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The backyard went quiet. Riley came to the patio door first, with Rex right behind him.
“Mom?” Riley asked. “What’s going on?”
Watson’s voice broke. “Boys, this is Rowan.”
“What’s going on?”
Rex stared at him. “Our brother?”
For a few seconds, nobody moved.
Rowan looked down. “I didn’t come here to take anything from you.”
Riley stepped closer, trying not to throw his arms around his brother. “You’re not taking anything.”
Rowan’s jaw shook. “I spent my whole life thinking I was the one nobody could keep.”
“No,” I said. “That was never true.”
“You’re not taking anything.”
Mom started crying. “You were falling apart, Dawn. Two babies at home, bills, machines, no sleep. I arranged the funeral because you couldn’t look at the tiny coffin.”
My stomach turned.
“You told me not to,” I said.
“I wanted you to remember him happy. Not like that.”
“You put his framed baby picture on a sealed coffin and said Rowan was too fragile to view. But it was empty.”
“I was protecting you.”
“You were falling apart, Dawn.”
“No. You were hiding what you’d done.”
Watson wiped his face. “We buried an empty box because you decided grief was easier to manage than truth.”
Mom looked at Rowan. “I found you a good home. Parents who loved you before they met you. They had money. They could focus just on you.”
Rowan flinched. “You told them I wasn’t wanted. You told them that my parents had given me up because they didn’t want another mouth to feed.”
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