He didn’t need his brother to speak for him.
By the time they were 18, they were good men.
Eli wanted to study engineering. Jonah wanted to go into political science because he liked arguing and, annoyingly, was very good at it.
When the college letters came, they opened them at the kitchen table.
“We did it,” Jonah said.
I laughed, already crying. “No. You did it.”
They both looked at me the same way.
“We,” Eli said quietly.
They were good men.
I drove them to campus myself.
Then I spent 20 minutes crying in my car.
I believed we’d made it. I thought the hard part was over.
Three days later, there was a knock on my door.
And there stood the cheating husband I’d buried 14 years ago with the woman who had the same eyes as my sons.
He gave me a quick once-over, then he smiled. “Well. Thanks for taking care of our boys.”
There stood the cheating husband I’d buried 14 years ago
“If it weren’t for you,” the woman added, “we wouldn’t have been able to live the life we wanted. Travel, build connections… You know how expensive kids are.”
For a second, I was too stunned to feel anything.
I was still struggling to process the astounding fact that they were alive. I hadn’t even wrapped my brain around the way they were thanking me like I was a pet sitter who’d been watching their dogs for a weekend.
Then Josh said, “We’ll be taking them back now.”
