Shannon whirled. “Yes, you should have. I’ll never understand why you—of all people—chickened out on me. I needed a friend!”
“But I am your friend.”
“Then why weren’t you there for me?”
“I was scared. More scared than I’ve ever been in my whole life.” Heather’s voice sounded whispery, and night shadows made her seem farther away than the few feet that separated her from Shannon.
“Scared of what?” Shannon hadn’t expected such a peculiar answer.
“Of dying. I’ve seen people die in lots of movies.” Heather shook her head. “It looks so real, but deep down you know it’s all fake. With your dad—it was for real. It was someone I knew and I cared about who died. Until this summer, I’ve never known anybody who died.”
Shannon felt again the horror of seeing her father lying in a pool of blood. Heather hadn’t seen that part. Heather didn’t know how truly terrifying and violent death looked. Shannon shivered, realizing that her father must have seen such sights in Vietnam. She wondered how he had reacted when he’d seen people die. “Being scared of death is not a good enough excuse,” Shannon told Heather defiantly. “Not between friends.”
Heather patted the flank of one of the grazing horses absently. “It was more than that. I’m not sure I can explain.”
“Please try,” Shannon insisted. She wasn’t going to let Heather off the hook too easily.
“You and your dad always had such a special thing between you. Your whole family was special. Not like mine. We fight all the time. Everybody’s always dumping on me. I used to come to your house just to be around a family who was nice to each other.”
Heather’s head bobbed up, and Shannon felt her friend’s gaze through the darkness. Her voice dropped lower, and Shannon had to lean forward to catch her words. “I don’t want to die, Shannon. I don’t want anybody in my family to die. I’m afraid. Every time I look at my dad, I think, ‘What if he dies suddenly? What if I have to go to his funeral like Shannon did?’ I get so scared sometimes, I get sick to my stomach. If it can happen to your family, one I thought was picture perfect, then why can’t it happen to mine? We’re not even close to perfect.”
Heather stopped talking, and Shannon felt tears welling in her eyes as she saw things from Heather’s viewpoint. She said, “I never dreamed you were feeling those things.”
“As long as I’m being honest,” Heather continued, “I may as well tell you everything.”
“There’s more?”
“I tried not to care when you got Blackwatch for your birthday. He was such a fantastic horse—much better than poor old Fantasia. And I pretended it didn’t matter when Zack started paying attention to you. But it did matter. It all mattered.”
“You were jealous?”
“It’s rotten, but true. You already had everything with your family and all. Then you got even more with Blackwatch and Zack.” Heather looked up quickly and light from the distant campfire reflected off her hair. “It’s not easy to tell you this stuff. I’m not proud of myself. But I have to tell you because these past few weeks of not having you for my friend have been the worst time of my life.”
Shannon shifted in the silence that fell between her and Heather. She heard the sound of tree frogs from the surrounding woods mix with the teary sound of Heather’s breathing. “It’s not been easy on me either,” Shannon confessed. “I’ve missed you.”
“I still want to be your friend. More than anything in the whole world, I want things to be like before.”
“Me too,” Shannon said, yet she knew deep down that nothing could ever be the same again. Nothing could bring her father back.
“So are we still friends?”
“Sure we are,” Shannon said. “I was mad at you, but I didn’t stop caring about you.”
“I wish we’d talked sooner.” Heather sounded relieved. “It helps sort things out.”
“I was too mad to talk sooner,” Shannon admitted. “But now we have and things will be better.”
“Hey, you two,” Melanie’s voice called through the dark, causing both Shannon and Heather to start. “Come on, we’re waiting for you.”
“What’s up?” Shannon asked.
“It’s time to roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories!”
Shannon heard Heather groan. She reached out and took her arm. “I’m not in the mood either,” she said. “But come on. I’ll hold your hand during the scary parts.”
“Okay.” Heather reached out and touched Shannon’s arm. “You’re sure you forgive me?”
“I forgive you,” Shannon echoed. Forgiving Heather was a relief, as if a weight had been lifted off her heart. She walked beside her friend toward the campfire.
Shannon wasn’t sure what woke her in the night, but she sat upright in her sleeping bag and peeked through the tent flap. Someone was walking away from the camp. Shannon could just make out her mother’s form against the star-studded sky.
Quickly, but quietly, Shannon squirmed from the warmth of her bag and found her sneakers. She crawled out of the tent and hurried toward her mother, who was now seated on a smooth rock and staring up into the sky. “Mom?” she asked, coming up behind her. “What are you doing awake?”
“Shannon! I’m sorry.… Did I wake you?”
“I’m not sure. I just woke up, I guess.”
“I never went to sleep.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Exhausted, but I can’t sleep.”
Shannon sat beside her on the rock, shivering. “Maybe we shouldn’t have done the camp-out this year.”
“Too late to decide that now.” Her mother rubbed her hands briskly along Shannon’s arms. “You should go back to bed. You might catch a cold.”
“Mom, I’m fine. I’ll just keep you company for a while.” Together, they stared upward at stars glittering in the inky blackness. “Do you think Dad’s up there somewhere looking down on us?”
“I certainly hope so,” her mother answered. “I hope he can see how much we miss him.”
Shannon hooked her arms around her knees. “Why do you think he did it, Mom? Why didn’t he tell us something was wrong?”
“I wish I knew. Oh—I’ve known for years that he wasn’t a happy man. I’d wait for his dark moods to pass. They always did. This particular one seemed no different from any other he’d gone through.” Her mother sighed and rested her cheek against her drawn-up knees. “He promised me that he’d never forsake me—it’s in the wedding vows. And he did. He left me to sort out my life, run the business, raise you. He cheated me out of himself. That wasn’t fair.” Her mother took a long shuddering breath. “I’m angry at him, and lonely for him.”
Shannon agreed that it wasn’t fair of him to kill himself. What reasons could anybody have to end life? What excuse could ever be given for leaving the people who loved you on purpose? Her mother’s voice sounded ragged as she continued. “I’ve asked myself a hundred times if there was something I could have done differently. Maybe if I’d loved him more. Been a better wife. I wish he would have talked to me. Maybe together we could have found some way out of his misery.”
Shannon remembered the note she’d seen in his desk drawer, weeks before. He’d written about being lonely and wanting to be free. He’d written that he wanted to spare them, but his actions had inflicted more pain than they could endure. Hadn’t it occurred to him that loving them meant working through problems together? She swallowed hard, not wanting to tell her mother what she knew and possibly hurt her even more.
Her mom hugged Shannon’s shoulders. “You really should go back to bed. We’ve got a long ride home tomorrow. Also, we don’t need to have the others see us falling apart.”
A pale glowing pink color was beginning to creep over the horizon. “It is tomorrow,” Shannon noted with a sigh. “Everyone will be getting up soon anyway.” She thought back to her earlier conversation with Heather. “I don’t think we have to worry about the girls, Mom. They’re all our friends. It’s ha
rd for them to accept what Dad did, that’s all.”
Heather had asked for forgiveness and Shannon had granted it. If only she could talk to her father and hear him say, “I’m sorry. Forgive me.” Shannon was certain she’d never forget what he’d done to their family. She only wondered, could she ever forgive him?
Chapter Fifteen
The infield teemed with horses and riders. Shannon sat on Black, telling herself she shouldn’t have come, that she and Black weren’t really ready for the competition. But she and Zack had worked so hard for the past several weeks, and her mother had kept urging her to give it a try, until she’d felt duty bound to come.
“They just announced your event,” Heather called out to her.
“They did?”
“Over in ring three,” Heather said. “Good luck. Your riding habit looks terrific. I hope you knock ’em dead.”
Shannon smoothed the black hunt-style coat and fastened the chin strap on her helmet. She wanted to turn in a good performance, and she knew that everyone in the club was pulling for her. It was the first time she’d competed since Nashville. “Thanks,” she told Heather, grateful that the tension was gone between them. “I guess I’m ready.”
Shannon nudged Black and headed through the infield. At the gate, she checked in with the judge and took her place in the line of riders waiting to compete. When her number was called, her mouth went dry and her hands trembled in spite of the tight grip she had on the reins. From the corner of her eye, she saw Zack and her mother come up beside the fence to watch her performance. Zack grinned and gave her a high sign. She forced herself not to think about her father’s absence and the last time she’d competed.
The pattern of jumps planned for the event wasn’t complicated. They’d practiced similar courses at home, but beneath her, Black felt tense. She knew he was picking up her case of nerves, and she took several deep breaths to try and calm her jitters. A lone judge sat in a chair elevated by the side of the fence under a large umbrella that shielded her from the sun. Shannon watched as the judge jotted notes on her clipboard, then gave her a nod.
Black began a slow canter at the top of the course, heading toward the first barrier. He cleared it smoothly and Shannon breathed easier. She leaned forward, keeping her line of vision directly between the ears of her horse. Mentally, she judged the rapidly closing distance to the next fence, concentrating on the powerful pull of muscled horseflesh beneath her.
Midway through the course, she decided they were jumping well, but too slowly. Winners did the course in good form, but also in good time. She urged Black to quicken his pace. He galloped toward the next barrier but started the jump too soon and overstretched his forelegs in the air—“reaching” the judges called it. Points would be deducted for the unsightly mistake. She struggled mentally to regain her composure.
At the next barrier, she pulled hard to one side, and the horse went over the fence diagonally instead of head-on. Another deduction. Shannon gritted her teeth and felt sweat trickle down between her shoulder blades. The next part of the course she maneuvered well, but the tension along her back was so severe that she felt a muscle spasm and winced from the pain. The final barrier loomed in front of her, but the spasm caused her to twist in the saddle. Confused, Blackwatch balked, skidding to a halt in front of the fence, refusing to take the leap. Shannon felt herself propelled forward, almost sailing over Black’s head.
She managed to keep from falling off, but she slid so far frontward that she was standing in the stirrups and clinging to the horse’s neck. She heard the audience gasp and then someone ride out and recover her dropped reins. Shamefaced, she dismounted and tugged Black through the gate.
“Are you hurt?” her mother asked, hurrying over.
Black danced sideways, the whites of his eyes showing. Zack took the reins from her, stroked Black’s neck, and talked soothingly, trying to calm him.
Shannon felt tears of humiliation well up. “No, I’m not hurt. But I looked like an amateur out there! A four-year-old could have made that fence!”
“What went wrong?”
“My horse balked! He wasn’t ready for this show. Neither of us were. I told you it was too soon.”
“You were doing so well before that last fence. Don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world,” her mother said, attempting to soothe her.
“It was a mistake to bring him. I was stupid even to think I could have trained him on my own. Thanks to Dad, I’ll never make it!” She darted off, dodging her way through spectators and riders, feeling hemmed in, like a rat trapped in a maze. She held her tears until she got away from the crowd.
In the field where all the vans and horse trailers were parked, she found the familiar blue one hooked to her mom’s station wagon. She stopped, braced her hands against the metal side, and pulled in great gulps of air, trying to calm her pounding heart. Minutes later, she felt the warm muzzle of her horse in the center of her back. She heard Zack speaking to her. “You okay?”
Not trusting her voice, she shook her head.
“Are we finished for the day?”
She nodded.
“Do you want to take Black and go watch some of the other events with me?”
“I never want to go back,” she told him miserably.
“Should we put him in the trailer or let him graze here until the others finish?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.”
Zack put his hand on her shoulder and turned her around, but she refused to look at him. “Listen, we worked hard for this meet. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed about.”
“Well, it wasn’t hard enough.”
“You’re a good teacher, Shannon. I could probably compete in some of these events just from working with you. We’ll do better next time.”
Shannon stepped around Zack and began to unsaddle Black. “There won’t be any next time. I’m never going to do this again.”
“Never’s a long time.”
“Not long enough.”
“What about my career as a trainer? Are you going to leave me to muddle through on my own?”
“Your career!” She snapped her gaze upward, saw the gentle teasing in his eyes, and blushed. “Don’t make me laugh, please. You’ll spoil my bad mood.”
He laughed and nudged her shoulder. “Come on … let’s tether Black and I’ll buy you a hot dog at the concession stand.” She opened her mouth to refuse. “Don’t balk,” he added, smiling.
Shannon felt her anger dissolve. She couldn’t stay angry at Zack no matter how frustrated she felt. Together, they tended to her horse, then walked back into the crowded infield, hand in hand.
* * *
The August shower fell in a solid, drenching sheet. Shannon stood listlessly in the doorway of the stable watching the rain. She thought about making a dash for the house, but sighed and decided to wait out the summer storm.
Behind her, she heard Black snort from his stall. He sounded restless. Usually when she was in the barn she was in the stall with her horse, but she didn’t feel like it today. She didn’t feel like doing much of anything these days. Although Shannon had noticed that her mother seemed to be more active in the weeks since the Knoxville show, she herself felt purposeless. Since her humiliation in Knoxville, she’d even stopped training Black.
She’d be glad when school started, when there would be more to fill up her days than the dreary, boring monotony of summer and all her bleak feelings. She and her mother had never had a really meaningful heart-to-heart talk, and now it seemed as if the time to talk had run out.
As Shannon watched the rain, she longed to feel the crisp bite of autumn weather and see the leaves change from green to gold and red and umber. In another six weeks, the mountain would be alive with color, and maybe that would make her feel alive again, too.
The rain continued to pour and a river of mud sluiced through the yard. Torrents of water pounded on the wooden roof and a wind sprang up, driving the rain through the doorway. In order
to stay dry, she retreated until she found herself heading toward the tack room door. She crossed her arms and shivered.
Entering, she flipped on the antique brass lamp. It cast a warm yellow aura over the cot and old trunk. Overhead the downpour beat on the roof in a constant drone. The rich aromas of old leather, saddle soap, and musty hay assailed her, reminding her of her father with a vividness that brought a lump to her throat.
She crouched by the trunk, recalling the time she and Zack had surprised her father as he was going through it. She was startled to think that maybe even then he’d been planning his departure. Perhaps if she’d been clever enough, she’d have figured it out. She should have known something was wrong when she first saw that he’d had the gun.
Shannon ran her fingers over the rough surface and raised the trunk’s lid. An old army blanket was stored on top. She peeled it back and found a stack of olive-colored uniforms, a pair of combat boots, a canteen, and a large brown envelope. She shook out some papers, ribbons, and medals onto the cot and began to sort through them.
The ribbons were colorful. One medal was a dull bronze color and on the back was engraved: FOR VALOR. She caught her breath. Her father had received medals for acts of heroism during the war and never even told her about it. She wondered if her mother and grandmother knew. Were there any other secrets?
She read through the papers, searching for a clue. Most were official documents, commendations, and letters from Army officials. She read a yellowed paper in her father’s handwriting:
We’ve been dug into our foxholes all day and it’s so hot I think my skin’s peeling off. Vietnam must be God’s prototype for Hell. Snipers had us pinned down until Phantoms dropped a load of napalm on trees where they were hiding. I saw one of them run from the trees, on fire from head to toe. A human torch. He kept screaming and burning and no one did anything about it—not me either. I almost got sick to my stomach. It’s hard to watch a man die that way. Even when he’s your enemy.
Shannon shuddered. He’d never mentioned what he’d endured in Vietnam. How horrible it must have been, especially for a man who hated violence so much. She picked up another scrap of paper. On it, her father had scrawled, “Carson died today. I kept his pistol and sent the rest of his effects back home. Lucky guy. He’ll be home for Christmas.”
When Happily Ever After Ends Page 8
