Left for Garbage

already … well, about what we’d done at her mom and dad’s house.
    Then in October she comes up to me while I’m working over by the Jaws ride and she says she needs to tell me so mething. I knew what was coming and all day I was sick. Thinking about how my mom would cry and my dad, he’d be so disappointed in me. When she did tell me how she was going to have a baby, my baby, I told her I’d be there for her and everything, and I meant it, and I started realizing, you know, how I probably was in love with her and always had been, like she said she’d been with me from the minute she first saw me.
    What I mostly want to say is, when Denise was with me, she was a sweet good Christian girl who liked the Marlins , and I guess when she got with that Aaron guy … I mean I’ve seen the pictures … I’m not stupid, she turned into a crazy, wild party girl who probably likes the Yankees or Mets. Thing is, when I’m all about God and family and kids, then that’s who she was - then. But with him, he’s all about being the next dee-jay and stuff, and so no kids and no Christ, and that’s who Denise became for him, and he wanted her and him to just party on, unencumbered by a little girl.
    Denise, she wouldn’t have argued with Aaron about anything because I know how she gets when she’s with a guy - anything you say goes , at least at first. I don’t know Aaron, so I can’t judge. All I’m saying is she’s with him for like three weeks and now Deeley is gone, so you’ve gotta draw your own conclusions.
    I don’t know why she can’t tell anyone more about Manny the nanny, or if she’s making up everything, but see, if you live like Denise does - in and out of many friends’ lives - and you’re just one person after another with one guy after another, then sure, you could say she’s lying about everything. I already got a call from her friend Emily who is saying everything Denise told her, the police and her parents is a lie.
    But I still don’t believe everything is a lie. The stuff she felt for me wasn’t a lie.
    It turned out I wasn’t Deeley’s biological dad and, yeah, I guess Denise was lying when she told me I was, but it was only because she loved me so much she wanted it to be true, so that’s all I’m saying here. Aaron needs to be checked out, that’s all I’m saying.
    I’ve heard that Denise’s mom doesn’t want me near their house. I’m sure this is a terrible time in the Brown home, and my f amily prays for them, including Seel.
    I’ll tell you something about him later, if I think it will apply …

Seeley Brown
    (Brother of Denise Brown)

    No one believes me when I say that I only know what I know and I don’t know anything else , and I don’t even want to know anything else. Because, if I can’t believe in my own sister, the person I’ve been closer to than anyone else my whole life, then I can’t believe in anyone or anything ever again. This is what Denise told me and so this is what I’m going to tell you because it’s the truth. My sister, Denise, was mad at my mom … well, she’s mad at both our parents and has been for as long as I can remember … but it’s true that after Deeley was born, it got worse, a lot worse.
    When the baby came , Denise and my mom went from, like, the cold war to full-blown terrorist stuff. I mean, it was Guantanamo Bay around there, and while I have to say it mostly looked like it was Denise doing all the torturing of my mom, I don’t think that’s the whole picture because my mom can be a tough, tough lady to deal with. But me, I just tried to stay out of it because I love them both, and besides, they can each turn on you on a dime, I mean, not only about defending themselves, because both of them hate criticism, and I mean hate it big time, though they can sure dish it out. But with my mom at least, if I would agree with her, that yeah, I did think Denise was taking advantage of her, then she’d turn around and start screaming at me for not being a good big brother to Denise. I mean, you cannot win in that house. God, just ask my dad if you don’t believe me. Anyway, what I’m trying to get across is that the tension had always existed but by the June of 2008 you could have cut it with a knife, it was so bad.
    June of that year, the y ear Deeley went missing, was the month when Denise, my sister, finally decided she’d had enough, and got herself and Deeley out of my parents’ house. It wasn’t something that was