Part 1
When my brother passed away, I put my own dreams aside to raise his twin sons, who were only five years old at the time. For thirteen years, I cared for them, protected them, and loved them as if they were my own. But on the night of their eighteenth birthday, after everyone had gone home, they placed a legal notice in front of me that shattered everything I thought I knew.
Morning sunlight stretched across my kitchen counter as I carefully placed eighteen candles on the chocolate cake I had baked before dawn.
Thirteen years.
That was how long it had been since my brother, Caleb, died.
Somehow, I had taken his two frightened little boys and carried them all the way to adulthood.
I glanced at Caleb’s framed photo in the hallway and smiled sadly.
