Page 132 of My Vows Are Sealed

“Yes, of course,” Detective Michele assured him. “I’ll go ask them to wrap up.”

She left the room, and I looked at Peter, completely confused.

“You really still want to have a service tonight?” I asked.

He let out a humorless chuckle as he sniffled and wiped his eyes. “Oh, yeah. But no one is going to like what I have to say tonight. If you and Darla are up to it, I’d really like it if you stayed. This congregation is about to hear some hard truths about the man they’ve idolized for all these years, and I think it’ll be easier for them to believe it if they see the two of you with their own two eyes.”

I hated the idea of exploiting ourselves like this and subjecting ourselves to the humiliation and ridicule that was sure to come when they found out that we’d conceived a child out of wedlock. But at the same time, Peter was right. Abraham had dug his hooks into this congregation so deep that it was going to take a lot to deprogram them. Seeing the evidence of the harm he’d caused with their own two eyes would definitely make it sink in more.

I nodded. “I’ll go check on her and ask.”

I got up and left the office, feeling like I was in a daze as I walked back out into the lobby. But I snapped out of it immediately when I heard my mother talking to a group of old ladies who were just as stuck-up and brainwashed as she was.

“I just can’t believe this,” a woman named Mildred said. “I’m just praying that the Lord will give him strength and provide a way to send him back to us.”

“He’s such an inspiration. I just feel for him that his own daughter would tell such vicious lies about him,” Rebecca said. “I wish I could give more.”

“He’s staying strong,” my mom said. “He has faith that the Lord’s truth will prevail and he’ll be set free. We’re about halfway there. If everyone in the congregation can give as much as they can, I have faith that we’ll be able to post his bail and get him back to us.”

Oh, my God. Were these women actually serious? I mean…were they? Didn’t they realize that they sounded like the fucking Manson Girls? There wassomuch evidence that Darla and I were the ones who were telling the truth, but they were still choosing to believehiminstead? Really?

“Vicious lies?” I scoffed before I could stop myself. “Are you actually serious?”

My mom turned to look at me, and if looks could kill, I would have been six feet under.

“You havenoroom to talk!” she spat. “You should be the one behind bars! Kidnapping and violating that troubled girl and then brainwashing her to turn against her own father!”

“If youreallybelieve I’m capable of even a tenth of that, why thehellwould you let me spend so much time alone with Nathan, Mom?” I challenged. “Or do you really care that little about your own son? You don’t give a fuck who takes him off your hands as long as someone does?”

“Brendan! How dare you use that language with your own mother?” Rebecca gasped.

“How dareyoustand there and protect an abusivemonsterwho almost killed his own daughter and tried to force an abortion on her yesterday?” I spat.

“He never did that!” my mother growled. “Hestoppedher from having an abortion! She wanted to kill that innocent child, and he intervened! He told me so!”

Yeah, that sounded like something he’d do. He knew that the second he said the dreaded A-word at this church, it would make everyone fly into a tizzy.

“He. Tried. To. Force. It. On. Her,” I choked out. “He tried to killyour grandchild,Mom. After he kicked Darla in the stomach and failed to make her lose the baby that way.”

“Well…well…a child conceived out of wedlock is born in sin,” my mom stammered, like she was grasping at straws. “He wanted to keep his little girl pure!”

Again, I knew I should just shut my mouth, but I couldn’t help it. Twenty years’ worth of frustration and anger was pouring out of me, and I couldn’t make it stop. I had to keep going.

“And thefiftychildren he molested right in the back of that office? What part of violating them and stealing their childhoods was about keepingthempure?” I growled.

Before I knew what was happening, I felt the sting of a slap across my face.

“Howdareyou, Brendan?!” my mother screeched. “Pastor Jones is a man of God! He wouldnevertoucha child!”

“You don’t have to take my word for it, Mom,” I gritted out. “Go ask the half-dozen FBI agents who are going over the church office right now with a fine-toothed comb and seizing all of the videos of the acts as evidence. Go ask Peter, who thought he was going to be watching a tape of an old sermon today and found himself watching a video of the pastor of this church violating a child instead!”

Darla quietly joined us, and one look at her told me that she was in absolute agony right now. Her face was as white as a sheet, a thin layer of sweat was on her brow and upper lip, and I felt her whole body shaking as she burrowed herself into my side. I slipped my hand around her waist, gripping as tight as I dared to so she could put some of her weight on me. My mom’s eyes widened for a split second before the same defiant look returned to her face.

“No. Abraham told me he didn’t do this, and I believe him,” she insisted stubbornly.

“Just like youbelievedhim instead of a scared little girl who begged you for help because her daddy was beating her?” I rasped, my eyes stinging with tears of frustration. “Just like you turned a blind eye as you watched Darla come to church with bruises, dislocated joints, and broken ribs for years?”

“He would never abuse a child!”

---