Shattered Lives Read Online Free PDF Page A

we’re Bears fans, so when you wear this, you have to think of us,” Carol said.
                  Brett smiled at them and fought back tears.  He looked down and blinked rapidly, and swallowed mightily at a lump in his throat that seemed to grow to the size of a boulder.
                  “Thank you,” he said thickly.
                  Rodney gave him a ‘man hug’ and a high five.  Dee gave him a hug and a kiss on the top of his head, as did Carol. 
                  Monique held his face in his hands and said, “Angel, we’re gonna miss you!”
    She hugged him once, twice, and kissed the top of his head, and then brushed tears off her face.
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    Waukesha, Wisconsin
                  Jeremy Evans lay in bed enjoying the silence of his house and the light, cool breeze puffing his bedroom curtains, knowing George would be up shortly.  Jeremy had become a morning person during his undergrad years at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse.  Morning was his time to say his prayers, read some scripture and think.  Perhaps worry, because he was a first class, A-number one worrier.
                  He was single, had never married, and in fact since the sixth grade, had toyed with the idea of becoming a priest.  However, the idea of celibacy drove him crazy, not that he was ever promiscuous.  It was the concept of priesthood he had thought about very seriously: the mysticism, the prayer life, the religiousness all appealed to him.  Just not the celibacy.
                  Jeremy generally had a ready laugh, was quiet in new situations and surroundings, and was considered by others to be friendly.  His brown hair had thinned out and had begun to turn gray.  His face was scarred from a major bout with acne as a teenager, but everyone seemed to look past it because he was considered kind and understanding.  Jeremy, however, saw it each and every time he looked in the mirror.
    At thirty-six, he was a high school counselor who was on-call for police and sheriff departments and the FBI.  Formerly, he was a social studies teacher and a head boys’ basketball coach, but never a priest.  And to top it all off, he had a set of twins, and quite possibly, George might be joining his growing family.
                  It had been a long, strange road.  Some people collected coins or stamps.  Others collected beer cans or some dumb thing like that.  Jeremy collected kids, not that he had ever tried to do so.
                  Fourteen year old Randy, his first, had run away from an abusive home and was placed into foster care. Because Jeremy was on the foster list in hopes of eventually adopting a child, he ended up with Randy a little over two years ago.  Billy, Randy’s twin, came along a little over a year later.
                  It was a confusing mess.
                  The twins were born to a school-aged mom and were given up for adoption, and because neither family had wanted a set of twins, the agency agreed to separate them.
    Randy had known from little on that he was adopted because his adoptive father had shouted it with every punch and shove he had given him, along with the admonition, “We should ship your ass back to Milwaukee where you came from.” 
    Billy had no idea he had been adopted until Randy had shown up, because his parents hadn’t told him.  A picture and story about Jeremy and Randy appeared in the paper, and Billy was the first to see it, starting a war in the Schroeder household that ended when Robert and Monica divorced. 
    Monica had moved out of the house to live on the east side of Milwaukee, and Billy had refused visitation weekends so eventually Monica gave up trying.  The boys met and became very close friends.  One would begin a sentence and the other would finish it.  They didn’t need words to communicate, and it was scary