Unfortunately, that thrill hadn’t lasted. He remembered that the twins had cried more, been more difficult to pacify than Michael. One cranky baby would have been stressful enough. Two caused sleepless nights and frayed tempers. He remembered the strain on his mother’s face, the impatient complaints from his father that escalated into shouting matches that often sent him, Ryan and Michael running from the house to hide until the furor was over. He remembered feeling scared and, worse, resentful of the two tiny beings who’d come into their midst and ruined everything.
What the hell was he doing, thinking about having a baby with Deanna or with anyone else? How many times had he wished back then that the twins had never been born? Now guilt and anguish welled up inside him at the hateful thoughts he’d once harbored for those two innocent boys. How could he have been so selfish? he reproached himself.
With the long-forgotten memories flooding in, he wondered how he could have buried all of that for so long. Obviously he’d buried it as deep as the fear that those childish wishes had been the cause of his parents taking the twins and leaving.
He wasn’t aware that tears were sliding down his cheeks until he felt Deanna hesitantly touch the dampness, her expression worried.
“Sean, what is it? What’s wrong?”
He shoved her hand aside and swiped impatiently at the telling tears, embarrassed at having been caught crying. “Nothing,” he said brusquely.
She laid her hand over his. “Don’t try to tell me that. I don’t believe you.”
Her steady look told him she had no intention of letting him off the hook. He took a deep breath and forced himself to admit at least part of what had reduced him to tears. “I just slammed headfirst into a slew of old memories.”
“Not very pleasant ones, I gather.”
He shook his head.
She smoothed her hand over the stubble on his cheek. “Tell me.”
Her tone was gentle, but it was a command. He knew her well enough to see that. She wasn’t going to rest until he’d spilled his guts to her. What would she think of him then? Maybe, despite what she’d said last night, she would be the one who’d flee from the relationship.
With a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, he began slowly, describing the upheaval the twins’ arrival had caused in his family. As he described how the situation had worsened month by month, Deanna nodded, her expression filled with understanding and compassion, not the disgust he’d feared.
“I wanted them to go away,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper as he admitted the shameful sentiment.
“Oh, Sean.” She didn’t seem shocked or appalled, just very sad. “Don’t you imagine that’s exactly how every sibling feels when a new baby brother or sister comes home from the hospital? You had two brothers thrust on you all at once. Worse, they weren’t easy babies.”
“But Ryan didn’t resent me. Neither of us felt that way about Michael.”
“Do you really remember that clearly? You were only two when Michael was born,” she reminded him.
“I remember…” he insisted, not ready to let himself off the hook “…as clearly as I remember the tension that began the second Patrick and Daniel came home from the hospital.”
Deanna didn’t seem entirely convinced, but she said, “You mentioned the twins were difficult babies, and they caused problems between your parents. It was natural for you to be afraid that your world was about to be disrupted. Just look at what happened—your family was torn apart. Maybe that was because of the twins or maybe it was something else, but the bottom line is, your fears had some basis in reality.”
“That’s no excuse,” he said, refusing to let himself off the hook. “They were babies. What kind of man blames a baby for anything?”
She laughed then and pressed a kiss against his lips. He was so surprised by the reaction, he didn’t move, didn’t even automatically deepen the kiss as he might have another time.
“Sean, you weren’t a man,” she reminded him. “You were a six-year-old boy, younger than that when they first came into your life. I’m sure there are plenty of other things you did at that age that you would never consider doing now.”
He started to argue, then slowly grasped the wisdom in her words. She was right. He was blaming himself for things that had been far beyond his control. Whatever had happened back then, it was because of decisions the adults had made, not anything he or Ryan or even Michael or the twins had done. The blame, if there was any, belonged with their parents. It had been up to them to cope with the disruptions, to reassure their sons, not to simply take off when things got to be too difficult.
He and Ryan had talked about that before, had agreed on it, but until now he hadn’t let himself believe it. Having Deanna, an objective third party, provide a fresh perspective helped more than he’d imagined possible. A sigh of relief shuddered through him as he finally let go of some of the guilt.
Deanna regarded him with surprise. “You really were blaming yourself, weren’t you? Have you been doing that all these years?”
“Not consciously,” he said. “But somewhere in the back of my mind, I suspect it was always there.”
“What made you think about it this morning?”
He started to keep the answer to himself, but she deserved to know where his head was. “I was thinking about babies. Yours and mine.”
The expression on her face was priceless—a mix of shock, wonder and something that looked a whole lot like panic. Sean could relate to that.
But he wasn’t scared anymore, because when he looked deep into Deanna’s eyes, anything seemed possible.
Deanna didn’t want Sean to see just how deeply she’d been affected by his
