Sneak Peek of Through the Dark Night #2
She didn’t look like she was in her twenties anymore either.
Although, she had been thirty-four when they left.
With three children, she’d been slender, maybe not teenage slender, but she definitely didn’t have the matronly figure that many mothers of three did.
Not then anyway. She’d gained weight since the divorce, although she lost it before it had been finalized.
Sleepless nights, wishing she could have done something to keep her family together, wondering what she could have done to prevent her husband’s infidelity, and constantly trying to tell herself that she had done the best she could, and there was no point in looking back.
Fran straightened and turned around. She blinked and then tilted her head as Shannon removed her sunglasses.
Shannon didn’t really expect Fran to remember her. It had been almost twenty years.
“Shannon McKay, well, I’ll be… I guess it’s not McKay anymore, is it?”
“Actually, it is McKay.” That had been the first thing she’d done after her divorce was final.
If James didn’t want her anymore, she wasn’t going to keep his name.
Her kids had been a little upset with her.
They hadn’t wanted to have a name that was different than hers, but they hadn’t wanted to ditch their father’s name either, and she had not encouraged that.
She had gently suggested that the name that they were born with was the name that they identified with.
She encouraged them to not do anything rash.
After all, James had been a good father.
If by good, one ignored the fact that he had cheated on his wife and broken up his family, committing adultery and leaving a wake of pain and devastation behind him.
Fran’s face fell, and her brows lowered. “Oh? I hadn’t heard.”
The gossip hadn’t reached Raspberry Ridge?
Shannon supposed that made sense. After all, she didn’t have any ties left in Raspberry Ridge.
Both of her parents had passed on in the last five years, and her siblings had long since fled.
She stayed in touch with them but not on a daily basis.
It was more like she picked up the phone for Thanksgiving or Christmas or maybe texted them on their birthday. And they did the same for her.
She nodded.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Fran said, sounding truly sorry as she bustled forward, her arms outstretched.
And if her walk was a little bit less steady than it used to be, if she seemed a little bit more frail, Shannon ignored it as she allowed the older woman to wrap her arms around her and envelop her in a cinnamon-scented hug.
It felt like home.
Without thought, she felt herself hugging back, tightly, the kind of hug a person gave someone they knew and loved and missed.
“I’m sorry I mentioned it,” Fran said, stepping back and looking up at Shannon, almost as though she was hungry for a good look at her.
“It was amicable.” She didn’t feel like she was lying when she said that.
Her husband and she were still talking. She could call him up today, he would answer her call, and they would have a civil conversation.
However, she knew there was a part of her that resented what he did, that was hurt in a way words couldn’t explain over the fact that he had walked out on their almost thirty-year marriage.
That he had obviously not even tried to make things right between them.
He hadn’t suggested counseling, hadn’t even told her that there was anything wrong.
She just intercepted a text his girlfriend had sent, and he’d come clean about everything and moved out that same day.
“Well, that’s good to hear. So many times, there’s so much fighting and bickering that the lawyers get everything and a person has to be careful about what they say.
” Fran waved her hand. “But Raspberry Ridge seems to be the place for second chances lately. You wouldn’t believe the people who have come back and found love here.
It’s…been good for my old heart to watch. ”
“That’s not going to happen to me. But I am back to stay.”
“You are? Are you looking for a place to rent?” Fran asked, and Shannon figured that if she was, Fran would certainly know of the places that were available.
But she wasn’t.
She thought about hedging or dodging the question, but there was no point. Raspberry Ridge was a small town, and everyone was going to know sooner or later. It might as well be now.
“No. I bought the old inn.”
Fran froze, her eyes opening wide in shock. “That was you?”
Shannon nodded. She had set up an LLC and bought it under that, not necessarily to keep the townspeople from knowing that it was her, although it had that effect as well. But it was more for tax purposes. Her accountant had suggested that was the way she should go.
“Well, I’ll be,” Fran said, a hand going to her heart.
“I can’t believe it.” She huffed out a breath.
“Mind you, I’m happy about it, because having that old inn opened up, fixed up, generating revenue, and bringing people in could be nothing but good for this town.
But… I would never have guessed that it would have been you. ”
Shannon nodded. She didn’t want to go into the whole divorce and her needing to have something to do, a purpose in life.
She felt worthless, with her kids gone and her husband gone and her rattling around that big old house in the ’burbs of Detroit by herself.
The one that held all the memories of her raising her children and their laughter ringing in the walls, the late nights she’d spent staying up with them holding them while they were feverish or coughing, the times James had come home with good news from work, a raise, a vacation, and just the regular old family time around the table in the evening as they ate supper together.
All of it was there, crumbling in on her, crushing her, making it so that she could barely breathe.
She needed a new start. But she didn’t want to do something completely new, like move to Florida.
She needed a new start in an old spot, one that was familiar and welcoming and one where she knew she could heal.
Raspberry Ridge was the only place that could happen.
And what better thing to do than to fix up the old inn?
It would be new, yet it was old at the same time.
It was in her memory, but the memories weren’t so personal that she couldn’t handle the pain.
After all, if she tried to move back into the house that they’d owned when Yolanda had died, she wouldn’t have been able to handle it.
Thankfully, that house was not along the main street, and she hadn’t seen it coming in.
If she didn’t want to, she wouldn’t have to see it at all.
Because she would have to make a concerted effort to pull into the driveway and drive back to the house.
And then it would be a little awkward as she sat there while the owners wondered what in the world the crazy woman was doing staring at their house.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
“So are you just here scoping it out? How long are you staying?”
“I’m here for good.”
She didn’t elaborate, and Fran looked a little confused. Shannon knew that wasn’t the way people usually operated.
“Oh my goodness. And James… James isn’t with you?”
Shannon shook her head. She knew that Fran was just digging for information, but she didn’t feel ready to share that, even though she wasn’t trying to hide anything. She wasn’t the one who had done anything wrong.
“It’s been a long drive, and I’m here for some coffee. Do you have some?” she asked, although she could smell it when she walked in.
Fran nodded and pointed at the coffee machine that sat at the end of the checkout counter.
Shannon walked up and got herself a cup as Fran chattered about the changes that had been happening in Raspberry Ridge since she had left. She also talked about some of the things that hadn’t changed a bit.
Shannon paid for her coffee, and then she escaped out of the store without giving out any more personal information.
People were going to find out eventually.
It was a small town, and that’s what happened in small towns, but it didn’t have to be today.
She had a little bit more time to herself before she had to share more of her life with the world, or with Raspberry Ridge, which was the world when one lived in a small town.
She took two steps toward her vehicle before the sight of the healing garden caught her eye.
On a whim, she turned and walked the fifty yards to the entrance.
She had heard via an article in the local paper that Raspberry Ridge had put in a healing garden.
The article had been more about Dominic and Vera Miller, the award-winning duo who had built the garden, than it had been about Raspberry Ridge, but the setting had been what had caught Shannon’s eye.
And now, as she read the plaque that was visible from the gate, she remembered that the article had said that Dominic and Vera had lost a child.
To those who are waiting in heaven for us.
This is a place where we can sit and remember, wish you were still with us, be happy for your good fortune, and look forward to the day when we are reunited.
She didn’t remember reading about the plaque in the paper and wondered if maybe it had been added later.
The words were perfect though. Because Yolanda waited in heaven, and since the day of her death, Shannon had been looking for a way to heal and had been looking forward to them meeting again.
This was definitely a place she wanted to get back to. But as she saw the sun lowering in the sky, she knew she had to move on. She didn’t know what she was going to find when she got to the inn, and she needed to face that for sure.
With one last look at the plaque and then the healing garden in general, she turned and walked back to her car.
In some ways, this had been harder than what she thought, and in some ways, she felt stronger just for what she’d been able to accomplish, coming to town, walking into Fran’s and chatting, and seeing that the town was just as welcoming as it always had been.
And then, knowing there was someone else who shared her grief and sorrow and who had gotten through it, using that grief to do something to be a blessing to other people.
Maybe that was what Shannon was doing with the inn, using her grief and the heartache that she had endured to be a blessing to others. The thought made her smile.