Page 155 of The Promise Of Rain

In that moment, I saw past the façade of what she wanted us to be to what we really were.“You look at me as if I’m the one who betrayed you.I didn’t.But you, you sacrificed my happiness on the altar of your perfect family.”

“What were we supposed to do?Hm?”She challenged.“Were we supposed to plan a wedding where we’d all sit together at the church?All the time knowing while he was coming home with me, he used to sneak out to see her?”

“You knew the whole time we were together,” I accused.

She shook her head.“I found out right after you moved in with Jenny.”

“How?”

She swallowed.“I followed him one night and knocked on her door.He immediately confessed and ended it then and there.”

The illusion of my parents’ perfect love shattered.

She didn’t deserve this.“I’m so sorry, Mom.”

I inhaled a shaky breath as the missing pieces of the past came together.“And then?”

Then they chose to live their lie and dragged me and Jenny down because of it.

She shrugged, her gaze flat.“God forgave him, so it was time to move on.”

God forgave him.

“How fucking convenient,” I snarled, thinking of those first years of service where I threw myself at every-fucking-thing I could, putting my life on the line over and over in my attempt to get Jenny out of my head.

“Deacon,” she snapped, a bit of life seeping back into her face.“We don’t curse in this house.”

“I think cursing is the least of your worries, Mom.”She stared at me, and I realized I’d seen the same look in Jenny’s mother’s eyes.“That hardness in your eyes?It’s the same as the hardness in hers.”

I didn’t see her hand coming, but I felt the sting as she slapped me across the face hard enough to snap my head to the side.

She gasped my name, her eyes wide with horror as she reached for me.

I caught her hand and held it away from me, unwilling to let the betrayal go.

Not this time.

“You did your best to put doubts in my head.”

Shattered, she held my gaze and nodded before giving her excuse, an excuse designed to hurt Jenny.

And me.

“Your father is a good man who made a bad mistake.I didn’t want it to follow us forever.”

“I picked up what you laid down,” I bit out, furious with myself for following her lead.“That’s on me.But you sacrificing my happiness so you could maintain the façade of a perfect family?That’s on you.”

A tear slid down her cheek.

I turned her hand over in mine so that our palms nestled together the way they so often had when I was a child.

I gentled my hold.

This mess hadn’t started with her.

“He betrayed your marriage and betrayed you.That’s on him.”

Her throat worked as she struggled to swallow.