by T. L. Haddix
That she’d not given birth to Warren didn’t make him any less her own. From the first day she’d laid eyes on him, looking utterly lost and so much like Caleb it twisted her heart, she’d been his mother.
As she tried to call sleep to her, she went back through the days, the years, wondering if they’d done the right thing by him at various points in his life. Wondering if Warren would be able to heal and move on from a loss so damned tragic, most of the family was still wounded from having suffered it with him. If she’d been in his shoes, she didn’t know if she’d have made it through.
It was a pure miracle he’d come out as unscathed as he had. Life hadn’t been kind to Warren in a lot of ways through the years, though she and Caleb had fought hard to make the time he had with them good. Remembering how lost Warren had been that first day thirteen years ago and how happy he’d become over time, she thought that surely they’d succeeded to some degree.
“Who’s the boy in the waiting room?” Brooke had just gotten back from the bank. She was standing in the hall beside Gina, the clinic’s senior vet tech and one of Brooke’s closest friends.
They both cast glances at the reception area, where a dark-haired boy took turns sitting and pacing.
Gina’s mouth tightened, and her eyes dropped to the order sheet she held, a telltale sign she wasn’t comfortable. She glanced at Brooke’s just-visible baby bump and grunted. “I’m not sure. Walker’s in with his mother now. You should go talk to him. The boy, I mean. It’s a good thing we’re closed for lunch. I need to check this. Excuse me.”
Her reaction was odd, and Brooke stared after her as Gina hurried down the hall toward the back. A shiver of foreboding rose up from Brooke’s neck into her hair, but she shook it off.
“Talking to him sounds like an excellent idea,” she muttered.
When she opened the door to the reception area and the boy looked up, she drew in a sharp breath. Gina’s reticence suddenly made sense. The boy looked just like Caleb in pictures from when he was young.
Squaring her shoulders and making a silent promise to throttle her husband later, she smiled. “Hi. I’m Brooke. What’s your name?”
“Warren. Warren Sullivan.” He gave a quick shrug and dropped his eyes briefly, but when she stepped toward him, his gaze flew back up to watch her, wary.
That wariness destroyed her, and the name confirmed her fears somewhat. She sat in a chair across from him, not wanting to crowd him. “Well, Warren Sullivan, what brings you in today?”
He got to his feet with a restless move and went to the large fish tank, looking into its depths with a frown. “My mom. She’s talking to the doctor. Do you know him?” He didn’t quite look at Brooke, but turned his head in her direction as he scratched his ear.
“I do. He’s my husband.” When a soft gurgling sounded, making him turn toward her with surprise, her face flushed. She put a hand over her belly. “I’m sorry. I stay hungry these days.”
A tiny smile popped onto his face. “I thought it was me.”
They laughed awkwardly.
Brooke bit her lip. “Do you want to come to the back, to the kitchen? I can scare us up something to eat.”
Another half shrug and a wary look. “I guess.”
When she stood, he edged toward the door then hurried to hold it open. “You’re having a kid?” he asked when she thanked him.
“I am, in a few months.” She touched her belly. “It’s our first.”
That wasn’t strictly true, she thought with a familiar pang. They’d lost a baby early on, almost before she’d known she was pregnant. But she wasn’t going to explain that today, not to a stranger and certainly not to a child.
In the kitchen, she quickly pulled together a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches for them, as well as some chocolate milk. Warren’s sandwich was gone almost before she had a chance to sit down, and ditto the milk. Without asking, she went back to the small stove and made another sandwich. This time, she added ham and tomatoes.
“What kind of work do you do?” She winked at him when she handed him the plate, startling another of those precious smiles from him.
“I’m just a kid.”
“Really? Huh. I’d have pegged you for being at least twenty-five.”
He grinned. “Nah. I’m only eight. I mean nine. I just had a birthday last week.”
When he didn’t inhale the second sandwich quite as fast, she breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He wasn’t starving then. But he was awfully skinny for a nine-year-old, and small for his age. His hair was shiny, if a bit ragged, and his skin and clothes looked clean, even if the latter were somewhat worn and too small for his frame.
That he’d not made a big deal over having a birthday told her more than words that it hadn’t been a good one, or at least not one that stood out. She didn’t know anyone under twenty-one who didn’t light up when talking about birthdays. She didn’t want to consider that this boy—who, given his looks, was quite probably closely related to her husband by blood—was neglected in any way. Even if he’d not been who and what she suspected, the idea that he wasn’t cared for would have eaten away at her.
They were talking about a popular TV show a short time later when footsteps sounded from down the hall. To her surprise, her father and her brother stepped inside the kitchen.
“Hi, Daddy. Brandon. What are you doing here?”
“There’s my girl,” Judge Arlen Harrison said as he came over for a hug. He was wearing what she thought of as his “judicial” smile, the one he donned when meeting people in a professional setting.
“Walker called us,” Brandon said. “He wanted to have a discussion.” Even though her brother was out of uniform, it didn’t take a genius to figure out he was in law enforcement. It also didn’t take knowing him well to see he was tense.
Arlen sat beside her with a soft grunt and looked across the table. “You must be Warren.”
Warren was scowling, watching the men closely. “Am I in trouble?”
“Not at all.” Arlen waved. “Your mom and Walker asked us to stop by. Brooke, do you think I could have a few minutes alone with this young man?”
She didn’t answer immediately but studied her father’s face before turning to Warren. “Would you be okay with that?”
Her instincts screamed at her that the boy needed to be involved in whatever was going on, and she wasn’t about to leave him if he was too wary. If she did, he might just get up and run out the door.
The scowl was gone, replaced by sad resignation. “I’m fine.”
“I’ll be in the reception area if you need me,” she told him as she left, looking back over her shoulder. His dejected posture broke her heart. Whatever was coming, the boy was expecting it.
Brandon went with her, but he didn’t let her go into the reception area. Instead, he tugged her into the waiting room, placing them in the farthest corner from the door into the rest of the clinic. Before she could ask, he crossed his arms and started talking.
“Walker’s not his father, so get that out of your head right now,” he said in a low voice, his eyes full of sympathy. “Warren’s his brother. She’s here to see if you two will take him in. She’s been living in a little town up near the prison where Gene’s serving time, and she’s barely able to put food on the table. I guess now that he’s getting bigger, she can’t handle him.”
Gene Sullivan was Caleb’s biological father, a man who’d been convicted of arson and sent to prison by Arlen Harrison himself.
Brooke laid a hand on her belly and sank into a chair, closing her eyes. “Oh, dear God, it’s Caleb all over again.”
Brandon sighed and sat beside her. “Yeah. I’m sorry, sis.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to say. Why’d he call you two instead of telling me?”
“He was afraid if he let her out of his sight for a second, she’
d bolt. Dad’s going to enact an emergency guardianship, and I’m here to catch her if she runs. We blocked her car in.” He studied her, touching her shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yes. I’d best tell Gina to keep the clinic closed for a little while today.”
“That wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
They headed back to the kitchen then, staying with Warren as Arlen went to the office to talk with Caleb and Warren’s mother.
The look on Caleb’s face when he emerged from the office a while later with Kimberly Sullivan and Arlen was something that would live in Brooke’s mind forever. Her husband knew exactly the despair Warren was feeling, as his mother had dumped him with a stranger in an eerily similar fashion.
When they came into the kitchen after finishing up the paperwork Arlen had brought, Caleb headed straight for Brooke.
“I’m sorry about this,” he muttered as he hugged her.
Brooke touched his chin. “Don’t even go there. We need to do this?”
He nodded. “We’re all he has.”
She smiled with steely determination. “Then he’s ours.”
He was standing so close to her, she heard his breath catch, and she knew he was struggling to keep his emotions in check. When he turned to lay eyes directly on Warren for the first time, Caleb’s muscles were so tight they could have been strung on a bow.
“Warren, this is Dr. Walker,” Kimberly said, her voice quiet. She laid a hand on her son’s shoulder. “Everything’s taken care of like we discussed.”
Warren and Caleb were staring at each other, a mix of dread and curiosity, pain and anger on their faces.
“You look like me,” Warren said, dropping his eyes to the table where he was quietly spinning the empty paper plate.
“I do. We’re brothers.”
Warren frowned, then looked up. He stared at Caleb, then Brooke. “Brothers.”
Caleb shoved his hands in his back pockets. “That’s right. You’ll be staying with us. The judge told me you understand that, and you’re willing to give it a try.”
A bitter sneer passed briefly across Warren’s face. “I have to.” He ducked his head when Kimberly swatted at him.
If Brooke hadn’t grabbed Caleb’s arm, he’d have gone across the table at her. He didn’t say a word, but the look he sent Warren’s mother was so full of fury, she stepped back.
“You don’t have a choice, that’s true,” Caleb said a minute later when the tension in the room had lessened enough for everyone to breathe. He took the seat directly across from Warren. “I’m sorry. I’ve been where you are. But I promise you, you won’t ever have to go through something like this again. You’re home now. It might take a while for you to believe that, but you’re welcome here.”
“You don’t even know me.” Warren glanced over his shoulder at his mother, but he continued. “Why do you care?”
Caleb reached out a hand, not quite halfway across the table, but enough of a gesture that it didn’t go unnoticed. “Because I was you not that long ago. I was thirteen instead of nine. Same type of situation, but a few of the details are different. My mom wasn’t married to our father like your mom is.”
Warren met his eyes. “You found a home?”
For the first time in what felt like years, Brooke saw a real smile touch Caleb’s face. “I found a damned good home.”
The sigh the boy let out was too big for his body. “You got lucky then.”
“I did. And you don’t know it yet, but so did you. At least I think so.”
Kimberly left not long after that. So far as Brooke knew, that was the last time Warren had seen her. He didn’t protest or cry when she left. Instead, he just stood there with a level of stoic acceptance that was devastating to watch. In his mind, it was a done deal, and there was no use fighting. He was at the full mercy of the adults in his life and utterly resigned to his fate with a sadness that haunted her to this day.
Before Kimberly left, Brooke got every scrap of information from her that she was able to about Warren’s health, his schooling, all the pertinent information a mother should have. She was well aware from knowing Caleb’s story that she probably wouldn’t get another shot at finding out.
That night, they’d settled Warren into the half-finished nursery.
“I guess we’ll have to rethink this remodeling and bedroom situation,” Caleb said. He was propped against the dresser, watching Brooke fuss over Warren, a half-smile on his face. “He’s gonna be stuck in that bed if you tuck him in any tighter.”
She made a face at him and blew a raspberry. “I don’t want him to get cold.”
“I’m okay,” Warren told her with a grin that was so like Caleb’s, it melted her heart. But the grin faded. “I won’t take up much room. You’ll need it for your kid soon, right?”
She brushed a wavy lock of hair off his forehead. “Yes, we’ll need a place for the baby, but you need a good room too, and you’re here first, so you get to pick. If you like this one, we can make it yours. If not, we’ll figure something out. We planned on adding more bedrooms at some point anyhow, maybe even an upstairs. Don’t think you’re putting us out by being here. Now, it’s been a long day. Let’s try to get some sleep, okay?”
When she and Caleb reached the living room, he went straight to the window and stared out at the long front yard that stretched beside the driveway. Without speaking, she slid her arms around him and held on. She didn’t realize he was crying until something wet splashed her arm.
Tightening her hold, she sighed. “He’s okay. He’ll be okay.”
“I know.” He sniffed. “He’s ours now. Of course he’ll be okay. He’ll be loved and fed and protected, and he’ll have brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and grandparents… it’s just that he doesn’t know all that. All he knows right now is the hurt.”
Getting Warren to believe them, to be able to let go of the hurt, took time. It didn’t come all at once, and sometimes it didn’t come easily. But there’d never been a single day when he hadn’t been a welcome part of their family, and once he believed that, the world opened up for him.
When he was sixteen, he started working after school and on weekends with Caleb in the clinic. That summer, pregnant with Hadley and needing help, Brooke had advertised for a part-time assistant. Jessie was the girl they hired. If Brooke closed her eyes, she could still see the look on Warren’s face when he’d set eyes on Jessie for the first time. In that instant, a look of pure wonder and discovery had crossed his face. Of course, he’d then tripped and fallen flat on his face, but the damage was done. His heart belonged to her from that day on.
Jessie later shyly confessed that she’d fallen for him just as hard as he had literally fallen for her.
Brooke had thought they’d be together forever. She really had. Yes, they were young, and yes, they had blow-ups. But they fit each other so well, and they made each other laugh. Jessie kept Warren in line—not an easy task, as he was full of energy—and she made him strive to be a better man.
He’d come to Brooke after his and Jessie’s first serious date, scared to death he’d done something wrong or gotten her pregnant. It had been a painfully awkward conversation for both of them, but in the end, Brooke was fairly certain she’d reassured him.
When he proposed and Jessie said yes, as if there was ever any doubt, Brooke was the first person they told.
After Jessie did end up pregnant right after they married, a little sooner than they’d planned, Brooke had been the one to go with them to tell her parents.
The day Jessie had gone in for what should have been a routine glucose test, Warren had asked Brooke to go with her. He had to work, and, terrified of needles, Jessie was nervous. She wasn’t close to her own mother, and Warren didn’t want her to be alone. Of course, Brooke had agreed.
Brooke had been the one holding Jessie’s hand, teasing her as a
lab tech took her blood, when Jessie fainted. Brooke had been in the room when the stunned nurses rushed to revive her, then to try to save the baby when they saw Jessie was beyond help. Brooke had been there when they failed.
Jessie had had a heart condition no one knew about, something her doctor had overlooked during a routine physical a couple of years earlier. She never should have gotten pregnant, as the strain on her heart was simply too much for her to bear.
Warren had never come to Brooke again after that. Not for advice or support. Irrational with grief, he believed she’d let Jessie die, blamed her for the death of his wife, his child. And he blamed himself.
Brooke had never stopped trying to reach him, but all her overtures were met with anger. It wasn’t until after he’d been arrested for assault and sent to jail after drying out that he started talking to her again. And it wasn’t until he’d become immersed in the rehab program that they’d been able to talk about forgiveness.
To this day, she wasn’t fully sure whether he had stopped blaming her. She wasn’t even sure he should.
A quiet sigh sounded from beside her, and Caleb’s arm stretched across her body. He rested his head on her shoulder for a moment, then he kissed the bare skin. “He’s fine.”
Brooke gave a soft snort, turning her face to nuzzle him. “How’d you know I was worrying about him?”
“You’re his mother.” He buried a yawn in the pillow beside her head. “The boy has a good shot, sweetheart. As good a shot as he’s ever had. You have to believe that.”
She rolled over, tucking her back into his front. “I want to. Do you think he’ll take the job?”
“He’d be stupid not to, and Warren’s never been stupid, except when he’s drinking. I think he wants a second chance. He just doesn’t know where to start on getting it. Tomorrow, he’ll know.” He placed a soft kiss on her neck beneath her ear. “Get some sleep, Momma, or else I’ll be tempted to keep you awake for a while.”
Brooke smiled. “You need your rest, old man.” But she didn’t protest when his hand came up to cup her breast.
