When Happily Ever After Ends

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “That’s so sad.”

  “Finally, one day, Grandma told me, ‘Guess it’s just you and me, Zack. Your mother’s not been much of a mother to you or a daughter to me. We best get on with the process of living. I’ll be good to you and in turn, I don’t expect you to cause me trouble.’ I learned later that she petitioned the court to become my legal guardian. I’ve been living with Grandma ever since.”

  After he told his story, silence settled in the barn, and Shannon swallowed against a lump in her throat. She rested her cheek on her knee. “I guess it makes no difference why someone leaves you, does it? It hurts just the same.”

  Very slowly, Zack reached over and stroked the silky strands of her blond hair. “At least you know where your daddy is for sure. I’m not saying being dead’s better, but you’ll never have to wonder every birthday, or every Christmas, if this is the year he’ll call you or remember you exist.”

  She wiped dampness from her face with the sleeve of the sweater, raised her head, and reached for Zack. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  His arms went around her and she scrunched against him, resting her cheek on his chest. He said, “When I was younger, I used to fantasize about them coming back and me telling them, ‘Sorry, I don’t want to live with you ever again.’ And I imagined them crying and begging me to come live with them. I used to think it would serve them right—to have them want me and me reject them.”

  “But you don’t think that anymore?”

  “No.” His fingers played in her hair. “Grandma must have figured out what I was thinking because one day she told me, ‘Hating halts healing, Zack.’ She helped me see that all my anger toward them was only affecting me—not them. So, I started thinking about doing the best I could with my life. Maybe someday they’ll see me and think, ‘He turned out all right, and we didn’t have anything to do with it.’ ”

  “Are you saying that you forgive them for leaving you?”

  Zack pulled back, lifted her chin, and peered down at her upturned, tear-stained face. “Over time I began to see that they really did me a favor. They weren’t able to take care of me, and I’ve been much better off with Grandma. I’m not excusing them, and I’m not forgetting what they did, but I do forgive them for it.”

  Shannon felt a jumble of emotions—pain, remorse, frustration. Was that what she was supposed to do? Forgive her father for rejecting her grandmother, her mother, herself? Forgive him for taking his life and leaving them to manage without him?

  Zack said, “Forgiving’s a choice you make—a gift you give to somebody even if they don’t deserve it. It costs nothing, but it makes you feel rich for giving it away.”

  She stared deeply into Zack’s dark eyes while he spoke. She saw compassion and understanding, not only for her, but for her father too. “All he gave me was this terrible hurt when he killed himself.” Her voice caught and she would have turned away, but Zack held her fast.

  “He gave you life,” Zack told her. “The same as my parents gave me. It’s up to you as to what you do with it.”

  Shannon leaned again against Zack’s chest and thought about what he said. Ironically her father had often told her similar things. “You can do anything you put your mind and heart to, Shannon. It’s your life.” “Zack?” she asked. “If your parents ever come back, will you tell them you forgive them?”

  “I won’t have to. They’ll know by the way I hug them.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sometime after midnight, while Shannon was pouring fresh ice in the bucket, her mother came into the barn, wrapped in a parka and rubbing her hands together. “Where’s Zack?” she asked.

  Shannon motioned toward the tack room. “I made him go lie down on the cot. He’s wiped out, and I knew it was almost time for you to show up.” Shannon figured that adrenaline was the only thing keeping her going.

  “How’s Black doing?”

  “He took some feed out of my hand.”

  “That’s a good sign,” her mother said in an encouraging voice. She sat on the blanket. “It’s always good news when they feel well enough to eat.”

  Shannon tried to catch her mother’s enthusiasm, but one look at Black told her that the horse was no better. Shannon repacked the ice around his hoof and joined her mother on the blanket. She poured herself a cup of hot chocolate and offered some to her mom.

  “I don’t know what to say about Black, honey, except that it’s just one more thing in a long list of things that went wrong this summer.”

  “I wish … I wish everything was different.”

  “Nothing can change what happened, Shannon. Nothing can bring your father back.”

  “I know.” Saying the words expressed a finality that made Shannon shiver. “There’s so many things I’d like to ask you, Mom. Things I’ve wanted to talk about for the longest time.”

  “We have plenty of time now,” her mother said.

  Shannon felt momentarily overwhelmed, unable to decide where to begin. She had so much to say and to ask that the remainder of the night seemed hardly long enough to get it all out. She took a deep breath and started with telling her mother about going through her father’s trunk and about the notes she’d found in his handwriting. “I think he was depressed about Vietnam, Mom. I know he didn’t want to go over there.”

  Shannon’s mother dragged her fingers through her curly hair. “The experience did change him,” she said slowly. “He didn’t believe in the war, but he went to please his family. I had just met him. We wrote throughout his whole tour of duty and we decided to marry when he returned—if he returned. He was different when he came back.”

  “How?”

  “He would never talk about what happened to him while he was there even though I asked. He said, ‘It was hell, Kathleen. Who wants to talk about going to hell?’ It was as if he put a part of himself away in a box. He went on with life—we got married, had you, started the business—but he had bad dreams for years—flashbacks, that’s what doctors call them. He’d wake up in a cold sweat and sometimes stay up the rest of the night. I thought he should see a psychiatrist, but he didn’t want to. I thought he was better for awhile. Maybe I should have insisted on the psychiatrist.” She shrugged her shoulders in resignation.

  “Maybe going to Vietnam was the start of all his problems,” Shannon observed.

  “I’m not so sure. It’s true that that war split families apart. Every time you turned on TV, you saw young men dying in your living room. Protestors marched on college campuses. People were put in jail for protesting. I was certainly against the war. I had a poster in my room all the time Paul was gone. It said, ‘War Is Harmful to Children and Other Living Things.’ I’m telling you, it was a terrible time for all of us.”

  She crossed her arms, hugging herself as if she were very cold. “Thousands of men fought in Vietnam, and they were wounded in ways that we couldn’t see. But most didn’t kill themselves over it. A person has to face his problems, and deal with them. I would have helped your father. I never wanted him to go through it alone.”

  “Grandma said he was idealistic, and that made it harder for him to accept things the way they are.”

  “That’s true. But if there weren’t idealistic people, who’d save the world?” Her mother managed a half-smile. “No … I think that your father had problems long before Vietnam came along. He and his father were always butting heads over things. He used to tell me that your grandfather was intractable—very stubborn and obstinate. They argued about everything.” Shannon heard her mother sigh. “The Campbells were quite wealthy. I used to think that having money would mean being happy; but after meeting your father, I discovered that wasn’t true.”

  “Wasn’t Dad ever happy?”

  Her mother reached out and covered Shannon’s hands, resting on her drawn-up knees, with hers. “Yes. You were the most wonderful thing that ever happened to either of us. The day you were born he sent me six dozen red roses, twenty-five balloons—that’s how long I was in
labor with you—and he bought me this ring.” She held up her right hand, where a pearl, Shannon’s birthstone, gleamed in the weak light. “I know he loved all of us. He certainly loved you. His problem was that he couldn’t get outside of himself. He couldn’t reach out to others and we didn’t know how to reach in.”

  Shannon wanted to throw her arms around her mother and tell her she wasn’t to blame. She wanted her mother to forgive herself for what happened. “Grandma feels it’s her fault because she encouraged him to do his duty and not run away to Canada.”

  “I’m sorry Betty thinks that. Duty was important to her generation. Your father and I discussed that importance often.”

  “You did?”

  “It turned out duty was important to us, too. He never could have run off to Canada. I know that now.” Her mother poured herself some hot chocolate, then sat holding the cup between her palms and staring into the brown liquid. “We all lost someone irreplaceable this summer. You, a father. Me, a husband. And Betty, a son.”

  “Why didn’t he think about how much he was going to hurt all of us before he did what he did?”

  “That’s the big question.” Her mother took a long sip from the cup. “When I see him again, I’ll ask him.”

  Lulled by the warmth of the blanket and chocolate, Shannon began to nod. She didn’t want to sleep, she wanted to keep talking, but her eyelids felt like lead.

  “Go on to sleep,” her mother urged. “We can talk more tomorrow.” She tugged the blanket over Shannon. “I’ll watch over Black. Sooner or later, the night will end. It’s got to.”

  Shannon woke to the sound of soft voices. She saw her grandmother and mother huddled in the far corner of the stall and heard them whispering. “Grandma?” Shannon asked. “When did you come?”

  The two women came over and took a seat on the jumble of blankets. Grandmother hugged Shannon, saying, “Your mother called and told me last night about your horse. She said there was nothing I could do, but by this morning, I had to come see you.”

  “Is it morning?” Shannon rubbed her sleep-filled eyes and squinted. The pale gray light of dawn was visible through the stable doorway. Quickly, she spun toward Blackwatch. “How is he?”

  “Not much better, I’m afraid,” her mother admitted.

  Shannon’s heart sank. “I thought the shot and ice would help him.” Shannon scrambled to the horse and checked him over. If anything, he looked worse and appeared to be leaning against the wall of the stall for support.

  “We’re not giving up,” her mother said.

  “Maybe we should rig a hoist to keep him upright.”

  “Dr. McClelland will be by soon. We’ll see what he has to say.”

  “I can’t lose him, Mom. Not like I lost Dad.” Shannon wrung her hands.

  Her grandmother gently led her back to the blanket and sat her down. “Let’s not think such negative thoughts.”

  “It’s all my fault, you know,” Shannon confessed miserably.

  “I don’t see how—”

  “I should have been exercising him more, working with him,” Shannon said, interrupting her mother’s protest. “He’s my pet and I was supposed to be taking care of him. But I didn’t.” She hung her head.

  Her mother reached over and touched her shoulder. “Blaming yourself won’t help. You love that horse and we all know it. You’ve been very upset this summer. It’s difficult to think about duties and responsibilities when you’re all torn up inside.”

  Shannon’s gaze flew to her mother’s face. Then, to her grandmother’s. “Isn’t that what my father did about Vietnam? Think about his duty to go above all else? I should have done the same for my horse.”

  “He had a confused sense of duty,” Grandmother said slowly. “I see that now. Your grandfather and I somehow made him feel that appearances were more important than his moral obligation to do what he knew was right. That’s not the same as acting dutifully toward the things we care about.”

  With her grandmother’s statement, Shannon felt the awakening of a new understanding about life and its complexities that she had not grasped before. No matter how bad things were in a person’s life, the person had a responsibility to himself and to others to keep going on. Life’s circumstances changed, bad things happened, but that didn’t mean someone could check out just because he couldn’t handle those changes. Zack’s parents had abandoned him, but it had made him stronger, more determined to make something out of his life.

  “Dad had a moral obligation to keep on living,” she said, echoing her grandmother’s words. “He had no right to check out.”

  Shannon realized then that her father had indeed checked out—killed himself—because for all his valor during the war, for all his medals for bravery, he had lacked the courage to do what was really important—deal with his inner pain and continue to live. “I went to talk to your friend, Madeline, Grandma.”

  “When? She never told me.”

  “Why?” Shannon’s mother wanted to know. “You could have talked to me.”

  She scooted closer to her mother. “I tried to talk to you, all summer. I wanted to so much, but you were hurting so bad that the time was never right. I went to Madeline because she’s been through a terrible time herself and because she understood how I was feeling.”

  Shannon studied the two people she loved most in the world. Her grandmother with her rigid sense of right and wrong. Her mother with her burden of guilt and remorse. “I went because all of us are hurting, but we’re still trying to handle it on our own. Just like Dad did.”

  She watched her mother’s eyes fill with tears. “Don’t you see? We all need help out of our pain.” She told them about the support group and Madeline’s belief that it would help them to begin attending.

  “I don’t know,” Grandmother shook her head. “I can’t imagine airing my grief in public to a group of strangers.”

  Quickly Shannon said, “I don’t know if a support group will help or not. Maybe it’ll be a big waste of our time, but maybe it won’t. Maybe it’s what we need to be a family again.”

  Her mother hugged her arms to herself. “I grew up believing that ‘Love is never having to say you’re sorry.’ ” She wiped tears from her cheek. “I see now that love—real, honest love—is having to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ ” She reached out to Shannon. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry for not being there when you needed me.”

  Shannon slid into her arms. “I love you, Mom.” She reached for her grandmother. “You too, Grandma. I want just want us to be happy again.”

  “I’m not even sure what that term means anymore,” her mother confessed.

  Shannon wasn’t sure either. She did know that it wasn’t a make-believe place like fairy tales promised. It wasn’t a place like Shangri-la where everything was perfect and life held no problems. Nor was it a world bought with money and family position. She did know that the journey to happiness was laborious and strewn with seeds of suffering. She guessed that it was probably a place each person had to seek for herself, that each heart had to find on its own.

  She knew that hope was a key. She looked at her horse. It would break her heart to lose him, because Blackwatch represented all the dreams she’d once held so dear. She clung to the hope that he would be all right, that all of them would be all right. Light from the morning sun began to spread through the barn. The crisp smell of autumn filled the air.

  Zack appeared at the door of the stall. He seemed self-conscious about interrupting them, but said, “I fed and watered the other horses. Would you like me to drive down the mountain and bring back some donuts?”

  Shannon’s mother stood. “Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather go up to the house and cook breakfast. I want us all to eat together. Zack, please join us.”

  Shannon’s grandmother rose alongside of her. “I’ll come start the coffee.”

  Once they were gone, Zack came inside the stall and stood beside Shannon. “Your horse doesn’t look a whole lot better.”


  “He isn’t, but I am.”

  “I don’t understand. Are you sick too?”

  She gazed out the barn’s front door at sunlight shining brilliantly in the crystal pure mountain air. “It’s a beautiful day, Zack. A beautiful day to be alive.”

  Shannon Campbell leaned forward, keeping her line of vision directly between the ears of her horse. Mentally, she judged the rapidly closing distance to the fence, concentrating on the powerful pull of muscled horseflesh beneath her.

  From the corner of her eye, she could see where her family and friends were sitting in the giant arena, watching, cheering for her—her mother, Grandmother, Zack, Heather, all the girls from the Pony Club.

  Still, whenever she looked over at the group, she kept wanting to see her father. She thought of all the things he’d never see her do. The choice he made still hurt, even now, a year later. But at least she had her mother and grandmother and together they were making it.

  She was glad she’d been able to convince them to go to the support group. It had helped, just as Madeline had said it would. It hadn’t been easy to talk to strangers at first, but the loss each had experienced acted like a glue that bound them to one another. Now the members of the group were like old friends.

  Shannon thought back to the day she and her mother and grandmother had opened her father’s study door. It had taken every ounce of courage they possessed together, but one autumn day, they simply threw open the door, pulled up the blinds, and let light flood the room.

  Shannon had walked through the doorway holding her mother and grandmother’s hands. She’d taken in every nook and cranny with her eyes. The sofa, the file cabinets, the desk, the bookshelves—all the things her father had touched and used. Nothing could bring him back, but together the three of them could touch him again and love his memory.

  They’d gone through the desk, packed away papers, reorganized files. Her mother hired a decorator and chose a pale shade of peach for the walls, new white wicker furniture, and jade-green carpeting. Shannon turned the room into her “horse room” where she displayed all her ribbons and trophies. She also hung photos of horses and friends. And of her father.