Page 62 of My Vows Are Sealed

Yeah, I was going to show him the cabinet early. Even though he had zero patience and would hate waiting until tomorrow to start helping me paint. After the argument I’d had with my mom, I just really needed to see the smile on his face.

“What is it?” he asked as he climbed out of the car.

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise,” I chuckled, taking his hand.

I led him inside, and the first thing I heard was my mom screeching at the top of her lungs.

“All I’m asking for is a little bit of help!”

“No, you’re asking your sixteen-year-old son to be a parent!” my dad growled. “Nathan’syourproblem, not his!”

Nathan looked up at me with so much sadness in his eyes that it broke my heart. My eyes stung and I choked down a lump in my throat as I picked him up and squeezed him tight. His little arms wrapped around my neck, and I heard a quiet sniffle.

I’d always known that my parents considered my brother a nuisance, but hearing my dad saying that made me see red. Nathan was the sweetest kid in the world and all he did was love them, and what did they do? They dismissed him. Treated him as an annoyance. Shuffled him off on anyone who would take him off their hands.

“I’m almost fifty years old, James! I don’t have the energy to do this again!” my mom complained.

“Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to go to bed with another man!” he spat at her.

“How long are you going to hold that mistake over my head?” she whined. “I was weak and I gave in to temptation, but it wasonemistake,onetime!”

“A mistake that we both have to live with a daily reminder of! A daily reminder that you’re shoving off on anyone you can, because you can’t stand to see the evidence of what you did!”

For a split second, I froze in shock as I processed what I’d just heard.

My mom had cheated on my dad. And Nathan was myhalf-brother.

No wonder my dad seemed to barely tolerate my mom most days. And no wonder he couldn’t even bring himself to look at Nathan most of the time. Nathan was a living and breathing reminder that she had gone against every single church teaching on the sanctity of marriage and been intimate with another man.

I heard my brother’s quiet sniffles and felt his tears dampening my shirt, and that made me snap back to the present and make an impulse decision. I needed to get him out of here. He didn’t need to hear any more of this. I quickly turned around and walked back out the door, carrying him back to the car and putting him in his booster seat again.

“Why did Dad say I’m a problem, Brendan?” he asked with tears streaming down his cheeks. “What did I do wrong?”

God, I hated my parents. I knew I shouldn’t say that, but I really did. Not for how they treated me, but for how they treated Nathan. It didn’t matter how he’d come into this world. It wasn’t his fault that my mom had cheated on my dad, and it wasn’t his fault that they hated each other. He was just a little kid who’d never done anything except love them and depend on them, but they both took their issues with each other and their marriage out on him because he was an easy target. And that was inexcusable.

“He didn’t mean that, bud,” I choked out. “He was just mad at Mom. People say things they don’t mean sometimes when they’re mad at each other. But I think they need a little time to calm down, so what do you think about going for some ice cream?”

“Okay,” he mumbled, looking down at his hands.

“Listen to me, Nate,” I said, trying desperately to bury everything I was feeling about this situation and what I’d just learned so I could take care of him. “You arenota problem, and you arenota mistake. God has a plan for every single one of us, and He wouldn’t have let you be born if you weren’t meant to be here. And you have so many people who love you. You’ve got Darla and Naomi and Heather and Alex and Peter and Marie and all your friends from church, and you’ve got me. You’re my brother, and I’ll always be here for you, no matter what.”

“Promise?” he asked, looking at me with big, wide eyes.

“Promise.” I tried to crack a smile. “Okay, come on. Let’s go load up on sugar.”

I drove him to our favorite hole-in-the wall ice cream shop, which was in a small strip mall right next to the Rhees’ Asian market. And as we were walking toward the entrance, I saw Mrs. Rhee’s car pull into the parking lot. Mrs. Rhee and Naomi got out of the front seat, and then Darla, Kate, and Ashton all piled out of the backseat. I was a little shocked to see Darla with Kate and Ashton outside of school, but I was thrilled that she was able to spend some time with them somewhere other than at our lunch table in the cafeteria.

“Darla!” Nathan exclaimed.

Her head immediately turned in our direction, and the biggest smile spread across her face. My heart squeezed, and I wished like hell that we were alone. I needed to talk to someone about everything I’d just heard my parents say, and she was the only one I trusted enough to tell. Well, that wasn’t true. I wouldn’t have minded Naomi, Kate, and Ashton hearing either, but I wasn’t about to say another word about it in front of my brother.

“Can we go say hi?” he asked, tugging on my hand.

I chuckled. “Of course.”

He started to take off in her direction, and I jogged after him, making sure to keep hold of his hand since we were in the middle of a parking lot. Darla crouched down and held her arms open, so when we were about ten feet away from the group, I let go, and he ran straight into them.

“Hey, little man,” she laughed. “It’s good to see you.”

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