He waves his hand in a sharp motion, slicing it through the air. “It doesn’t matter. Break up with that cowboy.”
“What? Why?” I demand. “Because you think he’s not good enough for our family?”
“You’ll regret being with him,” he says darkly. “He has bad genes.”
“Bad…what do you mean?”
They exchange glances but neither of them answers.
“What the hell is going on?” I snap.
My grandfather stands abruptly and looks at Valentina. “I’ll wait for you in the car. You talk sense into her.” He strides away.
“Sis?”
Valentina covers my hand with hers. “We looked into Jonas’s background.”
“Why? To see if the family thinks he’s worthy?” The thought pisses me off.
“No.” She shakes her head. “Because…Grandpa handled the case involving Jonas’s family.”
Dread settles in my stomach. “What do you mean?”
She winces. “Jonas had terrible parents who gave up their parental rights and Grandpa sent him to the Gentle Children’s Home.”
My heart clenches. “What?”
“He thought he could help Jonas by arranging for him to be adopted but it was never finalized. After that fell through, he arranged a second adoption.”
“Grandpa was trying to help,” I say, but the dread grows heavier.
“Yes, but when the second couple brought him back without formalizing an adoption, Grandpa figured there had to be something wrong with Jonas.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Jonas,” I snap. Something is off. It’s strange for my grandfather and sister to this agitated. It’s so far off from their usual cool behavior. My grandfather couldn’t have known that the Home…was…I swallow the sudden lump in my throat. “He didn’t know the Home was a place of horror, right?”
Valentina is quiet.
“Right?” I raise my voice not caring when people seated near us turn to stare.
“Not at first. But when he did find out, he couldn’t do anything about it.”
Shock floods through me. “Why?” I demand.
“Because I came from the Home as a baby.”
I gape at her. “What?”
“Mom had a miscarriage and fell into a deep depression. At one point, she took too much medicine but claimed it was accidental. Grandpa was worried she might do something drastic, so he brought me home thinking it would help her.”
I can’t fathom any of this. My mother…my grandfather… “Why didn’t I know anything about this?”
“You were very young at that time.”
“Why didn’t Grandpa do anything about the abuse at the Home once he found out about it?”
Valentina takes a deep breath. “After he took me from the Home, he had the director destroy my records. A doctor friend of his created a birth certificate for him to make it look like I was born to our parents.”
Reeling from the information, I rub my forehead, trying to make sense of what I can’t understand. “Why did it matter if anyone knew that you were from the Home?”
