Finally a Mother

by Dana Corbit

  He crossed the room to her in a few long strides. Stopping in front of her, he rested his hands beneath both of her elbows and searched her face. “Were they okay with you bringing Blake?”

  “Sure. They were okay with it.”

  Her thoughts raced. She’d told them she was bringing her friend and his foster son, but that was as far as it had gone. No matter how many times she’d tried, she hadn’t been able to find the words to tell them that the boy coming to their house was their own grandson.

  Mark must have missed her reticence because his grip tightened slightly, his thumbs caressing her elbows. Even through two layers of cloth, her arms tingled from his gentle touch.

  “And what did you tell them about us?”

  “Is there an us?” she croaked.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  He dipped his head until only a breath of distance separated them, and then he paused, as if waiting for permission. She should have delayed, reflected, as well. They still hadn’t discussed what that first kiss had meant, and yet here they were again. But the idea of kissing Mark felt too much like returning home after an endless journey. Too much like the most wonderful story where all the pieces fit perfectly together in the end. Instead of waiting, she lifted herself on her tiptoes and touched her lips to his. Not just receiving his kiss but offering her own.

  The strength, the warmth, the kindness that Mark always emitted in waves came together in the sweetness of his kiss. So it surprised her when his arms closed around her, and he pressed his lips firmly against hers in a kiss too fierce to be gentle, brimming with raw emotion. It felt like a promise ripped from the depths of his heart. He released her, but it was with obvious reluctance.

  The moment should have been perfect, but she ached with guilt a few minutes later as she waved goodbye and escaped through his front door. With her kiss, she’d told him the truth in her heart. Whether she’d spoken the words aloud or not, she loved him in a way that should be shouted from rooftops or written by planes in the sky. Unfortunately, she’d lied to him, or at least lied by omission, at the same time. And she didn’t know what he would do when he realized the truth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Had he felt this nervous on his first date? Mark didn’t even have to think about the answer to that one. It would be a resounding no. Strange...though tonight really wasn’t a date, he would still be put to the test of having to meet Shannon’s parents.

  He pulled his truck to the curb in front of a modest Walled Lake two story and glanced first at Shannon and then in the rearview mirror at Blake. He’d become so accustomed to Blake’s fidgeting that he would have been more concerned if the boy was sitting too still. But the way that Shannon wrung her hands in her lap now made him wonder if she was trying to emulate her child.

  “Is this your house?”

  He reached for her hand, but she startled and pulled it away to open the door.

  “Yes, it is,” she said as her feet touched the ground. “This is where I spent my first eighteen years.”

  Except for a short time when her parents had sent her away, he wanted to add, but didn’t. He had to meet the people who’d made that decision tonight, and if he planned to be civil to her parents, he couldn’t keep reminding himself about how they’d treated her.

  “Are we going in or what?” Blake asked as he climbed down to the running board.

  Shannon shot a look at the front of the house as if she expected someone to peek out from behind the curtains over the picture window. Mark couldn’t blame her for being nervous. No matter how proud he was of her for moving past her resentment to give Blake the chance for a relationship with his grandparents, being there tonight was probably scraping against old scars.

  Mark had just climbed down from the truck and had rounded the bed when the glass front door swung wide and a silver-headed couple stepped out onto the porch, the woman drawing a long sweater closer over her shoulders. Even from a distance, Mark could see that Shannon looked a little like her father, but she more strongly resembled her mother, with her pale skin, fine features and long hair that might once have been deep brown. As they drew closer, another pair of familiar hazel eyes peered out at him from behind her mother’s gold-framed glasses.

  “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” Shannon climbed the steps and hugged each of them before indicating the two guys behind her. “I’d like you to meet Mark Shoffner and Blake Wilson.”

  “Mark, Blake, please meet my parents, Roger and Marilyn Lyndon.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Roger said, speaking for the both of them. “Welcome to our home.”

  Mark didn’t know what he’d expected. That they would have grabbed the boy and sandwiched him between them in a reunion hug? Or that they would have offered tearful apologies? But he hadn’t expected them to greet Blake like a stranger. Even if that was exactly what he was.

  Suddenly, Marilyn gestured toward the house. “Well, come on inside before you all catch your death.”

  Now, the inside of the Lyndon home, Mark might have expected. Formal. Immaculate. Everything in its place. Shannon had once been a piece out of place in their perfect world, and she’d been sent away so they could pretend that nothing had changed when everything had.

  “It smells great in here,” Blake remarked, speaking for the first time since his grandparents had appeared. If he believed their introduction was strange, he didn’t mention it.

  “I trust your drive wasn’t too bad.” Marilyn closed the door behind them and tightened her sweater again, securing it with its belt. “The traffic is always so congested on that interstate.”

  Mark shrugged. “It was fine. Besides, I’m pretty used to driving on I-96. Shannon told you I’m a Michigan State trooper, didn’t she?”

  Her eyes widened, but then she pushed aside his question with a brush of her hand. “Uh, I’m sure she did. It just slipped my mind.”

  Somehow Mark doubted that anything had slipped. More likely Shannon hadn’t told her what he did for a living. Had she said anything at all about him other than that he was coming for dinner? Did she not want her parents to know that she and he were involved—well, that they were on the verge of being involved? Was Shannon worried her parents wouldn’t accept him because he was divorced?

  “I hope you two like roast beef because my wife has made enough for an army. And for dessert, we have raspberry cheesecake.” Roger directed them toward the dining room, where the table was beautifully set with a floral centerpiece holding court among several platters of food. “We don’t often have dinner guests.”

  Mark guessed that visits from their grandson were rarer still, but he managed not to say so. “It looks as if you’re old pros at it. This is amazing.”

  Marilyn glowed under his praise. “Let me get the main dish.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a huge platter of roast beef and roasted potatoes. She took her seat and invited the others to sit, as well.

  Roger stood to say grace. “Thank you, Father, for bringing us together today. Please bless this food and teach us to do Your will. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Mark repeated. It wasn’t the prayer that he would have given on a momentous day like today, but maybe Shannon’s father wasn’t into making big statements.

  “So, Blake,” Roger began as he started passing platters and filling his plate. “How are you enjoying your new school?”

  “Uh, it’s fine,” Blake managed.

  Mark couldn’t help but chuckle. The boy was on his best behavior if he was calling school “fine.” He was trying to make a good impression on his grandparents.

  Roger turned to Mark. “I heard you say you work for the state police. How long have you been keeping our community safe?”

  “Well, Southeast Michigan specifically, only a few months, but I’ve been with the state police eight yea
rs.”

  Marilyn turned to her daughter. “And I trust that the girls at Hope Haven are doing well?”

  Shannon nodded but, strangely, didn’t mention Brooke or the dramatic events last week.

  The conversation seemed to be going well, even if the Lyndons weren’t asking what Mark believed were the right questions. They talked about their mission trip to Guatemala, for which they seemed to have a true calling rather than just an excuse to miss the Hope Haven Thanksgiving celebration.

  Roger took a bite of his roast beef and then wiped his mouth on a napkin. “Shannon, you never told us how you became acquainted with Mark and his foster son.”

  Foster son? Immediately, all the fragmented pieces fell into place, and fury and hurt rose together inside him, both competing to dominate his emotions. Blake appeared confused, having yet to realize that his mother had betrayed him. Mark’s hands gripped the edge of the table, but for some reason, he couldn’t speak up. It was like watching two cars racing toward each other on an icy road. Tragedy was inevitable, and he could only sit there and stare.

  “No, Dad, I didn’t.” She indicated Blake with a wide sweep of her hand. “But I thought you might recognize Blake because he’s my son.”

  “What?” Roger asked, though from his stark expression, it was clear that he’d heard her.

  “Yes, Grandma and Grandpa, I’d like you to meet your only grandson.”

  Marilyn let out a sharp cry and covered her face with her hands.

  “Almost two weeks ago Blake showed up on my doorstep, hungry, in trouble with the law and the victim of a state system that the three of us sentenced him to.”

  Marilyn looked up and started shaking her head. “No. He was adopted by good parents. They went to church.”

  “Apparently, they also cared more about their drug habit than they did my son,” Shannon told them.

  Like his wife, Roger shook his head. “We wanted to do the right thing.”

  “The right thing for whom, Dad? For Blake? For me? Or just for you and Mom, so you didn’t have to be humiliated by your imperfect daughter?”

  “We didn’t know.” He squeezed his eyes shut, and then he turned to Blake. “We’re sorry, son. So sorry.”

  The scene was eerily familiar. Different setting. Different cast of characters. But the same blame was being tossed around like a weapon with intent to injure. Succeeding. He’d thought tonight was a statement about a family he and Shannon might build together with Blake. Instead, she’d made them complicit in her ruse.

  Without ever hearing her parents’ side in the story regarding Blake’s adoption, he’d judged them. He always listened to both sides in an investigation before coming to any conclusions, but he’d allowed his feelings for Shannon to color his thoughts. And the one who would be hurt most by his mistake was Blake.

  The boy didn’t even move, his hands still in a way they never were. His eyes were glazed, his skin pallid.

  “We’re out of here.” Mark leaped up from the table so quickly that the formal dining chair flipped backward, landing with a bang on the hardwood floor. He righted it and then stepped over to take Blake’s arm. “Let’s go.”

  He prepared himself for a hit in case the boy struck out at him, but Blake only stood and allowed Mark to lead him from the room.

  Shannon stood up, as well. “Mark, what are you doing?”

  “We’ve already performed our roles in the trick you wanted to play on your parents. We’re done. We’re going home now.”

  Roger crossed to his wife and helped her up from the chair.

  “What have we done?” She sobbed into his arms.

  * * *

  Shannon stared at the chaos erupting all around her, a mess so awful that it must have been caused by someone else. What had she been thinking? She wanted to believe that the situation simply hadn’t turned out the way she’d planned, but it was clear that she hadn’t had a plan at all, other than to shock her parents the way she’d thought they deserved to be shocked.

  But had they deserved that? No matter what mistakes they’d made—any of them had made—it had been unfair to shake them up by announcing Blake’s identity that way. Her son hadn’t deserved to be thrown in his grandparents’ faces like a bucket of slime either, any more than Mark had deserved to be blindsided by her plan. How could she have done something like that to her own son and the man she loved?

  Her father led her mother from the room, but he paused at the door. “It might be best if you went with them.”

  “Sorry, Dad. Mom.”

  “Not now.”

  Mark and Blake were already in the truck, and Mark had started the engine by the time that Shannon reached them. She stood outside the door and waited. He looked straight ahead, his hands squeezing the steering wheel. Finally, he reached for the button and lowered the window.

  “Get in.”

  If her car hadn’t already been parked at his house, he probably would have driven off and left her there. With the truck already in gear, he jammed the gas pedal as soon as she’d closed the door and clicked her seat belt. The silence was so intense on the return ride to Brighton that Shannon could hear her heart thrumming in her ears. Blake remained so still that she would have given anything to feel him tapping his foot against the back of her seat. She’d brought this on herself, and she would have to live with the consequences.

  “Blake, could you go ahead inside?” Mark asked as soon as he parked the truck outside of his house.

  “No problem.”

  After Mark opened the door and pulled forward the seat to let him out, Blake climbed down and jogged toward the house. Shannon thought she saw him looking back once, but that might have been wishful thinking. Her son would probably never forgive her now, and she had no one to blame but herself.

  As soon as Blake was gone, Mark climbed back into the truck, closing the door, but instead of allowing the cab to return to darkness, he flipped on the dome light.

  “I can’t believe you did that. Not just to me, either. But to your parents and, especially, to Blake. Did you even think—”

  “No. I didn’t.” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I was going to tell them the truth before we went, but when I tried, all I could bring myself to tell them was that I was inviting my friend and his foster son.”

  Mark gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles flashed white. “Bring yourself to tell them? You planned that whole thing so you could surprise them with your fourteen-year-old baby boy.”

  “That wasn’t it. I just couldn’t—”

  But he shook his head to interrupt her. “You just wanted to hurt them as much as you could to repay them for their mistakes fifteen years ago. Well, you succeeded. Did it make you feel stronger to watch your mother cry?”

  “No.” Her own eyes flooded with tears. It hadn’t felt good or justified. “Please. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You should tell them that. Whatever your mom and dad did, they didn’t deserve that. You wanted to prove something to them, and you didn’t think twice about using your son and me to do it. Didn’t we mean any—”

  He cut himself off, squeezing his eyes shut, his jaw flexing as he gritted his teeth.

  Shannon reached out to touch his arm. “I was wrong. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Please, Mark, you’ve got to forgive me.”

  “Got to?”

  He stared down at her fingers on his arm until she pulled them away. The engine hadn’t been turned off long enough for the truck cab to be chilly, and yet she shivered. Hopelessness settled deep inside her.

  “How can you expect me, Blake or your parents to forgive you when you never forgive anyone? I know it says somewhere in the Bible that you must forgive to be forgiven. When will you give up this grudge you’ve been holding against your parents? When wi
ll you realize that there was plenty of guilt to go around in that whole situation?”

  Her breath caught, and she backed away from him, pressing her shoulder blades into the truck door. “Who are you to criticize my feelings about my parents? You, the guy who’s still chasing after his parents’ approval, even after they’ve been gone.”

  “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you and the cruel joke you played on everyone. Anyway, you don’t know anything about my parents. Or me.”

  “Don’t I?” She stared at him, refusing to back down just because he’d tried to turn the conversation back to her. “I know that you’re allowing your desperate search for redemption to keep you from living your life. You talk about forgiveness, and yet you don’t believe that you’ve already received it. Deep in your heart, you know your parents forgave you for the stuff that happened when you were a kid. God forgave you the minute you asked. Even your friend, Chris, forgave you, even though his wheelchair was a permanent reminder of the accident.”

  She needed to stop talking, but the momentum was too strong, carrying her like a locomotive traveling at top speed. She tried to put on the brakes, but the wheels continued turning and the words kept spilling.

  “You’re the only one who refuses to forgive you,” she told him. “The only one with something to prove. And you’ve already allowed this mission of yours to ruin one marriage through lack of effort. If you’re not careful, you’ll allow this pointless quest to prove you’re not that guy anymore to push away everyone who ever loves you.”

  Like me. She swallowed. Somehow she’d managed not to say it, but if he were listening, he could have heard the words that she’d implied. From what she could tell, he hadn’t been. At least not closely enough to have really heard her.

  In the same way she had, Mark had backed up to the truck door and sat with his arms crossed, staring her down in a face-off of anger and blame. In the silence that filled the cab, it appeared as if he wouldn’t answer her at all, but then he spoke again in a tight voice.

  “You don’t know anything about what destroyed my marriage. Or anything about marriage at all. You were burned one time when you were a kid, and you never took a risk on a relationship again. Too afraid of getting hurt. You don’t know what it’s like to commit your life to someone and then have her cheat and blame you for it.”