My Vows Are Sealed (Sealed With a Kiss)

by Carmen Richter

  “You’ve always protected her,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “Ever since I’ve known you. Even before you knew you were doing it. I saw how you flinched and tried to shield her when he yelled at her. The terror in your eyes when she ran out of the room with her head down. You didn’t know what he was doing, but you knew she was afraid of him.”

  A lump rose in my throat and I swallowed it, chasing it down with about half of the coffee-flavored water in my cup. I could see where she was going with this already, and I hated that she would blame herself for any part of what her husband had done.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I managed to say, just above a whisper, as a few tears leaked out of my eyes. “I think I’ve always known that I was meant to protect her. Even before I really understood how or why.”

  “I wasn’t strong enough,” she sobbed. “I couldn’t stop him. I tried. God, I tried. I let him do whatever he wanted to me if he would just leave her alone, but it wasn’t enough for him. It was never enough. And the older she got, the worse it was. But then she found you. I heard you in her room at night sometimes and I thanked God that you were stronger than I was. Thanked God that you loved her enough to want to take her away from that life.”

  Wait. What? I knew from reading her letter that she’d known about us, but why hadn’t she said or done anything if she knew that I was sneaking into Darla’s room at night?

  “You heard us?” I choked out, surprised I could speak at all.

  She nodded. “After he went to sleep, I’d go kneel outside her door, praying to God for her protection. And He did protect her. He sent you to her. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I need you to promise me that you’ll keep protecting her and that baby. That you’ll take care of them. Because I can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t. I can’t even afford the mortgage payment anymore if Abraham gets arrested.”

  I swallowed the rest of my coffee in one long gulp, then tossed the cup in the trash and pulled my future mother-in-law into my arms, resting my chin on her head. I felt her tears soaking through my shirt, and I shed a few more of my own as I searched for the words to say. I wished I could tell her that I’d find a way to support her too, but I knew I couldn’t do that. Not while I was trying to figure out a way to support her grandchild as it was.

  “I promise,” I whispered. “Darla’s my whole life. Her and our baby. I’ll always take care of them and protect them. And I’d die before I ever hurt them.”

  It was after midnight by the time Darla and I finally got back to my apartment. But I was just glad the police had finished processing it and we could come back. We both needed comfort and familiarity after the day we’d had, and we needed to be able to go to sleep in our own bed.

  When I opened the door, which was already unlocked because Abraham had broken the doorframe forcing his way in, Darla froze. Looking ahead, I saw the broken coffee table and the vomit on the floor where she’d thrown up while he was attacking her, and it made me pause.

  Maybe staying here for the night wasn’t the smartest idea. Especially since the best thing I could do to keep anyone else from getting in was barricade the door with a chair. The police had already told me that they were going to have someone come and fix it tomorrow, but we still had to get through tonight.

  “Do you want to get a hotel room for the night, baby?” I murmured.

  “I…I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I just want to sleep. And I’m hungry and in pain.”

  “It’s just a broken table and a messy carpet,” I reminded her. “We’ll get it cleaned up in the morning, and we’ll have a new doorframe tomorrow. But if you don’t want to stay here tonight, we can go somewhere else.”

  Darla just burrowed further into my side, and I felt some tears wetting my shirt. “I’m too tired to go anywhere else.”

  “Okay. Come on. Let’s get you in bed, and then I’m going to figure out something to keep this door shut for the night. Okay?”

  She nodded, so I led her inside, shutting the door behind us, and made a beeline for the bedroom. When we got there, she sank down onto the bed, and I put the bag containing our oh-so-nutritious dinner from McDonald’s on the nightstand before heading to her drawer in my dresser and grabbing a tank top and pair of sleep shorts for her. I went to kneel in front of her and carefully slid her shirt up, slipping it over her head and gently pulling it down her arms, making sure not to disturb the elaborate splint they’d put her broken arm in until she could see an orthopedic doctor in a couple of days.

  When I saw the bruising around her stomach and above her wrapped ribs, that was the last straw. I just broke down in tears as the reality of close I’d come to losing her hit me for the first time. My entire body heaved with my sobs as I buried my head in her lap and bawled my eyes out, contemplating a world where she didn’t exist anymore.

  “Brendan,” she murmured, combing her fingers through my hair. “Shh. Brendan, it’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” I sobbed. “None of this is okay. I’m supposed to protect you. I’m supposed to protect both of you. And I…he almost…I wasn’t here. You needed me and I wasn’t here.”

  “Yes, you were. You stopped him,” she said softly. “You saved my life. Our lives. I’m alive and this baby is alive because of you. You’re my hero, Brendan. My knight in shining armor. And I love you so much. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  I lifted my head, looking at the blue and purple splotched skin on her stomach and remembering the abject terror I’d felt watching her use every last bit of strength she had left to shield our child from harm. Struggling to catch a breath, I planted a watery kiss there, then looked up at her.

  “Kiss me, Brendan,” she whispered. “I’d meet you halfway, but—”

  I didn’t let her finish that sentence. I shot up to my feet and captured her mouth in a searing kiss, immediately seeking her tongue out and tangling mine around it. She let out a soft moan and wrapped her good arm around my neck as she stood up and deepened the kiss even more. And in that moment, it was just me and her and our love for each other. The love that had defied the odds and persevered through every obstacle that life had thrown in our path. All of the pain, heartache, fear, and confusion just melted away, leaving only the strength to keep fighting and the hope for a better future.

  Chapter 34

  Darla

  Don’t Ask Me No Questions

  It was almost three in the afternoon by the time Brendan and I got back from my appointment with the orthopedic doctor. Just as we were walking in the door, my cell phone rang, so I slowly made my way to the couch, then dug through my purse until I found the phone and checked the screen for the now-missed call.

  It had come from the church office. It wasn’t in my phone’s address book, but I knew that phone number almost as well as I knew my house number.

  I tried to fill my lungs with air, but I couldn’t manage to take a single breath as I considered the very real possibility that my father might have made bail and somehow found my cell phone number. Pain sliced through every nerve ending in my entire body as I started to tremble violently, but no matter how much I tried, and despite the fact that my broken ribs and freshly-set arm felt like they were on fire, I couldn’t stop it.

  My father’s bail had been set at half a million dollars, pending the trial he was insisting on because he’d refused to take a deal with the district attorney. Because my mom wasn’t about to lift even a finger to help him, we’d all assumed that would be enough to keep him in jail. But he had a whole congregation full of loyal parishioners who would have been only too happy to donate money to the cause. He’d pulled the wool over their eyes for so long that it wouldn’t have been a stretch for them to believe his version of events instead of mine.

  “Dar? Baby, look at me. Talk to me,” I heard Brendan’s voice saying, but it sounded like he was far away.

  A comforting hand landed on my cheek, and suddenly I found myself looking into my favorite pair of blue eyes. Eyes that were now wide with fear and conce
rn.

  “What just happened, baby?” he said softly as he stroked my cheek with his thumb.

  “That was the church office,” I whispered. “My dad…he must have made bail.”

  He gave me a sad smile. “I don’t think so, baby. We would have been notified. You gave Peter and Marie your cell number at the hospital so they could call and check up on you, remember?”

  Right. I’d completely forgotten about that. But I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong.

  “But what…what if it was him?” I countered. “Something’s not right, Brendan. I can feel it.”

  “Do you want me to call back?”

  I nodded meekly. I hated that I was still so on edge that a simple phone call could send me into a tailspin. I hated that I still jumped at every sudden noise and that I could just tell if Brendan got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, even if I was dead asleep before, because I could tell that my protector wasn’t there anymore.

  “Okay,” he murmured, kissing my forehead. “Take some deep breaths, Dar. I’m not going to let anything else happen to you.”

  He sat down next to me, and I leaned back into his arms. He carefully adjusted me so he could hold me with just one arm, then pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pushed a few buttons before holding it to his ear.

  “Hey, Peter,” he said a few seconds later. “It’s Brendan. Did you just try to call Darla’s phone?”

  There was a slight pause as Peter spoke, and my entire body sagged in relief as I realized that my fears were completely unfounded.

  “No, she’s awake,” Brendan told him. “We just got back from getting a cast put on her arm. She saw the church office number on her caller ID and was scared that her dad had made bail and was trying to call her.”

  There was another pause before Brendan spoke again.

  “Hang on just a second. I’ll let you tell her yourself. She’s right here. I’m going to put you on speakerphone.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and hit the button to put it on speakerphone. “Okay, you’re on speaker.”

  “Darla?” came Peter’s garbled voice through the crappy speaker on the cell phone.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” I mumbled.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he said apologetically. “I should have called you from my cell phone instead of the office number. I should have known.”

  I felt a pang of guilt that he was blaming himself for my neurotic episode. He shouldn’t have been apologizing because I was acting like a crazy person.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I told him. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Well, I have two broken ribs and a broken arm, and the strongest thing I can take for pain is extra-strength Tylenol, so…” I trailed off. “They gave me a little morphine at the doctor’s appointment just so I could get through them setting the bone, but it’s wearing off.”

  “Oof,” he chuckled humorlessly. “That’s no fun.”

  “Not so much, no,” I agreed, chuckling weakly.

  “I hate to ask this when you’re still recovering, but were you two planning on coming to church tonight?”

  Oh, my God. It was Wednesday. My life used to be so centered around church that I could always tell what day it was based on how long ago I’d gone to church. And now the days were all starting to run together and I’d lost all concept of time. How had that happened?

  I wished I could find the strength to go tonight. I hadn’t set foot in a church in over three months, and I missed it. A lot. I missed the people. I really missed seeing Nathan. I missed leaving there feeling just a little closer to God than when I’d walked in. But just going to the doctor to get my arm set and put in a cast had completely exhausted me and I was still loopy and tired from the morphine too. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to deal with the looks and the judgment that would come with going back to that church. My father had been telling everyone who would listen his version of events for months, and it would probably take a lot of convincing for them to believe that he was the one who had done this to me. And even if they did believe that, I was still a pregnant, not-yet-married seventeen-year-old. There would be looks and judgment aplenty just for that.

  “I don’t know if I’m up for it,” I mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. I was…I was just hoping you were coming, because some new information’s been uncovered about your father’s case, and I thought it might be easier if it came from me. I was hoping we could talk before the service.”

  What? What information could have been uncovered that Peter would have found out about? This made absolutely no sense.

  “What information?”

  “Darla, this really isn’t a conversation we should have over the phone.” Peter’s voice broke, like he was having a hard time keeping his composure. “If you don’t think you’re up for it today, maybe we can meet up tomorrow or the next day?”

  Maybe it was the morphine or the pain, but I could not understand what he could possibly have to tell me that he didn’t want to say over the phone. But I did know that, whatever it was, it had to be serious.

  As tired as I was, and as scared as I was of the looks and the judgment and the ridicule, we had to go. Peter wanted us there for some reason, and he and Marie had done so much for me over the years that I couldn’t say no to him now. And, really, the longer I put off going back to church, the worse it would be when I finally did set foot in there again.

  “No, we can come tonight,” I sighed. “We’ll see you in a little while.”

  When Brendan and I walked into the church lobby, it was eerily quiet. Being the pastor’s daughter, I’d been in here plenty of times while no one else was around, but today, it was different somehow. I didn’t feel the usual sense of peace that usually accompanied the solitude. This was more like the eye of a hurricane. Like a little moment of calm just before all hell broke loose again.

  Brendan walked over and opened the door that led down a hall to all the offices, and it was a complete contrast from the dead silence out in the lobby. There were at least half a dozen people all but tearing apart the entire alcove where the offices sat, and Peter was standing there next to the two detectives who were handling my case, looking completely shell-shocked.

  “Peter?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

  Every eye in the entire place turned and focused on me, and I shied away from the intense scrutinization by burying my face in Brendan’s chest. He enveloped me in his arms and dropped a kiss on my head.

  “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to ask you two to leave,” an unfamiliar voice said. “This is a crime scene.”

  “It’s okay, Agent Thomas,” I heard Detective Michele saying. “This is Mr. Jones’s daughter and her fiancé. We’ll use Mr. Schultz’s office, since you’re done in there.”

  What in the world was going on? Why was the church office a crime scene? I mean, yeah, I’d told Detective Michele that my father had whipped me with his belt in his office, but I didn’t think that would rise to the level of them needing to declare the entire office alcove a crime scene. Would it?

  “Come on, guys,” Peter sighed, looking like he’d aged a thousand years since I’d seen him last. “Come into my office. Agents, if you need anything, just knock.”

  He opened the door to the office I’d been in a thousand times before and ushered us inside, and Detective Michele and Detective King followed, shutting the door behind us.

  “Darla, you can take my comfortable chair,” Peter chuckled weakly.

  I cracked half a smile as I made my way behind his desk and sank down into the cushy office chair. Brendan grabbed one of the chairs from the other side and dragged it around so he could sit next to me, then took my hand and kissed it. Peter sat across from us and rested his elbows on the desk, burying his head in his hands as he took several deep breaths, almost like he was afraid of actually telling me whatever new
s he’d wanted to deliver in person. The detectives remained standing, looking like they’d rather have been anywhere else than here.

  “I don’t even know how to say this,” Peter finally said, raising his head to look at me. “Um…I was in your father’s office looking for any notes he had on the Ten Commandments sermon series he was in the middle of. I figured I could pick up where he left off. And…”

  I was shocked to see a few tears building up in his eyes, and he swallowed hard, then took another deep breath. He’d always made it beyond evident how much he cared about this church and our congregation, especially the kids, but I’d never seen him get this emotional before. About anything. The closest I’d ever seen him come to this was at the hospital a couple of days ago.

  “There was a whole shelf of videotapes with past sermon dates labeled on them. I picked up the most current one to watch it so I could refresh myself,” he choked out. “But…it wasn’t a sermon. It was a video of—”

  This time, there was no stopping the tears from falling down his cheeks. He just let them come, burying his head in his hands again as he broke down in sobs. Detective Michele cast a sympathetic look in his direction, then came to sit on the edge of the desk, facing us.

  “Darla, is there anything you left out in the statement you gave me? Anything else your father did to you?” she asked quietly.

  Oh, my God. There was only one reason that I could think of why she would have asked me that. I already knew what my father had done to Ethan. I knew what he’d almost done to me, and what he’d been doing to my mother for years. I knew exactly what kind of evil, horrible things the man who had donated his sperm to bring me into this world was capable of. So if there was a whole shelf full of videotapes…

  Exactly how many children had my father hurt?

  And was there no end to the amount of tears I would shed over all the pain and harm he’d caused? Because if there was, I hadn’t reached it yet. I didn’t even have the energy to fight the tears that streamed down my cheeks.