by Nora Roberts
"We wanted to see all we could see, and when we'd reached the west, we found a charming inn that overlooked the River Shannon. We settled there, decided we could make it a sort of base while we drove here and there on day trips. The Cliffs of Mohr, Galway, the beach at Ballybunnion, and all the little fascinating places you find off the roads where you least expect them."
She looked at her daughter then, and her eyes were sharp and bright. "Oh, I wish you would go there, see, feel for yourself the magic of the place, the sea spewing like thunder up on the cliffs, the green of the fields, the way the air feels when it's raining so soft and gentle-or when the wind blows hard from the Atlantic. And the light, it's like a pearl, just brushed with gold."
Here was love, Shannon thought, puzzled, and a longing she'd never suspected. "But you never went back."
"No." Amanda sighed. "I never went back. Do you ever wonder, darling, how it is that a person can plan things so carefully, all but see how things will be the next day, and the next, then some small something happens, some seemingly insignificant something, and the pattern shifts. It's never quite the same again."
It wasn't a question so much as a statement. So Shannon simply waited, wondering what small something had changed her mother's pattern.
The pain was trying to creep back, cunningly. Amanda closed her eyes a moment, concentrating on beating it. She would hold it off, she promised herself, until she had finished what she'd begun.
"One morning-it was late summer now and the rain came and went, fitful-Kate was feeling poorly. She decided to stay in, rest in bed for the day, read a bit and pamper herself. I was restless, a feeling in me that there were places I had to go. So I took the car, and I drove. Without planning it, I took myself to Loop Head. I could hear the waves crashing as I got out of the car and walked toward the cliffs. The wind was blowing, humming through the grass. I could smell the ocean, and the rain. There was a power there, drumming in the air even as the surf drummed on the rocks.
"I saw a man," she continued, slowly now, "standing where the land fell away to the sea. He was looking out over the water, into the rain-west toward America. There was no one else but him, hunched in his wet jacket, a dripping cap low over his eyes. He turned, as if he'd only been waiting for me, and he smiled."
Suddenly Shannon wanted to stand, to tell her mother it was time to stop, to rest, to do anything but continue. Her hands had curled themselves into fists without her being aware. There was a larger, tighter one lodged in her stomach.
"He wasn't young," Amanda said softly. "But he was handsome. There was something so sad, so lost in his eyes. He smiled and said good morning, and what a fine
day it was as the rain beat on our head and the wind slapped our faces. I laughed, for somehow it was a fine day. And though I'd grown used to the music of the brogue of western Ireland, his voice was so charming, I knew I could go on listening to it for hours. So we stood there and talked, about my travels, about America. He was a farmer, he said. A bad one, and he was sorry for that as he had two baby daughters to provide for. But there was no sadness in his face when he spoke of them. It lit. His Maggie Mae and Brie, he called them. And about his wife, he said little.
"The sun came out," Amanda said with a sigh. "It came out slow and lovely as we stood there, sort of slipping through the clouds in little streams of gold. We walked along the narrow paths, talking, as if we'd known each other all our lives. And I fell in love with him on the high, thundering cliffs. It should have frightened me." She glanced at Shannon, tentatively reached out a hand. "It did shame me, for he was a married man with children. But I thought it was only me who felt it, and how much sin can there be in the soul of an old maid dazzled by a handsome man in one morning?"
It was with relief she felt her daughter's fingers twine with hers. "But it wasn't only me who'd felt it. We saw each other again, oh, innocently enough. At a pub, back on the cliffs, and once he took both me and Kate to a little fair outside of Ennis. It couldn't stay innocent. We weren't children, either of us, and what we felt for each other was so huge, so important, and you must believe me, so right. Kate knew-anyone who looked at us could have seen it-and she talked to me as a friend would. But I loved him, and I'd never been so happy as when he was with me. Never once did he make promises. Dreams we had, but there were no promises between us. He was bound to his wife who had no love for him, and to the children he adored."
She moistened her dry lips, took another sip from the straw when Shannon wordlessly offered the glass. Amanda paused again, for it would be harder now.
"I knew what I was doing, Shannon, indeed it was more my doing than his when we became lovers. He was the first man to touch me, and when he did, at last, it was with such gentleness, such care, such love, that we wept together afterward. For we knew we'd found each other too late, and it was hopeless.
"Still we made foolish plans. He would find a way to leave his wife provided for and bring his daughters to me in America where we'd be a family. The man desperately wanted family, as I did. We'd talk together in that room overlooking the river and pretend that it was forever. We had three weeks, and every day was more wonderful than the last, and more wrenching. I had to leave him, and Ireland. He told me he would stand at Loop Head, where we'd met, and look out over the sea to New York, to me.
"His name was Thomas Concannon, a farmer who wanted to be a poet."
"Did you..." Shannon's voice was rusty and unsteady. "Did you ever see him again?"
"No. I wrote him for a time, and he answered." Pressing her lips together, Amanda stared into her daughter's eyes. "Soon after I returned to New York, I learned I was carrying his child."
Shannon shook her head quickly, the denial instinctive, the fear huge. "Pregnant?" Her heart began to beat thick and fast. She shook her head again and tried to draw her hand away. For she knew, without another word being said, she knew. And refused to know. "No,"
"I was thrilled." Amanda's grip tightened, though it cost her. "From the first moment I was sure, I was thrilled. I never thought I would have a child, that I would find someone who loved me enough to give me that gift. Oh, I wanted that child, loved it, thanked God for it. What sadness and grief I had came from knowing I would never be able to share with Tommy the beauty that had come from our loving each other. His letter to me after I'd written him of it was frantic. He would have left his home and come to me. He was afraid for me, and what I was facing alone. I knew he would have come, and it tempted me. But it was wrong, Shannon, as loving him was never wrong. So I wrote him a last time, lied to him for the first time, and told him I wasn't afraid, nor alone, and that I was going away."
"You're tired." Shannon was desperate to stop the words. Her world was tilting, and she had to fight to right it again. "You've talked too long. It's time for your medicine."
"He would have loved you," Amanda said fiercely. "If he'd had the chance. In my heart I know he loved you without ever laying eyes on you."
"Stop." She did rise then, pulling away, pushing back. There was a sickness rising inside her, and her skin felt so cold and thin. "I don't want to hear this. I don't need to hear this."
"You do. I'm sorry for the pain it causes you, but you need to know it all. I did leave," she went on quickly. "My family was shocked, furious when I told them I was pregnant. They wanted me to go away, give you up, quietly, discreetly, so that there would be no scandal and shame. I would have died before giving you up. You were mine, and you were Tommy's. There were horrible words in that house, threats, ultimatums. They disowned me, and my father, being a clever man of business, blocked my bank account so that I had no claim on the money that had been left to me by my grandmother. Money was never a game to him, you see. It was power.
"I left that house with never a regret, with the money I had in my wallet, and a single suitcase."
Shannon felt as though she were underwater, struggling for air. But the image came clearly through it, of her mother, young, pregnant, nearly penniless, carrying a sing
le suitcase. "There was no one to help you?"
"Kate would have, and I knew she'd suffer for it. This had been my doing. What shame there was, was mine. What joy there was, was mine. I took a train north, and I got a job waiting tables at a resort in the Catskills. And there I met Colin Bodine."
Amanda waited while Shannon turned away and walked to the dying fire. The room was quiet, with only the hiss of embers and the brisk wind at the windows to stir it. But beneath the quiet, she could feel the storm, the one swirling inside the child she loved more than her own life. Already she suffered, knowing that storm was likely to crash over both of them.
"He was vacationing with his parents. I paid him little mind. He was just one more of the rich and privileged I was serving. He had a joke for me now and again, and I smiled as was expected. My mind was on my work and my pay, and on the child growing inside me. Then one afternoon there was a thunderstorm, a brute of one. A good many of the guests chose to stay indoors, in their rooms and have their lunch brought to them. I was carrying a tray, hurrying to one of the cabins, for there would be trouble if the food got cold and the guest complained of it. And Colin conies barreling around a corner, wet as a dog, and flattens me. How clumsy he was, bless him."
Tears burned behind Shannon's eyes as she stared down into the glowing embers. "He said that was how he met you, by knocking you down."
"So he did. And we always told you what truths we felt we could. He sent me sprawling in the mud, with the tray of food scattering and ruined. He started apologizing, trying to help me up. All I could see was that food, spoiled. And my back aching from carrying those heavy trays, and my legs so tired of holding the rest of me up. I started to cry. Just sat there in the mud and cried and cried and cried. I couldn't stop. Even when he lifted me up and carried me to his room, I couldn't stop.
"He was so sweet, sat me down on a chair despite the mud, covered me with a blanket and sat there, patting my hand till the tears ran out. I was so ashamed of myself, and he was so kind. He wouldn't let me leave until I'd promised to have dinner with him."
It should have been romantic and sweet, Shannon thought while her breath began to hitch. But it wasn't. It was hideous. "He didn't know you were pregnant."
Amanda winced as much from the accusation in the words as she did from a fresh stab of pain. "No, not then. I was barely showing and careful to hide it or I would have lost my job. Times were different then, and an unmarried pregnant waitress wouldn't have lasted in a rich man's playground."
"You let him fall in love with you." Shannon's voice was cold, cold as the ice that seemed slicked over her skin. "When you were carrying another man's child."
And the child was me, she thought, wretched.
"I'd grown to a woman," Amanda said carefully, searching her daughter's face and weeping inside at what she read there. "And no one had really loved me. With Tommy it was quick, as stunning as a lightning bolt. I was still blinded by it when I met Colin. Still grieving over it, still wrapped in it. Everything I felt for Tommy was turned toward the child we'd made together. I could tell you I thought Colin was only being kind. And in truth, at first I did. But I saw, soon enough, that there was more."
"And you let him."
"Maybe I could have stopped him," Amanda said with a long, long sigh. "I don't know. Every day for the next week there were flowers in my room, and the pretty, useless things he loved to give. He found ways to be with me. If I had a ten-minute break, there he would be. Still it took me days before I understood I was being courted. I was terrified. Here was this lovely man who was being nothing but kind, and he didn't know I had another man's child in me. I told him, all of it, certain it would end there, and sorry for that because he was the first friend I'd had since I'd left Kate in New York. He listened, in that way he had, without interruption, without questions, without condemnations. When I was finished, and weeping again, he took my hand. 'You'd better marry me, Mandy,' he said. 'I'll take care of you and the baby.'"
The tears had escaped, ran down Shannon's cheeks as she turned back. They were running down her mother's cheeks as well, but she wouldn't allow herself to be swayed by them. Her world was no longer tilted; it had crashed.
"As simple as that? How could it have been so simple?"
"He loved me. It was humbling when I realized he truly loved me. I refused him, of course. What else could I do? I thought he was being foolishly gallant, or just foolish altogether. But he persisted. Even when I got angry and told him to leave me alone, he persisted." A smile began to curve her lips as she remembered it. "It was as if I were the rock and he the wave that patiently, endlessly sweeps over it until all resistance is worn away. He brought me baby things. Can you image a man courting a woman by bringing her gifts for her unborn child? One day he came to my room, told me we were going to get the license now and to get my purse. I did it. I just did it. And found myself married two days later."
She looked over sharply, anticipating the question before it was asked. "I won't lie to you and tell you I loved him then. I did care. It was impossible not to care for a man like that. And I was grateful. His parents were upset, naturally enough, but he claimed he would bring them around. Being Colin, I think he would have, but they were killed on their drive home. So it was just the two of us, and you. I promised myself I would be a good wife to him, make him a home, accept him in bed. I vowed not to think of Tommy again, but that was impossible. It took me years to understand there was no sin, no shame in remembering the first man I'd loved, no disloyalty to my husband."
"Not my father," Shannon said through lips of ice. "He was your husband, but he wasn't my father."
"Oh, but he was." For the first time there was a hint of temper in Amanda's voice. "Don't ever say different."
Bitterness edged her voice. "You've just told me different, haven't you?"
"He loved you while you were still in my womb, took both of us as his without hesitation or false pride." Amanda spoke as quickly as her pain would allow. "I tell you it shamed me, pining for a man I could never have, while one as fine as was ever made was beside me. The day you were born, and I saw him holding you in those big clumsy hands, that look of wonder and pride on his face, the love in his eyes as he cradled you against him as gently as if you were made of glass, I fell in love with him. I loved him as much as any woman ever loved any man from that day till this. And he was your father, as Tommy wanted to be and couldn't. If either of us had a regret, it was that we couldn't have more children to spread the happiness we shared in you."
"You just want me to accept this?" Clinging to anger was less agonizing than clinging to grief. Shannon stared. The woman in bed was a stranger now, just as she was a stranger to herself. "To go on as if it changes nothing."
"I want you to give yourself time to accept, and understand. And I want you to believe that we loved you, all of us."
Her world was shattered at her feet, every memory she had, every belief she'd fostered in jagged shards. "Accept? That you slept with a married man and got pregnant, then married the first man who asked you to save yourself. To accept the lies you told me all my life, the deceit."
"You've a right to your anger." Amanda bit back the pain, physical, emotional.
"Anger? Do you think what I'm feeling is as pale as anger? God, how could you do this?" She whirled away, horror and bitterness biting at her heels. "How could you have kept this from me all these years, let me believe I was someone I wasn't?"
"Who you are hasn't changed," Amanda said desperately. "Colin and I did what we thought was right for you. We were never sure how or when to tell you. We-"
"You discussed it?" Swamped by her own churning emotions, Shannon spun back to the frail woman on the bed. There was a horrible, shocking urge in her to snatch that shrunken body up, shake it. "Is today the day we tell Shannon she was a little mistake made on the west coast of Ireland? Or should it be tomorrow?"
"Not a mistake, never a mistake. A miracle. Damn it, Shannon-" She broke off, gasping as th
e pain lanced through her, stealing her breath, tearing like claws. Her vision grayed. She felt a hand lift her head, a pill being slipped between her lips, and heard the voice of her daughter, soothing now.
"Sip some water. A little more. That's it. Now lie back, close your eyes."
"Shannon." The hand was there to take hers when she reached out.
"I'm here, right here. The pain'll be gone in a minute. It'll be gone, and you'll sleep."
It was already ebbing, and the fatigue was rolling in like fog. Not enough time, was all Amanda could think. Why is there never enough time?
"Don't hate me," she murmured as she slipped under the fog. "Please, don't hate me."
Shannon sat, weighed down by her own grief long after her mother slept.
She didn't wake again.
Chapter Two
An ocean away from where one of Tom Concannon's daughters dealt with the pain of death, others celebrated the joys of new life.