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Tyler still hung on my leg. “Yes, sir. ”
I FORCED DOWN THE ham-and-cheese sandwich, chips and iced tea, even though sitting here on the back patio at Carrie and Joe’s made me nervous as hell. Part of me waited for the cops to show so Carrie could point at me and say I broke some sort of court order. To cover my ass, I called Mrs. Collins on the way here to tell her about lunch. She reminded me three times to watch my language.
“Come on, Noah, come see my room. ” Jacob tugged on my hand and I glanced at Carrie and Joe for permission. Joe nodded.
This was the grandest house I had ever seen. The house may have been Victorian-era style, but the entire inside rocked out in contemporary. Granite kitchen counters, stainless steel appliances, hardwood floors throughout the first floor and a foyer the size of Dale’s basement.
Jacob rattled on about school and basketball while we walked up the massive staircase. “Tyler’s room is across from mine and Mom and Dad’s is right down the hall. We have two guest bedrooms. Two! Mom and Dad said that if I keep working with my counselor and go another month without nightmares then I can have friends over for a slumber party. I can’t wait…. ”
He led me into a large room and I stopped in the doorway. It was like entering the grade-school version of Pimp My Room. A wooden bunk bed lined the wall. The bottom bunk was a full-size mattress and a slide attached to the top bunk. Jacob had his own television and toys. Toys were everywhere.
A picture frame on Jacob’s dresser caught my eye and made it impossible to breathe. Jacob continued to talk, but I tuned him out as I picked up the frame. I rushed out the words, unsure I could say them without my voice breaking. “Do you know who this is?”
Jacob looked at the picture and then returned to the Bat Cave on the floor. “Yeah. That’s our mom and dad. ” He said it so casually, like everyone had a picture of them.
I sat on the bed and ran a trembling hand over my face. My mom and dad. This was a fucking picture of my parents and they looked … happy. I sucked in a breath, but it sounded more like a sob.
“Jacob?” said Carrie. “Dessert is on the table. ”
Jacob jumped up and then hesitated. “You coming?”
I blinked rapidly. “Yeah, in a sec. ” I kept my eyes locked on the picture.
My brother hurried out the door and I tried hard to shove down the pressure building on my chest. Men don’t cry. My parents. Men don’t cry. Fuck. Men don’t cry. I wiped at my eyes. I missed my parents.
“Are you okay?”
My head shot up; I’d been unaware that Carrie remained in the room. “Yeah. Sorry. ” I motioned with the frame before putting it back on the dresser. “Where did you get this?”
“Joe contacted Habitat for Humanity and asked if they had pictures of your parents. We felt it was important to keep them a part of the boys’ lives. ”
I took a deep, shaky breath and faced her. “But not me. ”
Carrie immediately looked down. “Please don’t take my boys away from me. They’re my whole world and … and I can’t live without them. ”
Joe walked into the room and placed his arm around her waist. “Carrie. ”
She shook like a damn leaf in a hurricane. “We’ll give them everything. Everything. Whatever they want. I swear to you, they’re happy here and I love them. I love them so much my heart hurts. ”
I tried to reach for the anger that had propelled me forward over the past cou
ple of months, but I only found confusion. “They’re my brothers and you’ve kept them from me. What did you expect me to do?”
Carrie began to sob. Joe pulled her into his chest and rubbed her back. “We were scared they’d choose you over us. That we’d lose them. Now, we stand to lose them regardless. ”
Joe whispered something into Carrie’s ear. She nodded and left the room. He scratched the back of his head. “Thank you for what you did for Jacob. You transformed this entire family. ”
Family. Why didn’t he use razor blades and rip me open that way? “You have a nice way of showing your appreciation. ”
“And we were wrong about that. ” Joe knelt by some Legos on the floor and absently dropped them, one at a time, back into the container. “All Carrie ever wanted was children. We tried for years, but Carrie has a medical condition. She had surgery to try to correct it, but it created scar tissue. ”
Unfortunately, I understood scar tissue.
“After she came to terms with the fact that we’d never hold our own natural-born child, we decided on adoption. We met Keesha through a friend and she convinced us to look into foster care. We attended classes, but never really planned on doing it until we met your brothers. Against everything we learned and were told, Carrie and I fell in love with them. ”
He continued to plunk one Lego piece on top of another. “After a few months, we decided to adopt. We had to prove to the court that no one else had claim to them, which we thought would be easy, but it turns out that your mother had living relatives. ”
My eyes narrowed. “Mom and Dad were only children. Mom’s parents died her first year of college. Grandma and Papa died six months apart from each other when I was ten. ”
