The name hit me like a physical blow. Paul. Our older brother. He had died in a car crash two years ago. The mention of his name in this context made no sense. It was like a puzzle piece from a completely different box.
“What does Paul have to do with any of this?” I asked, confused.
Dennis finally sat down on the bench, but he kept his distance. “Before Paul died,” he began, his voice dropping, “he was seeing someone. A woman named Sarah. He never told any of us about her. It was serious, but they were keeping it quiet for some reason. We found out after the accident, when she came to the funeral. She was devastated.”
He paused, gathering his thoughts. I just waited, my heart starting to pound a slow, heavy rhythm against my ribs.
“We lost touch with her after that. Then, about ten months ago, she contacted me out of the blue. She was pregnant. With Paul’s baby.”
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Paul’s baby? It was impossible. He was gone.
“She was alone, Mark. And she was sick. Really sick. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to care for the baby after he was born. She had no family to turn to. So she came to us. She came to me and Jenna.”
My mind was reeling, trying to catch up. “She came to you and Jenna? Why not Mom and Dad?”
“She was scared,” Dennis said, his eyes pleading with me to understand. “She didn’t want to be a burden, and she knew how much they were still grieving Paul. She saw how strong Jenna was, how she held our family together after the funeral. She trusted her. She asked us, Jenna and me, if we would raise her son. Paul’s son.”
I looked at my brother, really looked at him. The shame I’d seen in his eyes at the party was still there, but now I understood it differently. It wasn’t the shame of a man who had betrayed his brother. It was the shame of a man who had carried a secret that was too heavy for him.
“And Jenna… she just said yes?” I asked, the question barely a whisper.
“What else could she do?” he asked, a tear finally tracing a path down his cheek. “It’s a piece of Paul, Mark. A living, breathing piece of the brother we lost. Jenna couldn’t turn her back on him. I couldn’t. We knew it was a massive, insane thing to take on, but we couldn’t say no.”
