Page 127 of My Vows Are Sealed

“Mom?” she asked timidly, her voice breaking.

As much as it physically pained me, I let go of my fiancée and backed away so her mother could have a moment with her. Gloria scurried over and caught her daughter up in a gentle hug.

“Oh, honey,” she sniffled. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m okay, Mom,” Darla choked out. “I’m hurt, but I’ll be okay. How are you here? It’s not safe. He’s still here too.”

“Peter and Marie called me. And I know coming here was a risk, but you’re more important. You and that little angel. How far along are you?” she asked.

Really? That was all she had to say? Nothing about how she was disappointed in her daughter for getting pregnant out of wedlock? Nothing about how we were just kids ourselves and had no business raising one? It wasn’t that I wasn’t glad for that, because I was. I was just surprised.

But at the same time, we needed someone on our side in this. We didn’t need the lectures. We neededsomeoneolder than us who believed that we could do this. Our friends all believed in us and were supporting our decision to keep this baby, but that wasn’t the same as having an adult we trusted and looked up to in our corner.

“I just found out yesterday,” Darla sniffled. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for, sweetheart. I love you so much.” Gloria let go of her, then turned to me and gave me a hug too. “Both of you. It won’t be easy, but you’re going to be amazing parents. I just…I wish I could do more to help you.”

Damn it. That did it. I’d thought I was out of tears to cry, but apparently I wasn’t, because more of them stung my eyes.

“We love you too,” I managed to say.

“Thanks for telling me about that, by the way, Brendan,” Alex snarked. “I thought we were friends.”

I snorted as I let go of Gloria and went to sit on the edge of the bed next to Darla. “Sorry. I was a little preoccupied this morning.”

Darla groaned in pain as she scooted over so I could sit on the actual bed instead of the railing, and then burrowed herself into my side and wrapped her arms around me, resting her still-splinted arm on my lap. I draped an arm around her and put my other hand under her chin, tilting her face up for a quick kiss.

“Darla?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

I looked up and saw a man who couldn’t have been much older than me and was dressed in scrubs standing in the doorway.

“That’s me,” she mumbled.

“Hi. I’m Blake from radiology. Okay if I take you for some x-rays?” he asked.

She nodded, and I pressed my lips to her hair before letting go of her and standing up.

“We’ll all be here when you get back,” I promised. “I love you.”

The rest of the gang stepped to different sides of the room to clear a path for Blake, and he wheeled Darla’s bed out of the room. I turned to Peter and Marie, expecting to see…I didn’t even know. Judgment. Disappointment. Pretty much anything other than the sad smiles they were both wearing.

“What, no lecture?” I asked, only half-joking.

I’d figuredsomeonewas going to say something about the fact that Darla and I weren’t married yet, but it was like everyone was avoiding the subject or something.

Marie chuckled and walked over to hug me. “It’d be kind of hypocritical if we lectured you.”

“Huh?”

“I told you we had Danny and Dawson less than a year after we got married. What I didn’t tell you was that they were born six months later,” she explained. “And they weren’t premature.”

I would have loved to see my face as I processed what she was saying. It wasn’t that I felt lied to or tricked. Looking back, they’d literallynevertouched on the subject of abstinence or sex in any Sunday school lessons. But they were devout Christians and their faith was important to them, so it was a little shocking to hear that they’d ended up in the same situation that Darla and I now found ourselves in.

“We’re the last people who would judge either of you,” Peter added. “We love you both, and anyone in that church who says anything different will have us to answer to.”

“Damn straight,” Alex agreed. “I can’t stand judgey people. They can all mind their own fudging business.”

Naomi giggled. “Fudging?”

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