Page 50 of Through the Dark Night
“I said some things that were unkind. A lot of things that were very unkind, and I’m sorry. I did not mean to hurt you. Actually, at the time I probably did, because I was angry and upset and my mouth ran away from me. I have no excuse other than that. I wish I could say it would never happen again, but I guess I can’t.”
“I guess that happens to everyone. It happens to me too. I’m sorry for getting impatient. You’ve been through a lot, and I’ve been telling myself ever since you came back that I just needed to wait and let you work through it, and I didn’t do that the last time we spoke. I wanted more from you than you were ready to give.”
More? How much more did he want? She was ready to give…a lot. Everything? She wasn’t quite sure about that.
“I guess it’s hard for me to trust.”
“That makes sense. I understand that.”
She kind of thought that someone who hadn’t been cheated on probably wouldn’t understand how difficult it was to trust, but maybe he did. Maybe he had thought about it and could put himself in her shoes and understand how scary it was to put her heart in someone’s hands when the last person who had had it had treated it so callously and carelessly.
“I’m hungry,” Katie said, sounding impatient and a little whiny. “Can’t we eat?”
Shannon smiled, and Lance, after seeing her grin, grinned back.
“We probably should eat while they’re still hot. Nothing is worse than a pancake that won’t melt the butter on top of it.”
“You’ve never made bad pancakes. But they are better if they’re hot,” Katie said while she went and got plates and set the table.
Shannon moved to the silverware drawer, which was over by Lance. He stepped out of the way so she could open it.
“It’s good to see you,” he said low, and she supposed she was the only one who heard it.
She lifted her face to his. “I missed you. I missed you so much, and I still feel terrible.”
He shook his head. “We’ll talk later.”
But his expression said that she didn’t need to worry about it. That everything was forgiven.
They chatted lightly over pancakes, with Katie holding up most of the conversation, chattering about the leaves and working in the yard and the things that she had been doing at the places where she stayed and how she was helping some in the hardware store, earning a little bit of money by sweeping the floor every day at closing.
It made Shannon’s heart warm to think about how careful and kind Lance had been to Katie. And how sweet and innocent she had stayed, totally secure in the love of the adults around her, and that was almost entirely Lance’s doing.
Their easy domesticity felt sweet and warm and cozy and right. Like this could be a real family.
It made Shannon’s heart sad to think that it could have been her actual family, with Lance being the father of her children, and Katie a part of their table always as each baby came home from the hospital.
But that wasn’t her life, and she couldn’t regret the life she’d lived. Otherwise, it would be wasted. She needed to look at the lessons, learn what she could from them, and move on.
After the pancakes had all been eaten with just one left over, and the table cleared and the dishes done, Katie went off to play with some other kids who were outside in their yards also raking leaves into a pile so they could jump into them.
Lance offered his hand to Shannon and asked her if she wanted to sit on the porch swing.
“Maybe it’s a little cold for that?” he added.
“I can handle it if you can,” she said, although it was chilly out.
“Maybe we should just sit in here on the loveseat. I can start a fire.”
“That’s cozy,” she said. Maybe he took that as her preference, which it was, and he knelt before the fireplace for a little bit until he had a nice healthy flame going.
Shannon, sitting on the loveseat, admired again how competent and good he was with his hands. He built a fire the same way he wired at the inn—with a deliberateness and a competence that drew her and attracted her.
“There. Looks like it’s going to catch.”
“You make a fire much better than I do. I’ve spent hours trying to get the fire at the inn going. I keep telling myself I’ll get better at it, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily true.”
“It is. Although, we should talk about the possibility of putting a gas fireplace in at the inn. It would save you a lot of work and trouble.”
