Are Sealed

“You’re not interrupting,” I told him. “What’s wrong?”

“Aside from the obvious?” he said, letting out a weak, humorless chuckle. “I was actually wondering how much of your story you were comfortable with letting me share tonight. I don’t think a lot of the people in this congregation are going to be very happy with me by the time this is over, but I also think the only way they’re going to believe me is if I tell them what he was doing to his family behind closed doors. What he was doing to…”

He trailed off, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. I stood up and gave him a hug, and he squeezed me so tight that it made me groan.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured as he let go of me. “I forgot for a second.”

“It’s okay,” I assured him. “Hugs are good for the soul. And you can tell them as much as you want. I don’t have anything to hide. Not anymore. Not now that he can’t hurt me.”

“Yes,” my mom agreed. “If it’ll help them understand, then you can tell them anything you want.”

“Darla. Brendan,” I heard Naomi gasp from behind me.

I turned around and found her and Alex standing there with almost identical worried expressions. She threw her arms around my neck, letting out a whimper as she squeezed tight. I wrapped my good arm around her and rubbed her back, and I felt a few tears wet my shirt.

“What’d the doctor say?” she sniffled as she pulled back.

“They had to set my arm before they put a cast on,” I sighed. “But at least I got a little bit of morphine for that. I’m still only allowed extra-strength Tylenol for pain normally, though, because that’s the only thing that’s safe for the baby. Other than that, it’s just going to take time. And I see the OBGYN tomorrow, but the ER doctor seemed to think the baby’s okay. I just need to take it easy.”

“We weren’t expecting to see you guys tonight,” Alex said.

I sighed. “We weren’t expecting to come. But Peter wanted us here. And I’ve missed being here. I just wish everyone wasn’t treating me like a leper.”

“They’ll come around. Eventually,” he told me. “It just might take someone smacking them over the head with a two-by-four.”

“Speaking of…it’s showtime,” Peter mumbled. “Wish me luck.”

“Luck,” I said.

My stomach started to turn again as I sat down and leaned against Brendan, but I managed to swallow the bile that rose in my throat. Brendan wrapped his arm around me, turning slightly so I could rest my weight on him, and pressed his lips to my head.

“No onecan take the truth from us,” he whispered in my ear. “It doesn’t matter what anyone here thinks.”

I nodded, but a tear still slipped down my cheek as Peter walked up to the podium and glanced at us. He looked so lost and scared and I wished like hell that I could be the one to do this for him. But I knew I couldn’t. My father had done too much damage, and I was the absoluteworstperson to tell his congregation about it. I was just here as physical proof of the accusations Peter was about to make against the man they’d all looked up to for years and years.

“Good evening, everyone. I realize this is unusual, but I’m going to ask that the parents in attendance tonight please have any children who are in eighth grade or younger leave the service at this time and join Marie in the children’s program,” Peter started, sounding like he was barely able to keep his composure. “I’m about to address some difficult issues, and it’s not appropriate subject matter for them to hear about.”

There was some scattered murmuring and shuffling as a few parents grabbed their toddlers and the half dozen or so older children in the service got up and walked out of the sanctuary. I heard various whispers and a few mentions of my name and Brendan’s name, and I squeezed my eyes shut to stop the tears that were stinging them from shedding. I couldn’t give these judgmental hypocrites the satisfaction of showing them how much they were getting to me.

“Matthew 7:15 says, ‘Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves,’” Peter said a couple of minutes later. “You know, we always think we’ll never fall for that. We always think we’re smart enough to be able to tell when we’re being lied to. When someone’s not who they claim to be. But the truth is, when someone comes along claiming to believe what we believe, claiming to have the same values we do, it’s easy to make assumptions.

“I made assumptions about someone for a long time, and over the past several years, I’ve come to the realization that I was very wrong.” He stopped and took a sip from a bottle of water, swallowing hard. “As I sat here almost four years ago listening to a man who claimed to be a follower of Christ give a sermon that advocated beating children and made a thinly veiled reference to the fact that he was abusing his own daughter, I realized I’d been fooled. I’d been taken in by a false prophet. After the service that day, Marie and I spoke at length about whether or not we wanted to stay in this church. Whether we wanted to appear to support someone like that. And we decided to stay, because we felt that the Lord wanted us here. We felt that He was calling us to minister to the children and teenagers in this church.”

Oh, my God.

That morning, after that service, Marie had pulled me aside. She’d asked me if there was anything I wanted to talk about. Anything that was going on at home. How hadn’t I realized that she wastryingto get me to tell her about the abuse? That she knew and wanted to help?

But, in a strange way, I was glad that things had worked out the way they had. Not because I’d enjoyed any part of the fear and uncertainty I’d been living in, but because if none of it had happened, I had a feeling that the child growing inside me right now might never have been conceived. And I already loved this baby more than I knew I could love anything at all. I believed with all my heart that she was part of God’s plan for Brendan and I.

“I know there’s been some speculation about what’s been on the news over the past couple of days,” Peter continued. “And I’m sorry to inform you that it’s so much worse than what’s been reported. Marie and I spent Saturday night in the emergency room with Darla, prayed with her and Brendan for their comfort and peace, for Darla’s healing from the injuries inflicted on her by her own father, and for the survival of their unborn child, after her father had tried multiple methods of ending her pregnancy. And not even four hours ago, I put a videotape of what I thought was last week’s sermon into the VCR in Pastor Jones’s office and was saddened, sickened, and enraged to find myself watching a video of a young woman I’ve known for years and have watched grow up being molested by the very same man.”

A chorus of gasps and whispers echoed throughout the entire sanctuary, all of them murmuring about how they couldn’t believe my father would do such a thing and how they couldn’t believe I was pregnant, and I curled further into Brendan’s side.

These people, people who had watched me grow up, were all sitting here judging me for making love to one of the only people who had ever truly loved or cared about me in my whole life instead of being horrified at what my father had done to me. They’d all fallen so far under my father’s spell that they were more concerned about how my child was conceived than the fact that he had tried to kill me.

“Let me be very clear about something,” Peter said firmly. “If there is even a single person in this congregation who would judge a boy and girl who you’ve watched grow into strong, courageous, kind, and gracious young adults for the choices they made, I want you to leave. Get up and walk out of this sanctuary right now. And don’t bother coming back. Because in this church, we follow theLord’steachings, not a man’s. We donotjudge one another. We donotblindly follow a man just because he screams Bible verses at the top of his lungs. In this church, we love one another. We support one another. And we treat each other with compassion. We donotjudge and ostracize two young people for falling in love and conceiving a child before they’ve signed a piece of paper while speaking out in defense of a man who has been charged with the attempted murder of his own daughter and is about to be charged with overfiftycounts of possession and production of child pornography and God knows how many counts of child molestation.”

Using every ounce of strength I had, I sat up straighter and looked around the sanctuary, trying to see if anyone was getting up and leaving. And, much to my surprise, everyone was still seated, and they all wore similar deer-in-headlights expressions. I knew it was a lot to take in and a lot of the congregation was probably still processing, but I’d thought that at least Brendan’s mom and the ladies who had been hanging on her every word would have gotten up and walked out the door.

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