Promises are strange things.
They can sound holy in the moment, but hollow once they echo back in silence.
That night, after Rebecca's tears had slowed, I found myself kneeling at her feet. My hands clasped hers, trembling, my voice desperate.
"I swear, Rebecca," I whispered, "this isn't abandonment. It's protection. We'll make sure the baby goes to a good home. To people who will love it. We'll visit when we can. We'll still be parents—just… from a distance."
Even as the words left my mouth, they felt thin. Like straw trying to patch a roof in the rain.
Rebecca's eyes were red, her lashes damp, her lips trembling as she tried to steady her breath. She looked at me like she wanted to believe me, needed to believe me, but couldn't quite bring herself to do it.
"Will you promise me one thing?" she asked finally.
I nodded, too quickly. "Anything."
Her fingers tightened around mine. "Promise me this won't break us. That we'll survive it. That we won't… lose each other."
The question stabbed deeper than she realized. Because already, I felt the distance between us widening. Already, I knew the choice we were making was a knife cutting through the middle of us.
But I smiled anyway. I lied.
"I promise."
Her shoulders sagged, relief flooding her expression for a moment. She leaned into me, resting her head on my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her. From the outside, we might have looked like two young lovers clinging to hope.
But I knew better.
We weren't clinging to hope.
We were clinging to the hollow promise of it.
---
The next morning, I walked through Maplewood with a new kind of silence in my chest. People nodded at me as they always did. Pastor Gregory tipped his hat when he passed me near the post office. Old Mrs. Thompson waved as she carried her basket of apples home from the market.
And I wondered—if they knew, if any of them really knew—would their smiles remain? Or would they spit at my feet, call me the worst kind of hypocrite in a town that preached salvation every Sunday?
I forced the thought down. That's what the promise was for. To silence the doubts.
But at night, when the house grew quiet and Rebecca's sobs turned to soft breaths in sleep, I lay awake and heard it—the whisper:
A promise built on sin can never hold.