by Gerri Hill
“Well, maybe we’ll run into each other sometime,” Susan said. She wanted to invite Shawn over again, maybe tomorrow, maybe next weekend, but she felt foolish. They were two women who had absolutely nothing in common. Why in the world would Shawn Weber want to see her again?
“Yeah. Probably,” Shawn said. She got inside and rolled down the window and said what she had been thinking about all evening. “Susan, don’t hide up here and think everything will just go away,” Shawn said softly. “If you need to talk to a professional, I can recommend a good one.”
Susan blushed and looked away. “Thanks. I’m not going to hide, I’m just sort of gathering myself,” she assured her. “Talking it out with you has helped, too.”
Shawn saw that Susan was uncomfortable and wished she had not pressed. It really wasn’t any of her business, anyway.
“Well, goodnight then. Thanks again.” She waved once as Susan stood staring after her.
Chapter Three
Shawn tossed the rest of her coffee into the fire and mentally planned her day as Alex waited patiently for their walk. It was warm. Maybe she would pack a lunch and hike up into the mountains today. She could always go by and ask Susan if she wanted to go, but Shawn shook her head. She liked Susan well enough, she supposed, but they had little in common. Susan just looked so . . . married. And middle-aged, although Shawn would never have called thirty-nine middle-aged before. Maybe marriage does that to you. Well, it didn’t matter. Susan had a lot of baggage to sort through and Shawn really wasn’t the one to help her with a failed marriage. As Susan had said, what in the world would she know about that?
Susan washed the lone coffee cup, then proceeded to vacuum the already clean living room before she realized what she was doing. Her obsession was getting the best of her. She stared out through the windows toward the forest. Was Shawn Weber right? Was she hiding? Perhaps. She turned off the vacuum and let her shoulders sag just a little. Was she ready to face the rest of her life?
With determination, she walked out of the cabin and to her car, not stopping until she retrieved her phone from under the seat. She had shoved it there two weeks ago, not wanting to talk to anyone.
She leaned back in the seat and clutched the phone to her. She should call Lisa, at least. She punched out the numbers, then glanced at her watch. Barely nine: Lisa was probably still sound asleep. Her whispered hello made Susan want to slam down the phone.
“It’s Mom,” she said.
“Mom? Are you all right?” Lisa asked, suddenly sounding wide awake.
“Of course,” she said quickly. Then she apologized. “I’m sorry I’m calling so early.” She could hear the covers rustling and she smiled, picturing Lisa sitting with her knees drawn to her chest.
“They’re driving me crazy. Aunt Ruth wanted to file a missing persons thing with the police and . . .”
“Good Lord! What did you tell them?”
“I didn’t want to tell them you were at the cabin . . . I knew they would be up there immediately . . . so I told them you were staying in a hotel to sort things out,” Lisa explained.
Susan let out a sigh of relief. “Good girl,” she said. “Have you talked to . . . your father?”
“Yes,” Lisa spat. “Do you know he had the nerve to deny everything? Then when I told him you had already called me, he got pissed off at you for telling me. The nerve!”
“Don’t I know,” Susan muttered. “Listen, Lisa, he’s still your father,” Susan started, trying to find the proper words to say without sounding too insincere.
“Don’t start, Mom. I know he’s my father. I love him because he’s my father, but I still have the right to be angry with him,” she said.
Susan nodded, thinking Lisa was sounding all grown up suddenly. “Can you hold them off another week?”
“You better call them,” Lisa said. “Or at least Aunt Ruth. She’s afraid you’ve been kidnapped or something.”
“Okay, but I’m not quite ready for company yet.”
“And take your phone inside,” Lisa said. After a pause, she asked, “Mom, are you okay?”
“I’m . . . better,” she said. She thought of Shawn’s words, but denied them again. “I’m not really hiding,” she said, as much to Lisa as to herself. “Just trying to decide what I’m going to do.”
Chapter Four
It was a couple of days before Susan got up the nerve to call Ruth. She immediately regretted her decision.
“We’ve been worried sick! Have you lost your mind?” Ruth demanded.
“I just needed some time alone,” Susan muttered weakly.
“Well, you’ve had time. Now you need to get back here and pick up the pieces and talk this out with Dave. I’ve never seen a man more distraught,” Ruth said.
“Distraught! What? Is his young blonde not enough to console him?”
“Oh, Susan, don’t be catty,” Ruth said. “Men go through these things. What do we know about it?”
“Good Lord! This isn’t the Dark Ages!”
“So he had an indiscretion? Don’t you think you’ve punished him enough?”
“An indiscretion?” Susan yelled over the phone. “I caught him in my bed with a twenty-year-old blonde and you call it an indiscretion?”
“Just calm down,” Ruth said.
“I will not calm down,” Susan said between clinched teeth. “I’m angry, Ruth. Angry! I’ve been lied to, cheated on and basically made to look the fool. I will not calm down.”
“So what? You’re going to hide out in some hotel now? Come to your senses! You’ve got a twenty-year marriage on the line!”
“Fuck the marriage,” she muttered and had the pleasure of hearing Ruth gasp as she hung up.
She tossed the phone on the sofa and leaned back, her fingers massaging her throbbing temples. Ruth was something else. As if Susan would go running back and pretend nothing had happened? Well, Ruth would, obviously, but David could kiss her ass!
She got out a bitter laugh, although not quite as bitter as last week, and poured a glass of wine. She would have it on the deck and try to relax. Then maybe a walk. And something quick for dinner. It was too pretty an evening to be inside cooking. Then she would relax on the sofa with the novel she had started Sunday.
“Life is good,” she muttered and she smiled at her blatant attempt at humoring herself.
But by Friday, she really was feeling better. She had given Lisa permission to tell everyone that she was at the cabin and that she would now be answering her phone should anyone have the desire to talk to her. That did not include Dave.
She finished her customary glass of wine before her walk, then she wondered if Shawn was up for the weekend. She might not even be camping at the same spot, but Susan would welcome company. She had a need to talk this out and Shawn seemed the obvious choice. With a lightness in her step that had been missing, she grabbed her keys. She told herself that Shawn probably wasn’t even there and then she would just go for a drive or something. Anything to get away from the cabin for awhile. But she spotted the black truck parked close to the river and suddenly she wasn’t sure she should be here. Shawn came up here camping to be alone. She had told Susan that much herself. Susan would be intruding on Shawn’s private time.
With every intention of driving past, thinking that Shawn might look her up at the cabin tomorrow, she very nearly ran over Shawn and Alex as they walked down the road. She slammed on her brakes, eyes meeting the warm, friendly ones that she remembered from last weekend.
“I nearly hit you,” Susan stated unnecessarily when Shawn walked to her window.
“No shit,” Shawn said with a laugh. “Looking for me?”
Susan thought of denying that very thing, but it was obvious that she had been. “I was in need of a therapy session, I’m afraid . . . I thought I could bribe you with dinner again.”
Shawn crossed her arms and nodded. “I’m a good listener,” she said. “Although there’s no need for a bribe.” She motioned toward her tent wit
h a toss of her head. “Got a campfire all ready. Why don’t you join me for a beer?”
Susan smiled with relief and nodded eagerly. “I’d love to.”
She turned her car around on the dirt road and followed Shawn the short distance to the campsite, parking behind the black truck. Susan got out and stretched, surprised how at ease she felt already. And comfortable. Shawn motioned her toward the only lawn chair and after handing Susan a beer, sat cross-legged on the ground. She struck a match to the pinecones in the campfire ring and soon the smaller sticks caught.
The evening air was cool with the sun having dipped below the trees, and Susan welcomed the warmth of the fire.
“Have a good week?” Shawn asked.
Susan watched as Shawn struck a match to the two cigarettes between her lips and she accepted one without question. “I had a . . . better week,” Susan said. She took a drag and closed her eyes, letting the smoke out slowly. “I called Lisa,” she said.
“Was she worried?”
“Not so much Lisa as Ruth . . . and apparently David.”
Shawn was quiet, waiting for Susan to continue. She nudged Alex away before he could settle in her lap.
“Jesus, this whole thing,” Susan said, waving her hands in the air. “Ruth thinks I’m insane not to go running back to David with forgiveness in my heart.” Susan frowned and stared at Shawn. “Can you believe that?”
Shawn nodded. “Sadly, yes. I see it all the time. Some women think that regardless of what the man does, they are somehow responsible and should feel grateful that he even wants to continue a relationship with them. Most leave out of anger for a few days, then go crawling back as if they did something wrong.”
“Exactly! And I refuse to just dismiss this as a middle-aged crisis or something. I’ve been faithful,” she said, pounding her chest. “And I deserve better,” she finished in a whisper.
“Yes, you do.”
They were quiet for a moment, then Susan tossed what was left of her cigarette into the fire. “I feel so guilty, though.”
Shawn looked up, surprised at her words. “Why should you feel guilty?”
Susan stared into the fire, almost afraid to speak the words out loud. “Because now I have a reason to leave.” She sighed and pulled her knees to her chest, tucking her heels on the edge of the chair. “I’ve been unhappy,” she said softly. “And I’ve been lonely.” She turned her head and finally looked at Shawn. “And it wasn’t really his fault.”
Shawn nodded, waiting for Susan to continue.
“I don’t want to think that I drove him to this, but perhaps I did,” she said. “I just wasn’t interested in sex or him, and . . . God, we never talked anymore.” She sighed again, wondering what it was about Shawn that made it so easy to say these things. “I don’t know that we even liked each other very much.”
“You must have been in love with him at one time,” Shawn said.
“I suppose I thought I was. Why else would I have gotten married?”
“All of your friends were getting married, your family thought he was just perfect for you and so on,” Shawn offered.
Susan gave a bitter laugh. “Exactly. Hell of a reason, isn’t it?”
“And twenty years have gone by . . .”
“Yes,” Susan murmured. “And I don’t want twenty more to slip away as well.”
They were quiet again, then Susan walked to Shawn’s cooler and took out two more beers for them and she smiled when she saw two cigarettes hanging from Shawn’s lips as she lit them.
“Why the shelter?”
Their eyes met across the fire and Susan held Shawn’s gaze as she took the offered cigarette.
“I needed it once,” Shawn said quietly. “It’s my way of repaying.”
“You were in an abusive relationship?”
Shawn shook her head. “My mother was. I just happened to be the punching bag whenever she wasn’t around.”
Susan didn’t miss the pain in Shawn’s voice although this obviously happened years ago. She wished she hadn’t pried now.
“It’s okay,” Shawn said, as if reading Susan’s thoughts. “I don’t think about it much anymore and I certainly don’t talk about it. I spent five years in therapy.” She made herself smile. “I think that’s quite enough.”
“May I ask what happened?” Susan asked gently.
“It’s a very long story,” Shawn said slowly, quietly. “One I’ve not ever told to anyone, except my therapist.” She wondered why she was considering telling this woman now, this stranger. “Sure you’re up to it?”
“If you want to tell me,” Susan said quietly, leaning to put another log on the campfire. She watched Shawn’s face, wondering about what pain this woman had endured so many years ago. A long moment passed before Shawn finally spoke.
“When I was a kid, I just thought my father had a nasty temper. I was slapped often enough to learn when to hold my tongue. But as I got older, and I’m talking nine, ten, I realized that he would simply look for reasons to hit. Not just me, but her, too. Mostly her.”
Shawn frowned sadly and Susan wished she had not bought up this painful subject. It made her own problems seem so minute.
“I was eleven when my mother finally left him. She had carted us off to the shelter, both of us bloody and bruised,” Shawn said, her voice cracking with remembered pain and fear. “And I was so afraid she would go back to him,” she whispered. “But this lady, this counselor, stayed with us, talking to my mother the whole time, helping with the police, getting us a place to stay, getting my mother some counseling.”
“I’m sorry I brought this up,” Susan whispered. “You don’t have to tell me.”
Shawn wiped at an errant tear, embarrassed. “That was eight months before she met Bobby.” Shawn looked up and tried to smile. “You want the whole story or are you ready to stop?”
“I don’t want you to go through this if it is painful,” Susan said. “I only asked because . . .”
“Because you had revealed so much about yourself and I was still clean,” Shawn finished for her.
Susan nodded, wondering how it came to be that they were so attuned to each other’s thoughts.
“Some women are just attracted to abusive men. My mother was one of them. Bobby was . . . evil,” Shawn whispered.
“Did he sexually abuse you?” Susan whispered back.
“I was sixteen when the hitting turned to touching. At first, I was just glad that he stopped beating me. But, the day that he tried . . . to rape me, I fought him with everything I had. Oh, God, and I hated my mother,” Shawn said. “I hated her for putting me there, I hated her for being weak, I hated her for working nights and leaving me with him.” Shawn paused, then added quietly, “And I hated her for allowing him to beat her, too.”
“What did you do?”
Shawn shrugged. “Stayed with friends, slept on the streets. I would go home when I knew he wouldn’t be there and get clothes and money and maybe a meal. I would beg her to leave him. She had a good job, she was a nurse at the hospital, she didn’t need him. But I’m not sure she believed me. He always denied that he’d ever touched me.”
Shawn looked up and Susan saw her tears by the light of the fire and she was saddened by Shawn’s pain.
“You know what she said? She said, ‘But he loves me.’ ”
Susan didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. After a while, Shawn continued.
“Anyway, I managed to get through school with help from her and a job flipping burgers. I graduated early and went so far as to enroll in the community college. All I wanted was to be able to get a job and get the hell out of town. But I hadn’t even turned nineteen when I got the news that my father had died. He had never remarried and he had left me a house that was paid for, a business and a very nice life insurance policy.”
“That was big of him,” Susan said dryly.
“Yeah. I wanted to tell the lawyer to shove it up his ass,” Shawn said, remembering what a hothead she
had been that day. “But I came to my senses. I figured he owed it to me.”
“Let me guess,” Susan said. “You quit school.”
Shawn grinned. “It was party time, all right,” she said. “But I didn’t quit school. Not just yet,” she added, her voice changing again.
“What else happened?” Susan asked quietly, knowing already it had to do with her mother’s death.
“It was barely a month later,” she said slowly. “I got a call from my mother. She said that she was tired of it all. She couldn’t take it anymore.”
Susan sat quietly, hand drawn to her throat, afraid of what was coming.
“She said that she loved me, that she was sorry for everything, and that she didn’t want to die alone,” Shawn finished in a whisper. “The next thing I heard was a gunshot,” she murmured.
“Oh, God,” Susan said. “Shawn, I’m so sorry.” She got up and moved to Shawn’s side, wrapping both arms around her in comfort, hearing Shawn’s quiet tears.
“When the police got there, Bobby was already dead. She had killed him before she called me.”
“Enough,” Susan said. “That’s enough for tonight,” she said quietly. She rocked Shawn in her arms as she had done Lisa many times in her life. If nothing else, she still knew how to give comfort as a mother would. As Shawn wept, it struck her that they were really strangers, two women whose paths had crossed. But she had told Shawn secrets that she would never dream of telling anyone else, anyone that she actually knew. And Shawn had just told her things that she had kept buried from the world for years. How was it that two strangers could just fall together as if they were old friends?
Chapter Five
“So you started therapy then?” Susan asked the next morning as they made their way through the woods. Shawn had arrived in time for coffee, like she’d promised.
“Are you kidding?” Shawn reached down to touch Alex as he paused in the middle of the trail. “I tried to spend as much of the money as everyone had left me.”