apologetically. “It was selfish, I know that now, but I thought I was protecting you, making it easier for you to bear being separated from them, if we never talked about them. I guess in the back of my mind, I thought that I would know if they truly needed us, and that then I’d tell you and we’d decide what to do together.”
“But we did need you,” Ryan said angrily. “Time and again.”
“And I almost reached out,” Connor told him. “I heard about the trouble you were getting mixed up in, the petty shoplifting and such. I was about to come for you myself and shake some sense into you, but Father Francis stepped in. He gave you what you needed.”
Ryan still looked angry, but he nodded. “He was my salvation, no question about it.”
“So, if you cared enough to keep track of all of us, why the hell did you dump us in the first place?” Michael demanded.
To Daniel’s surprise, his father didn’t take offense at his son’s tone.
“You recall that your mother wanted a little girl. She’d just gotten pregnant again when I lost my job. I picked up work here and there, but I couldn’t find a steady paycheck. Feeding three boys required more money than was coming in. We struggled over that and over doctor’s bills and rent.”
“And then you had us?” Patrick said, looking shaken. “Twins, when even one more baby was going to be a strain?”
“The timing was unfortunate,” their father admitted. “But we looked at the two of you and you stole our hearts, just as your brothers had. For a long time, we told ourselves that things were going to get better, that I’d find another job and we’d land on our feet, but it didn’t happen.”
He gazed around the room at his sons. “I don’t believe any of you have been out of work or desperate, but that’s the way I was feeling. And Patrick and Daniel, bless ’em both, weren’t easy babies, the way you other boys were. They had powerful sets of lungs and difficult dispositions.”
“That hasn’t changed much,” Alice said, giving Patrick’s hand a squeeze.
“I remember the fighting,” Ryan suddenly said softly. “You and Mom were fighting for the first time I could ever remember.”
“We were,” Connor confirmed. “I knew that something had to change or I would lose my wife, lose everything that mattered to me. I knew we had to leave Boston and start over fresh.”
Sean stared at him. “So you divided the family in half and tossed us aside to save the rest?” he asked heatedly. “What kind of choice is that?”
“A desperate one,” Connor said. “The twins were little more than babies. They needed us. You three were strong. Young as you were, you were already independent. We knew you could make it without us, at least for a time. I hoped we’d be able to come back for you, but as time passed, it seemed best to leave things as they were. We believed you would find good homes, have a better chance than we could give you. I’m not saying it was a good decision, but it was the only one I could make at the time. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t prayed to God to keep you safe. Not a day has passed that I haven’t regretted what I did, but God help me, I didn’t know what else to do.”
Kathleen reached for her husband’s hand and clung to it. “We didn’t know what else to do,” she said softly. “I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to forgive us. I don’t know if we’ll ever forgive ourselves, but we did the only thing that seemed to make sense at the time. We gave you three—Ryan, Sean and Michael—a chance at a better life than the one we could give you.”
“You abandoned us,” Michael said fiercely. “Okay, I was lucky. I wound up with a family that gave me all the emotional support a scared kid could need, but Ryan didn’t. Sean didn’t. How was that for the best?”
“If we’d kept all of you, there was little question that your father and I would eventually divorce,” Kathleen said. “It was that bad between us. You’d have been no better off.”
“We’d have been together,” Michael said. “We’d have known what it meant to be a family, even if it was a family that had to struggle. Or you could have agreed to an adoption.”
“That would have