My Vows Are Sealed (Sealed With a Kiss)

by Carmen Richter

  I shook my head. “No. I told you everything. The closest he came to…to touching me was the day I left home.”

  Detective Michele took a deep breath. “I wish there was a more delicate way to say this, but those videotapes in his office…they weren’t videos of his sermons. They were taken with a hidden camera in his office, and they go back several years. All of them are videos of your father molesting children just a little younger than you are now.”

  My head spun and bile rose in my throat. Ignoring the screaming protest in my ribs, I shoved back from the desk and grabbed the small trash can beneath it just in time to lose my lunch.

  “How many?” I choked out as soon as I could speak again.

  “Dar,” Brendan murmured as he rubbed my back. “It’s not—”

  “I need to know, Brendan,” I insisted, then looked up at the detectives. “How. Many? How many kids did my father hurt?”

  Detective King sighed. “They’re still going through everything, and your mother’s given us permission to search your house as well, but there were at least fifty tapes here. Some of them are of the same children, and some tapes have more than one child, so we don’t have an exact number yet.”

  My stomach turned again, and I spewed more of its contents into the small, rectangular bin on the floor. Fifty? They’d found over fifty videos of my father hurting kids my age? How hadn’t I known? How hadn’t my mom known? How many kids had I sat next to in youth group over the years, never knowing that my own father was causing them so much trauma and pain?

  “I…I can’t…” I trailed off.

  As fast as my broken ribs would allow, I stood up and rushed out of the room, running from the agents who were tearing up the church office. I opened the door, walked out into the lobby that was slowly starting to fill with parishioners, and made a beeline for the ladies’ room.

  BRENDAN

  It felt like all the wiring in my brain had shorted, leaving me sitting there in Peter’s office just staring off into space as I watched Darla run out of the room.

  Over fifty tapes? And no one had any idea? None of the kids had spoken up? How was that possible?

  Or had they tried to, and their parents had shut them down like Ethan’s parents had done? Unfortunately, knowing the kind of influence he had over this zombie-like congregation, I would have had no trouble believing that.

  “So…I’m guessing he’s not getting out of jail any time soon?” I finally managed to ask.

  Detective King snorted quietly. “Nope. Child pornography is above our pay grade. That’s why the FBI is here. We’re turning that part of Mr. Jones’s case over to them, and even if Mr. Jones cuts a deal, there’s enough content there to put him in federal prison for two or three life sentences, at least.”

  “Um, detectives, you did say something about having them seal the office overnight and come back tomorrow so we could still have our service tonight, correct?” Peter mumbled.

  “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 was so much evidence that Darla and I were the ones who were telling the truth, but they were still choosing to believe him instead? 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 have no room 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 you really believe I’m capable of even a tenth of that, why the hell would 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 dare you stand there and protect an abusive monster who almost killed his own daughter and tried to force an abortion on her yesterday?” I spat.

  “He never did that!” my mother growled. “He stopped her 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 kill your 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 the fifty children he molested right in the back of that office? What part of violating them and stealing their childhoods was about keeping them pure?” I growled.

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

  “How dare you, Brendan?!” my mother screeched. “Pastor Jones is a man of God! He would never touch a 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 you believed him 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!”

  My father approached us, and his eyes widened as he looked at Darla. But unlike my mom, he didn’t dismiss her obvious injuries.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Ruth!” he exclaimed. “When are you going to accept that that man lied to you? When are you going to realize that you destroyed our marriage for a snake oil salesman?!”

  My mom blanched, and it was like a lightbulb turned on over my head. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it sooner. Why my mom just ate everything Abraham said up with a spoon. Why she always took his side in any debate, even against my father. Why my father never seemed like he wanted to come to church anymore. And why my mom was standing here grasping at any straw, any fiber, she could in an attempt to defend a man who was behind bars for assault and battery and was about to be convicted of over fifty counts of possession of child pornography and child molestation.

  “He’s Nate’s father,” I said, barely aware that I was speaking out loud.

  “Oh, my God,” Darla gasped quietly.

  My dad looked at me with a shell-shocked expression. “You know?”

  “I heard you arguing about her affair and Nate one day a few years ago,” I admitted. “I just didn’t know who she had an affair with until now.”

  “He didn’t do this,” my mom mumbled. “He couldn’t have. He’s such a kind, gentle man. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Yes, Miss Ruth, he did do this,” Darla said, a lot more calmly than I would have, as tears started to trail down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. He tried to sexually assault me, and I ran away from home to protect myself. I’ve been living with one of my friends, but I’ve spent a lot of time at Brendan’s apartment too. And when you saw my car in the apartment complex’s parking lot on Friday night and told my dad about it, he broke into Brendan’s apartment, almost killed me, and managed to get Brendan arrested for the crimes he’d committed. Then he refused to leave my side in the hospital and tried to make my doctor kill your unborn grandchild, and the doctor finally had to call security and have them forcibly remove him from my room. I’m so sorry that my dad lied to you, but he’s not who you think he is. But you know what? He did give you an amazing, sweet, curious little boy who I’ve loved from the second I first held him when he was a week old and am proud to call my family. You can always be thankful for Nate, because I know I am, and I know Brendan is.”

  She turned and wrapped her casted arm around me too as she buried her head in my chest and let more tears fall, and I figured that was my cue that I’d fed my mother a big enough slice of humble pie. We could apologize to Peter later for missing the service, but right now, I had to do what was best for Darla. And she and our child had been through enough for one day.

  “Come on, baby,” I whispered, kissing her head and then starting to lead her away from my parents and the old biddies who just parroted everything my mother said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  Darla shook her head. “I want to stay. I’ve missed church. And I really need some Nate time tonight. I’m not letting her take this away from me.”

  “Peter actually asked me if I’d talk to you about going into the main service tonight. He has to address what happened with your dad, and he wants us there to verify what he’s saying. But if you want to just hang out in the kids’ room and spend time with Nate and the twins, we can.”

  “No, if he wants us there, we can go into the main service,” she said immediately. “But can we go see Nate for a few minutes before we go into the sanctuary? I really need a hug from him.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and blinked back the tears stinging my eyes. I didn’t know why it meant so much to me that, if anything, she loved my brother more now that she knew she was biologically related to him. Maybe because it just felt like this solidified the fact that the two of them were both my family, and it just made our bond stronger.

  “Yeah, of course,” I told her.

  “Should we tell him?” she sniffled.

  I sighed. That was a damn good question. I had absolutely no idea how Nathan would take the news that his father wasn’t really his father, and that the man who was his biological father wasn’t a good person. I considered it for a moment and decided I had to go with my gut reaction.

  “I think we should. He needs family who cares about him. And he already loves you so much. But maybe not tonight. I think that’s a conversation we need to have when we’re alone with him.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” she murmured, picking her head up to look at me. “Is it weird that I kind of already knew? I mean, I didn’t know, but I did. I’ve always felt a connection to him that I didn’t feel with any of the other kids.”

  “He feels it too,” I sniffed, wiping a few tears off of my cheek. “You’ve always been family to him. To both of us.”

  “You’ve always been family to me too. Both of you. I can’t imagine my life without you or Nate.”

  “You’ll never have to. Even if my parents never want to speak to either of us again, I’ll fight to make sure Nate stays in our lives,” I promised.

  Chapter 35

  Darla

  Stars

  “Darla!” Nathan exclaimed as he jumped up from where he was sitting on the floor watching VeggieTales and ran over to us. “I was so scared when I saw the news. I knew Mom was lying when she said your dad didn’t do anything.”

  I choked down a sob as I folded my arms around my half-brother and pressed my lips to his head. I honestly had no idea how I hadn’t figured out that I was biologically related to this sweet little boy sooner. We’d always just gotten each other in a much different way than I’d ever experienced with anyone else, even Brendan.

  “I’m okay, little man,” I sniffled. “My arm and a couple of ribs are broken, but I’ll be good as new in no time.”

  “What about the baby?”

  “The baby’s okay too, bud,” Brendan chuckled weakly, ruffling Nathan’s hair. “Darla just has to take it easy for a little while so they can both have some time to heal.”

  “Why are you always messing with my hair, Brendan?” he groaned as he pulled out of my arms and turned to give his brother the stink eye.

  I couldn’t help laughing, but then I instantly regretted it and it turned into a groan. As good as laughter was for the soul, it was not good for my broken ribs.

  “Because I can. That’s why,” Brendan teased. “It’s a perk of being the big brother.”

  I snorted, then looked at the clock and realized it was much later than I thought. “Babe, we should get into the main service.”

  Brendan glanced at the clock too, and his eyes widened a little. “Oh, wow. Yeah, we should.”

  “You’re not staying in here tonight?” Nathan asked with sad puppy dog eyes.

  I almost caved, but if Peter had specifically asked Brendan and I to be in the main service tonight, I knew there had to be a reason for it. He knew how much I loved helping out with the kids, so he knew that asking me to spend a night away from them was asking a lot.

  “I wish we could, but Peter asked me and Brendan to go to the main service tonight,” I told him. “We just came in for a minute because we wanted to say hi. But I promise we’ll hang out soon, just the three of us. Okay?”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  I pulled him into my arms again, squeezing him so tight that it actually hurt my ribs a little. But some things were worth the pain, and Nathan hugs were one of them.

  “I love you, little ma
n,” I whispered. “You know that, right?”

  “I know,” he mumbled. “I love you too.”

  When Brendan and I walked into the sanctuary, I was beyond surprised to see my mom sitting toward the front. After my dad was arrested, I’d figured that she’d lay low for a little while and avoid coming to church. But she was sitting there just staring off into space, looking completely lost and overwhelmed.

  I couldn’t help noticing that this sanctuary was a lot emptier than I remembered. A lot of the people that I used to see at every single service, without fail, weren’t here anymore. It probably shouldn’t have surprised me because my father had just been arrested, but I guessed I’d always just assumed that people were so loyal to him and this church that they’d still be coming here, desperate to still feel close to him somehow.

  Brendan started to lead me over toward my mom, and as we moved through the sanctuary, I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if my father hadn’t ended up as the pastor of this church. If he’d just been a regular guy with a normal blue-collar job. Would he have gotten away with hurting me and my mom for so long? Would his manipulation and lying still have allowed him to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes? Or would someone have stopped him long before it got to this point?

  “Darla,” my mom gasped as I sat down next to her. “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”

  “Peter needed to talk to us,” I sighed. “And he asked us to stay. Did he tell you about what he found in Dad’s office?”

  As she nodded, tears welled up in her eyes, and she pulled me into her arms as she let them fall. I returned the hug, squeezing her tight. I hadn’t even realized how much I’d missed her until I saw her in the hospital.

  Thank You, Jesus, I prayed. Thank You for giving her back to me.

  “Please…please tell me he never touched you like that,” she whispered, her voice breaking.