“I could leave.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” she said irritably. “I don’t want you to leave. I want you to talk to me.”
“Shanna, I appreciate the concern. I really do, but you don’t get to try to fix what’s wrong with me. Believe me, others have tried and failed.”
“So, you’re a real hard case, is that it?”
Again, his lips twitched. “Something like that.”
“You know, I’m actually a good listener,” she said, not sure why she was so determined to get to the bottom of his mood. “I don’t even have to offer any advice, though that might be a test of my willpower.”
He laughed then, which was a breakthrough of sorts. She grinned back at him. “That’s better.”
“Can we consider your work here done?” he asked hopefully.
“For the moment. Laughter really is the best medicine, don’t you think so?”
He gave her a somber look, then. “If only it were that easy,” he murmured, putting aside his coffee cup and standing up. “I’m going to finish with these books now.”
She watched as he went back to the task, deliberately shutting her out.
“You might take a look at a couple of those books on positive thinking,” she called out as she went back to her own section of the store.
To her delight, he laughed again.
Maybe, she thought, if she worked at coaxing that laugh out of him, in time it would get easier. It might not chase away all his demons, but it could be a start.
She sighed at the thought. Here she was again, trying to save a wounded soul. She thought of her ex-husband. She’d worked so hard to try to save him from himself, convinced that she could make things better for him and his son, but in the end alcohol had won.
It had taken a very long time, but she knew now it had never even been a fair fight.
5
With all of the physically demanding work finished at Shanna’s store, Kevin needed to find an excuse to be away from the house over the weekend, so he could avoid an encounter with his mother. Despite his father’s willingness to let bygones be bygones, Kevin wasn’t interested in a reconciliation with the woman who’d left them. It still shocked him that his sisters seemed to be mellowing toward their mother, especially Jess, who’d suffered the most when she’d gone.
Friday evening, assured that Davy was welcome to spend the night at Abby’s, he’d called Jake and scheduled a guys’ night out with him, Will and Mack. The quick agreement to the last-minute suggestion was one of the few benefits of having everyone worried about him. Bree had immediately given Jake her blessing to join the outing. Apparently she considered the invitation to Jake a sign that Kevin was finally on the mend.
Kevin wondered what she would have thought if she’d known how little he’d had to say all evening. Jake and Mack had filled the conversational gaps, while Will had studied him with way too many speculative looks. That was the risk of having a shrink for a friend, though Will was halfway decent about waiting to be asked for any kind of advice. If Kevin had been in a better frame of mind, he might have chuckled at the number of times he caught Will practically biting his tongue to keep silent.
Since Kevin had nursed a single beer most of the evening and gotten home early, he was up barely after dawn on Saturday and heading for Abby’s a half hour later. He was fairly confident that he’d be long gone before anyone else in the house awoke. He hadn’t formulated a plan for the rest of the day, but he definitely wouldn’t be spending it here waiting for his mother to pounce with advice or comfort.
Unfortunately, he’d just stepped off the porch, when he spotted his mother crossing the lawn, obviously returning from an early-morning walk on the beach. She offered him a tentative smile.
“You’re up early,” she said, her voice determinedly upbeat. “Going somewhere?”
“Over to Abby’s. I need to pick up Davy.”
He was about to walk on by, but she faced him with a penetrating look that halted him.
“Then you weren’t hoping to avoid me again this morning?” she inquired lightly.
He flushed guiltily. “So what if I was?” he asked defensively.
“I never took you for a coward,” she responded, her tone deceptively mild. “Certainly no one in this household raised you to be one, not your father or Nell or—”
He cut her off before she could add her name to the list. “At least you acknowledge it was Dad and Gram who raised me.”
The barb didn’t seem to humiliate her as he’d intended it to. Instead, she kept her gaze steady.
“Of course I do, Kevin, though if we’re both being honest and direct, I did have a hand in raising you until you were in your teens. It wasn’t until then that Nell stepped in.”
He was about to speak, but she apparently wasn’t through, because she silenced him with a hard look, then added, “And though I’m quite sure you think otherwise, I never intended any of it to turn out the way it did.”
“Oh, really? Then you just went to New York for the weekend and got lost? Maybe developed amnesia?”
She sighed and gestured toward the beach. “Let’s go for a walk, Kevin. We might as well have this out here and now. This fight has been brewing for years.”
She was right. It had been. He’d stored up plenty of things he wanted to say to her, but now that the opportunity had presented itself, he felt tongue-tied.
“You’re just back from a walk and I need to get to Abby’s,” he argued, but he could tell from her unrelenting gaze, she wasn’t going to give in. Maybe it was best to get this over with, let her know there was nothing she could do or say to make amends for the past. In fact, a part of him admired her for not backing down. In her shoes, he wasn’t so sure he’d have been as strong. Recent history certainly suggested quite the opposite. He was lousy at facing hard truths.
“I’m not so old that I can’t take a second walk on the beach, and those children over at Abby’s are probably still in bed,” she said, regarding him with amusement. “Any other excuses?”
“None,” he conceded and turned toward the beach. He strode off across the lawn, then went down the steps without slowing his pace. Let her chase him, if she wanted to talk to him.
To his surprise, she actually kept up with him, despite being several inches shorter and a good many years older. When he glanced over at her, she gave him a faint smile. “Everyone walks fast in New York,” she said with a shrug. “Do your worst. I can keep up.”
The knot in his chest seemed to ease just a little at her show of determination and defiance. He suddenly recalled that it had been a matter of pride to her that she could keep up with him and Connor. With Mick so often away, she was the one who’d even organized the occasional camping trip for the two of them, or gone with them on hikes. She might have looked out of place with her perfect hair and stylish outfits, but she’d never complained and she’d matched them step for step.
Because he didn’t want to dwell on the good memories and because the question had been nagging at him for more than fifteen years now, he finally blurted it out. “Why’d you do it, Mom? I know why you left Dad, but why us?” He couldn’t seem to help the pain that was revealed in that single question.
“Oh, Kevin, I never meant to leave any of you behind,” she said, reaching out to touch his jaw, but drawing back before she made contact. Her expression turned sad. “Not even your father.”
What the devil was she talking about, Kevin wondered. She’d left. What had she expected to happen? Suddenly it