When Happily Ever After Ends

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “You were jealous of Heather? You’re kidding.”

  “Don’t you see? I’ll never dance with my father.” Shannon’s voice caught and tears swam in her eyes.

  Zack touched her shoulder gently. His hand felt warm on her bare skin. “Look, I’m not your father, but I’d like to dance with you.”

  “Now? Out here?”

  “Why not? We didn’t get to dance at the ball.”

  “But there’s no music.”

  “Sure there is … listen.”

  She stood still, holding her breath. All around she heard night noises—songs of tree frogs and katydids. He held out his hand and bowed from the waist. “May I have this dance, Shannon?”

  Slowly, she slid her hand into his and curtsied. His other arm came round her waist, and she rested the tips of her fingers on his shoulder. She closed her eyes, allowing him to lead her in slow graceful circles on the smooth rock. She caught the scent of pines tinged with magnolia. Zack said softly, “You’re really beautiful, Shannon.”

  “A beautiful girl needs to know how to dance when all her boyfriends come around.” Her father’s words echoed in her memory. Her eyes flew open and she stopped swaying. The moonlight was full on Zack’s face, making his dark eyes glimmer like the lights in the valley. Her heart hammered. She lifted her chin upward and rose on the tips of her toes.

  Zack pulled her closer. She wound her arms around him, felt his breath flutter against her cheek. He touched his lips to hers, tentatively at first, then more deeply. She felt warm from head to toe and soft inside, so soft. He broke the kiss and studied her face. “I know this has been a bad summer for you, but for me, it’s been the best.”

  She felt tingly all over. “Parts of it have been wonderful,” she said, her voice breathy. “Knowing you …” She let the sentence trail because she couldn’t put all she was feeling into words.

  “We should go back,” he said, his voice low and husky.

  She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to be in Zack’s arms in the moonlight forever. “I guess so.”

  “Thanks for showing me this place.”

  “You’re the only other person in the world I’ve ever been here with. My dad and you.”

  He took her hand and led her over to where Black was grazing. “How do we get the horse back over?”

  “There’s a gate farther down.”

  He found it, gave her a boost up onto Black, untied Pippin, and hoisted himself up. “Could we ride back slowly?” he asked.

  “I’m in no hurry.”

  They returned the way they’d come, only slowly, across a field studded with fireflies. They rode in silence, side by side, holding hands in the moonlight all the way home.

  Shannon was searching through a large castle filled with rooms, each barred by a closed door. She wore a flowing white gown and her hair was braided elegantly with wisteria. The halls were lit by moonlight and very quiet. Her heart began to pound as she realized she was all alone in the vast castle.

  “Anybody home?” she called. Her voice echoed off blank stone walls. She opened one door and saw a coffin sitting in the center of an otherwise empty room. She screamed, slammed the door shut, and ran to the next door. But it was locked. All the doors were locked. Panic seeped through her as she ran from door to door, searching for a way out.

  Her bare feet slapped against the hard, smooth stone. The walls dissolved, and suddenly she was in the center of a grassy field looking up at the outside of the castle. Far above her in the highest turret, a man stood. He beckoned to her. She strained to see his face in the moonlight, but he was too far away.

  “Wait!” she cried, clinging to the rocks of the wall. “Wait! I’ll come up.” Magically, she began to climb, laboring, but slowly making progress. Yet no matter how high she climbed, the turret grew higher, the man more minuscule. He waved to her and began to fade. “Don’t go!” she shouted. “Please!”

  Shannon woke with a start, gasping for breath, her sheets drenched in perspiration. She lay absolutely still, waiting for her heart to stop pounding, telling herself over and over that it had only been a dream. Still, she kept wishing she could have reached the man. Now, fully awake, she knew that the man had been her father and realized she could never have reached him.

  She thought of all the things she wanted to ask him and the things she wanted to share with him—the Pony Club camp-out, her attempts to train Black, the disastrous meet in Knoxville, how much Grandma and Mom and she missed him.

  Moonbeams poured through her upstairs window across her bed and spilled onto the floor. Only hours before, she’d stood in their pale white light while Zack kissed her. She touched her fingertips to her lips and smiled. Her father had been right when he’d hinted that kissing a boy wouldn’t seem so bad to her one day. She wished she could tell him that, too.

  Beneath her fingers, her lips trembled and tears pooled in her eyes. She brushed them away and conjured up images of Zack and the emotions he’d kindled in her. With his face firmly set in her mind’s eye, Shannon drifted peacefully back to sleep.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next morning, Shannon bounded down the stairs, feeling better than she had in weeks. She saw her mother standing at the door of her father’s study. Her hand rested on the knob, but her forehead was bowed against the solid wood surface. She was crying.

  “Mom, what are you doing?” Shannon cleared the last of the stairs and hurried to her mother.

  Shannon’s mother sniffed, released the doorknob, but kept her eyes cast downward. “I’m trying to get up the courage to open this door and go inside this room.”

  Shannon’s stomach began to feel queasy as images of the night they’d come home and discovered her father shot came flooding back. “You told me we didn’t have to go in there. Maybe it’s too soon to handle it.”

  “We have to handle it sooner or later.”

  “I can’t handle it,” Shannon confessed. Her mother touched Shannon’s cheek. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she added miserably.

  “Forget it. Believe me, I understand. I guess neither of us wants to go back inside.” Shannon’s mother turned away from the door.

  “Sometimes I want to forget the room’s even there. I wish it wasn’t even a part of the house.”

  “It’s nothing we have to do today.” Shannon’s mother walked into the living room and settled on the sofa. Shannon sat beside her. Her mother said, “Your grandmother called. She asked if you were feeling better. I didn’t know you left the ball early—especially since you didn’t get back here until fairly late.”

  “I feel fine,” Shannon said. “Once I got there last night, I didn’t really want to stay. Grandma had asked Zack to come, but he didn’t want to stay either. So we left early and spent the rest of the night talking.”

  Gratefully her mother didn’t press her for any details. Shannon knew she wouldn’t have approved of their midnight ride. Her mother said, “Grandma wants to take you shopping for school clothes this Saturday and have you spend Saturday night with her at the condo.”

  Labor Day was two weeks away, and then classes would begin at Baylor. Shannon had completely forgotten their yearly tradition of shopping together. “What will you do? Maybe you could come with us.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got plenty of bookwork and planning to do for the fall. There’s a big competition in Atlanta in November and if the Pony Club’s going, I’ll have to get the registration forms filled out. That was something your father always did—” She interrupted herself. “I’ve got to do it now. You go with your grandmother. I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, I’ll call Grandma and tell her this weekend is all right with me. I’d hate to break our tradition.”

  “Will you be using the training ring today?” her mother asked. Shannon shook her head. “You’d better keep at it if Black’s going to continue to compete.”

  “I thought I’d wait until I get my school schedule. I’ll be taking driver’s training this year and once I start
to drive, who knows how much time I’ll have to fool around with jumping.”

  “But you’ve been so anxious to compete with Black.” Her mother looked surprised.

  “I just want to take a little break,” Shannon said evasively.

  “You shouldn’t take too long of a break,” her mother cautioned.

  “I won’t,” Shannon assured her, knowing as she spoke that she wasn’t sure she had the heart to ever go back into the ring again.

  The shopping spree on Saturday went swiftly for Shannon. When she and her grandmother got back to her grandmother’s condo, the older woman exclaimed, “Mercy! I feel like we fought a war.”

  They carried shopping bags into the guest room and Grandmother flopped down on the daybed where Shannon slept whenever she spent the night.

  “Oh, come on, Gram. It was fun,” Shannon declared, opening packages and spreading out their bounty.

  “I’m getting too old for this,” Grandmother said with a shake of her head, but her blue eyes were mirthful behind her glasses.

  “This stuff is really great, Grandma. Thanks a lot.”

  “You know how much I enjoy doing this with you every year. Paul used to say I was spoiling you, but—”

  “But what? Tell me,” Shannon urged, hoping her grandmother would recapture her happy mood.

  Instead, she stood and crossed the room. “But I would tell him, ‘What’s a grandmother for except to spoil her granddaughter rotten?’ ” She stopped in front of the window and gazed outward. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him.”

  “It’s the same for me and Mom. Sometimes I pretend that he’s away on a trip, but that he’ll be coming home soon.”

  Grandmother returned to the bed. “I used to pretend when he was in Vietnam that he was just away at college and would be home for the holidays.” She gestured vaguely. “He almost got out of going over there altogether. If only I could turn back the clock.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Grandmother sat down on the bed and flipped on the bedside lamp. “In those days Congress reactivated the draft by lottery. Every able-bodied man over eighteen had the date of his birth put into a giant drum, then the dates were drawn out one by one until every eligible male had a place on the draft rolls. Those whose dates were first drawn got first call-up.”

  “His birthday was January nineteenth,” Shannon said.

  Grandmother’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “One of the first numbers to be called that year. Ironically, one of the last to be called the next.”

  “So he went.”

  Grandmother’s face flushed and her eyes grew guarded. “He went. He did his duty.” The words were terse and heavy.

  “I went through his old army trunk a few weeks ago,” Shannon confessed. “I found some letters about how much he hated being over there.”

  “He never should have gone. I know that now. Too late.”

  “But he had to go.”

  “Yes, we felt he had to do his duty. He wanted to go to Canada.”

  The revelation sent goose bumps up Shannon’s arms. “He did?”

  Grandmother’s eyes began to tear up and she dabbed at them with a tissue. “I’ll never forget the day he came and told me. I was sitting at the kitchen table, planning the menus for the week. He stood next to me. He was nervous and on edge. He said, ‘Mom, we need to talk. I can’t go over there. I can’t kill.’ ”

  Shannon was confused. She had seen her father’s ribbons and medals—they’d been for bravery. She’d read a commendation for heroic actions in heated battles. Surely he had killed.

  “Looking back, I understand now that he was really asking my permission. He was saying, ‘Tell me it’s all right to disappoint you and Dad. Please help me not to go to war.’ ” The light from the bedside lamp reflected off Grandmother’s hair, making the gray-white color shimmer. “I didn’t do what I should have done—allowed him a way out. At the time, I felt paralyzed, and all I could do was stare at him. ‘Canada?’ I repeated. ‘How can you? It will kill your father, Paul. He doesn’t believe the war’s wrong the way you do. He served in World War Two and Korea. He was an officer. He would never understand. You have an obligation to the Campbell name.’ ”

  Shannon envisioned the scene vividly. The big farm kitchen’s shiny blue and white tiles, the view of the pasture and barn from the large, arched window. She pictured her father standing in need of his mother’s approval, just as she needed his approval whenever she competed in a jumping meet. “What was so wrong with going to Canada?” Shannon asked. “One of my teachers went and he’s fine. Everybody at school accepts him.”

  Grandmother peered at Shannon for a long moment. “Back then, it was thought that only cowards went to Canada.”

  “And Daddy wasn’t a coward.”

  “He was far braver than any of us will ever know. No, I was the coward. On that day he came to me, I wanted to reach out and grab him. All my mother’s instincts wanted to say, ‘Run, my son.’ But I didn’t. He wanted my blessing—I gave him my fears. A foolish woman’s ideas about what was ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ for a generation I didn’t understand. I’ve so often wished I’d told him differently.”

  Shannon recognized anguish in her grandmother’s voice, making her feel helpless and sad. “But he came back and he wasn’t even hurt.”

  “Wasn’t he? Wally Carson had been his best friend all through high school. I remember the day Wally was sent home in a coffin—just in time for Christmas. How could that not have hurt him?”

  Shannon recalled the cryptic note in her father’s trunk about Wally Carson. It was Wally’s pistol her father had elected to keep. It was that pistol he’d used to take his life. “Poor Daddy,” she mumbled, a catch in her voice.

  “Poor Paul,” Grandmother echoed. “When he did come home, he never talked about what happened to him when he was over there. I suppose it was all too horrible. He had always been a sensitive person—tenderhearted. Once, when he was younger, his favorite horse got sick and had to be destroyed. He grew so despondent, so depressed, that I wanted to take him to talk to a doctor. But your grandfather wouldn’t hear of it. He told your father that a Campbell man was ‘strong’ and that he had to face whatever happens—‘Do what must be done.’ ”

  Shannon felt a surge of pity for her father. She tried to imagine how she’d feel if Black had to be destroyed. The idea was so awful that she shook her head to dislodge it.

  Grandmother pressed her fingers against her eyelids wearily. “Now, thinking back over these past months, I’m afraid my inflexibility, my urging him to go do his duty against his nature, contributed to his putting that gun to his head.”

  “No, Grandma,” Shannon said, horrified. “You can’t think that! We don’t know why he did it—we’ll never know.”

  “I’ve never told anybody how miserable I feel,” she whispered. “I go through each day hardly able to function.”

  “I didn’t know.” Shannon was surprised. She had thought her grandmother was handling everything so well. She seemed like her regular self. Hadn’t they just spent the afternoon shopping like they always had done in the past?

  “It’s true. I guess I’m still upholding the Campbell tradition—duty above all else.” Suddenly Grandmother stared at Shannon with a stricken expression. “Now I’ve burdened you with it. Oh, Shannon—forgive me.” The older woman buried her face in her hands and quietly wept.

  Shannon stared at the clothes strewn across the bed long after her grandmother had gone downstairs to fix them some supper. Why hadn’t her father thought about how much pain he’d be causing before he’d killed himself? If only there was something she could do to help her grandmother and mother to stop hurting. If only she didn’t hurt so bad herself. If only … if only …

  Chapter Nineteen

  Shannon rapped gently on the office door on the basement floor of the hospital. She nibbled nervously on her lower lip, wondering if she’d done the right thing by making an appointment to s
ee her grandmother’s friend Madeline. Shannon entered and Madeline welcomed her warmly inside her small, homey office. “I was delighted when you called and so pleased that you want to talk to me,” she told Shannon.

  At the time, Shannon had felt an urgency about talking to Madeline, but now that she was actually here, she was at a loss for words. Where did she start? She sat on her hands because they felt cold. “Everybody—me, Mom, and Grandma—are still so sad about what happened to my father. Our hearts hurt. Mom and Grandma keep wondering if it was something they did that might have caused him to shoot himself. I don’t know what to think, except that I’m all mixed up inside.”

  Shannon took a deep breath, and Madeline looked at her compassionately, but said nothing. “Sometimes I think about him for hours. I miss him so much. Sometimes I don’t think about him and I’m happy for a while. I hang around with my friends and I almost forget all about him and what he did.”

  She dropped her gaze, shamefaced, remembering the absolute euphoria she’d experienced in Zack’s arms. “That’s not normal is it? I shouldn’t be having fun while he’s dead and everybody else is hurting so bad.” Shannon took a shuddering breath before continuing.

  “Mom and I both knew that he had bad moods, but he always came out of them. Grandma thinks that if she’d stopped him from going to Vietnam, he might never have gotten so depressed. Sometimes I get mad at him—even though he’s dead—because he didn’t have to kill himself. Just because he felt unhappy, that was no reason for him to do what he did. He wanted to be free, but he left us alone and miserable. That’s not fair.”

  Shannon momentarily hung her head, collecting her thoughts. Madeline handed her a tissue from a box on her desk and urged, “Go on.”

  “I don’t feel like preparing for the horse shows. I wanted to be an Olympic rider. I wanted Daddy to be proud of me. Now I don’t know what I want. I tried to train Black by myself, but I can’t do it without Dad. It’s too big a job for me to handle all alone.”