I stood outside that office door so long my coffee went cold in my hand.
At first I honestly thought he was cheating on me.
That would’ve hurt less.
“I know,” Brandon whispered into the phone. “But if she finds out now, she’ll never forgive me.”
Then he said it again.
“The only reason I adopted the girls was for HER.”
I couldn’t breathe right for a second. One of the twins laughed softly in the living room behind me at some cartoon and I remember thinking how normal everything sounded while my entire marriage was falling apart three feet away.
Then Brandon started crying.
Not fake crying either. Real crying. The kind where somebody’s trying hard to stay quiet.
He said, “I promised her I would.”
Her.
I pushed the office door open before I could stop myself.
Brandon looked completely panicked seeing me there. His phone actually slipped out of his hand onto the desk.
I just kept asking, “For who? For WHO?”
He looked sick. Like he hadn’t slept in days.
Then one of the girls wandered into the hallway rubbing her eyes half asleep holding her stuffed rabbit.
And Brandon completely broke.
Turns out six years earlier, before I met the twins, Brandon had a younger sister named Kayla.
Drug addiction. Bad boyfriend. In and out of rehab.
When she overdosed, she left behind her two daughters.
The twins.
Brandon found out they were about to be separated into different foster homes.
He told me he panicked because he knew how badly I wanted children, but he was terrified I’d never agree to adopt “his addict sister’s kids” after everything we went through with infertility and failed treatments.
So he lied.
Told the agency we were just regular adoptive parents. Told me it was coincidence we matched so quickly.
Then he looked at me crying and said the part that wrecked me.
“She made me promise they would grow up thinking they were wanted.”