by Shawn Inmon
I know if there’s one question I’ve left unanswered, it is why Mom acted the way she did toward Shawn. Since Mom passed away almost thirty years ago now and I never talked to her about it before she died, I will never know the answer for certain.
The best I can do is shine a little light on who she was and how she thought. She was raised in a very strict home that she escaped by getting married when she was seventeen. That marriage was a miserable one. When she married a second time, she chose someone she could control almost completely. Her need for control extended to me as well. She raised me to accept her word at face value and never to question authority. I swallowed everything she told me, even when it flew in the face of all evidence around me, and I paid a heavy price for it. That’s why I raised my own girls to question everything, no matter who said it.
As to why she disliked Shawn so much, I’m less clear on that. The best I’ve been able to figure is that she saw that Shawn and I were becoming more and more committed to each other and she felt like she was losing control over me. Once Shawn was gone, she seemed to care much less about where I was, who I was with and what I was doing.
In the end, my best revenge against anyone who has ever harmed me is by living well. Shawn has kept his wedding vows. He still brings me my first cup of coffee every morning. He still opens my car door for me and takes care of spiders both large and small. Sometimes he fails a little bit there because he doesn’t kill them but instead catches them in his bare hand—shudder—and releases them outside.
I go to sleep every night cuddled up with the best friend I’ve ever had. He wakes me up with a kiss every morning.
In the end, there is nothing better than that.
Author's Note
Thank you for taking the time to read our story. Before I thank everyone who helped make this book happen, I'd like to say "thank you" to you in a tangible way, by giving you a free book. If you sign up for my New Release Alert List, I will immediately send you a free copy of my third book, Rock 'n Roll Heaven. You can sign up for my New Release List here: http://bit.ly/1cU1iS0.I only send an email when I have a new story available, and I always offer it to my New Release List at a discount.
Many people had a hand in making this book what it is.
It all started with Dawn. Since the basics of this story had already been told in Feels Like the First Time, the only way this book would be worthwhile was if she was willing to open her heart and soul and be completely vulnerable to all my endless probing and questions. She did that and more, helping me shape her story into this book. She has always been my soulmate and lifetime love, but after writing her story, I love her and appreciate her more than ever.
J.K. Kelley, who had provided impeccable proofreading on Feels Like the First Time, took over the Editor’s chair for this book. He was with me from the earliest planning stages right through to his writing of the blurb that is on the back of the book. He helped me more than he could ever know by suggesting that I read Jane Eyre just as I was starting to write this book. It was in Jane’s earnest voice that I heard echoes of Dawn’s own. J.K. has the uncanny knack of taking a tangled sentence and making it flow with just a few changes. I am so lucky to have him serve as my editor.
Linda Boulanger from TreasureLine Publishing once again provided the stunning cover image for the book. She and I worked together on it for months, before it all came together the night before our deadline. She is the most patient, giving, creative person I could ever hope to work with and I hope she never fires me as a client. I don’t know what I’d do without her.
Chris Guthrie from Open Book Editors did an outstanding job of proofing the final copy of the manuscript and catching any remaining misplaced punctuation and dialogue. Thank you, Chris, for doing such an excellent job.
Finally, an important part of any book is my beta readers. They read and give helpful reader feedback on an earlier, rougher draft. This book is better for having been read by: Karen Lichtenwalter, John Draper, Debby Knudtzon, Sherry Eddy, Craig Luddington, Veronica Gann, Laura Heilman, and Devy Rains. Thank you for all your invaluable feedback.
My biggest thank you is to you, the reader. I have been so touched and humbled by learning so many of your stories and learned of the parallels between our story and yours. Thank you for being part of our lives.
Shawn Inmon
Enumclaw Washington,
July, 2013
Other Stories by Shawn Inmon
Feels Like the First Time A heartfelt memoir of love found, lost and found again in small-town American in the 1970s. http://amzn.to/18Yj07m
Rock ‘n Roll Heaven A fable of redemption for small time rocker Jimmy “Guitar” Velvet, who meets rock ‘n roll’s greatest icons: Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Janis Joplin and more in Rock ‘n Roll Heaven. http://amzn.to/1hYOtYX
Second Chance Christmas A second chance love story, combined with a Christmas miracle. http://amzn.to/1bjJGiV
Second Chance Valentines After reconnecting, Steve and Elizabeth face difficult questions about how to build from their new beginning. http://amzn.to/1dPdG49
Second Chance Summer Steve’s livelihood and more are threatened by a business deal gone horribly awry. http://amzn.to/1kbmhCt
Second Chance Thanksgiving A novella-length story of the sweetness of love the second time around. The continuing story of Steve and Elizabeth. http://amzn.to/1yAvUT2
Second Chance Wedding The culmination of Steve and Elizabeth’s second chance love story. http://amzn.to/1toDAVN
Christmas Town A Christmas parable about the choices we make and what is truly important. http://amzn.to/1bYz7yE
Chad Stinson Goes for a Walk A short tale of obsession and possession. Just right for fans of The Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents. http://amzn.to/1rJC2Ib
Lucky Man A short story perfect for a lunch time read. When Brett Mann returns for his 20th Class Reunion, he finds that someone has been waiting patiently, willing to have her revenge served very cold. http://bit.ly/10UjIug
Please enjoy a Sneak Peek into to
Feels Like the First Time:
A True Love Story
Prologue
February 10th, 1979
Dawn was at the side of the room, crying softly. I didn’t want to see her tears, but I couldn’t stop looking at her. I knew I might never see her again.
I needed to concentrate, but I couldn’t focus. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t slept in two days, or maybe I already knew how this was going to turn out. Either way, I couldn’t follow what everyone was saying.
Dawn looked questioningly at her mom, who nodded her permission. She came and stood behind me, placing her hand on the back of my neck. When I felt her gentle touch, I couldn’t hold my tears back anymore.
I realized it was quiet and everyone was looking at me. I took the wad of bills out of my jeans pocket and laid it on the table.
“I know you’ve told me I can never see Dawn again, but I can’t agree to that. I will agree not to see her for three years, but she’ll be an adult then and she can see me if she wants.”
“Fine,” said Colleen, eyeing me with contempt. It was clear she wasn’t worried about Dawn wanting to see me in the future.
“That’s it then,” I said softly, almost to myself. There was nothing left to say. My composure was completely gone. Hot tears ran down my face, but I didn’t care. This was the moment I had done everything to both cause and avoid. It was possible I might see Dawn again at some future date, but I would never see this Dawn. She was so lovely it broke my heart to look at her.
I went to her and put my hands on her shoulders. I looked deeply into her eyes. I didn’t ask her to wait for me. I was trying to set her free.
“When we can see each other again, if you still love me, I’ll be there for you. I promise I’ll love you just the same.”
She nodded. Her tears ran like a faucet and she looked away.
I walked out of her house, across the familiar yard and into the rest of my life.
>
Where True Love Goes
December 1st 2006 - 8:03 PM
It had already been a very long day, but I wasn’t in any hurry to get home to Enumclaw. As I drove north on I-5, I turned the volume up on the CD I had just bought that day – Yusef Islam’s An Other Cup.
I was exhausted and unhappy, but that was normal. At 46, I was slowly killing myself by eating too much, not exercising at all, and withdrawing from everyone around me. I didn’t much care if I lived or died.
I had been in my second marriage for five years, but it felt more like a prison than a marriage. The divorce I knew was coming was just another in a long string of failed relationships stretching back thirty years.
Four years earlier, I had told my wife, Adinah, that I didn’t love her.
“You don’t get to do this,” she replied. “If you think it changes anything, it doesn’t.” And so life went on. I had tried to end our marriage ever since, with no success. I couldn’t find the emotional strength to get it over with and say the magic words: I want a divorce.
I was still ninety minutes from Enumclaw and realized I was starving when I saw the last Centralia exit in my headlights. I jerked the wheel to the right at the last moment and cut off a gold sedan. I could barely hear the honk of their horn over my music, but I saw the finger, telling me to have a nice day.
I wasn’t sure what food I might find on this exit, but when I pulled off the freeway, I instinctively turned left. Up ahead, I saw a sign that read Bill & Bea’s. I hadn’t even known that place was still open. I’d eaten there a lot when I was in high school in the ‘70’s but hadn’t been back since I’d moved out of Lewis County.
Without a thought, I eased into the parking lot and got in line behind an old pick-up truck. Yusuf Islam - the former Cat Stevens - was singing that he went where his true love goes. I clicked it off because I didn’t particularly feel like listening to that sweet sentiment.
I was beginning to think the truck in front of me was never going to get their order when they finally pulled away, leaving a blue cloud of exhaust in their wake. I pulled ahead and waited to place my order. The girl at the drive-thru window smiled the way pretty young girls do at safe-looking older men. She took my order and disappeared.
A minute later another woman came to the window and asked me a question, but I didn’t answer. An electric charge started at the top of my head and ran down my spine. My stomach flip-flopped and my hands went slick against the steering wheel.
I gaped at her. There was something about her, but I couldn’t quite grab what it was. Just looking at her made my heart race. She had shoulder-length wavy auburn hair and soft features with brown eyes that jumped out at me. Her face swirled through my memory, but wouldn’t come into focus.
“I just need to know if you want onions on your chicken sandwich,” the woman repeated patiently.
I couldn’t answer. My brain was stuffed with cotton.
“Yes, please,” I finally mumbled. As she walked away, I thought maybe she felt something unusual too. But after a brief pause, she was gone.
Why were fireworks going off in my head? Who was that woman? She was attractive, but I see attractive women every day without acting like a fool. From the drive-thru window, I could see her standing next to a flattop grill talking to the girl who had initially taken my order. The woman laughed suddenly and a thunderbolt hit me. I had never been able to forget those laughing brown eyes.
Dawn.
I hadn’t seen her in 27 years, but I knew it was her. I watched her slide gracefully between the counter and the grill to pick up an order. My mind wandered through long-buried memories I thought would never resurface.
She had lived for so long only as a memory; it was exhilarating to be so close to her again. As the years and decades passed, I came to believe I would never see her again. I accepted that, and even found odd comfort in the sense of closure. Finding her so unexpectedly sent my head spinning.
She brought the bag with my food. She took my money and handed me change with a tiny smile, but no hint of recognition. I wondered how she could not recognize me. She thanked me and turned away, but I couldn’t let her vanish again.
“Did you go to Mossyrock High School?”
I took my foot off the brake and the car eased forward slightly.
“Yes.”
“Class of ’82?”
“No. ’81.”
Of course that was right. I was terrible at math under pressure. Her dark eyes focused intently through the drive-thru window. She put her hand on her hip and cocked her head slightly to the right, trying to place me.
“We went to school together.”
She stared blankly, and I couldn’t take the suspense. I gave her my biggest smile. “Dawn, its Shawn.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“Shawn who?” she finally asked.
The question took the air out of my ego. I wondered if I really looked so different. She examined me and I could tell she wasn’t making the connection.
“Shawn Inmon. We lived next door to each other.” I thought of adding, “You know - your first?”
She took a half-step back with stunned recognition. Her hands flew to her mouth and her brown eyes widened. It was a gesture the years never washed from my memory. I watched her expression flood with memories.
“Oh my God,” she said. She paused and said it again. Each word was its own sentence. The young girl who took my order bounced over with a broad smile.
“Hi!” she said. “I’m Connie, Dawn’s daughter.”
I offered a lame smile to Connie. It was impossible for me to look away from Dawn. I laughed nervously but couldn’t speak. Ten seconds of awkward silence followed as a Buick idled patiently behind me.
“I’m Shawn,” I said weakly to Connie. My eyes were trained on Dawn. “Your Mom and I were friends a long time ago.” Connie’s smile told me she knew what kind of friends we had been. Dawn simply murmured, “oh, my, God” over and over, shaking her head. She chanted eerily, like a record needle stuck in a groove.
I tried to say something to break through, but I was so stunned at being this close to her, I couldn’t think of anything.
“It was good to see you”, I mumbled. “I was just on my way home to Enumclaw”. Dawn didn’t seem to hear me. She was lost in her own world.
I grew frustrated at my inability to get my brain and tongue to work together. I turned to Connie.
“Tell your Mom it was good to see her, okay?” I gave her a poor attempt at a wink and failed. I took one last, long look at Dawn, and drove off, dizzy with the thought of her.
I wanted so badly to turn my car around and run into the tiny restaurant, yelling, “Dawn. Baby, it’s me.” I wanted to hold her tight against me and let the intervening years evaporate. Discretion and the ring on my finger prevailed, and I kept my wheels rolling forward, moving me further away from her with each second.
I had suppressed all thoughts of her for three decades. Now she was real again, and I couldn’t prevent the surge of feelings. Memories, sensations, and emotions swept over me in relentless waves, choking me as I merged onto I-5.
The years had changed nothing. I loved her still, infinitely, after so much time. I loved her as I had when I kissed her tear-stained face goodbye on Valentine’s Day, 1979.
I turned my music up and let the miles roll under my wheels. My body was in 2006, but my mind, spirit, and heart were firmly lodged in the 1970’s.
Purchase in paperback and Kindle at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Feels-Like-First-Time-Story/dp/1479258946/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373303484&sr=1-3&keywords=shawn+inmon
About the Author
Shawn Inmon is originally from Mossyrock, a very small town in rural Washington State. He used Mossyrock as the setting for both Feels Like the First Time and Both Sides Now
He has been a real estate broker in Enumclaw, Washington for the last twenty years. Prior to that, he worked as a short-order cook, travelli
ng T-shirt salesman, radio DJ, Cutco Cutlery sales rep, department store buyer, video store manager, crab fisherman, Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman, business consultant and public speaker. Shawn has often said that he learned everything he needed in life by having 400 different jobs.
He married his high school sweetheart Dawn thirty one years after he first asked her for her hand. Together, they have five daughters, five grandchildren, two chocolate labs named Hershey and Sadie and a crazy flame-tipped Siamese named Buddha.
If you'd like to see pictures of the people and places Shawn wrote about in Both Sides Now and Feels Like the First Time, please visit the photos page on his website: ShawnInmon.com/ photos
If you’d like to know when Shawn has a new book coming up, you can sign up for his New Release Newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/vS7Rn
Shawn would also like to invite you to drop in at his Facebook page: http://Facebook.com/shawninmonwriter
Finally, if you'd like to send Shawn a message directly, his email address is [email protected]. He’d love to hear from you.
On a personal note, Shawn would like to say: Thank you so much for taking the time to read my book.
Table of Contents
Just When I Needed You Most
Never Going Back Again
Oh, Very Young
Wouldn’t It Be Nice
Thank You for Being a Friend
Wonderful Tonight
Love is in the Air
You Should be Dancing
Always and Forever
I Just Wanna Stop
Magnet and Steel
