Tabula Rasa(42)

“No, Ma’am, I haven’t,” I went ahead and said. It may or may not be true, but from my perspective it was true enough for the moment.

“So,” Millie said, “How did you two meet?”

I was happy to let Shannon field this one.

“At an amusement park.”

I nearly choked on my green beans, which were as wonderful as advertised. She’d added some kind of oil to them and sugar, which made the flavors pop.

“Oh?” Millie said. “An operational one, or one of the ones you and your friends like to explore?”

“It was operational. We were both there alone on a special lovebirds discount day and we pretended to be a couple to get the discount. Then we spent the day together in the park. By the time they started shooting off fireworks that night, I was smitten.”

Millie sighed. “I love that story.”

I loved it, too. Too bad it wasn’t true. But somehow I doubted, I killed the man she was with in an abandoned amusement park castle, disposed of the body, and basically kidnapped her, and now she can never leave me, would be as charming.

The rest of dinner was as delicious as it looked. Shannon’s mom was quite the cook, which was hard to believe, given how fit she was. But I had a feeling she’d made this dinner special for Shannon and that these were some of his favorite foods.

I was grateful I didn’t have to talk much about myself. Millie and Frank asked the polite questions about what I did for a living and where I’d gone to school. I took Shannon’s advice and stuck to script, deviating only in the places that might give me away, though I was sure I looked nothing like the photos of me that had made the news network rounds months ago. And how many people would remember anyway? At best, I would look vaguely familiar. They’d be sure they’d seen me somewhere, but couldn’t quite remember where.

I still found it hard to believe Shannon had recognized me and Trevor immediately in the castle. But Shannon had probably been trained to notice details in a way most hadn’t. And then there was the endless perceptiveness that had been required in his childhood just to survive it with his mask of normality intact.

After dinner, Millie brought out coffee and a chocolate silk pie. I wasn’t sure I had room for it, but she insisted.

“So, how serious is it?” Millie asked, aiming her question directly at Shannon.

She was certainly a nice woman, but I was sure Shannon could have brought in a bag lady off the street and Millie would have been equally excited that her nice boy had finally found someone.

“Mom,” Shannon hedged.

“I mean it. I want to help plan a wedding. I want to dance at my son’s wedding. I want grandchildren! How much longer will I have to wait for all that?”

I wondered if I could in fact have children. Trevor had said I couldn’t but that was probably all part of his elaborate lie. Had he really gotten the snip? Maybe the reason he wouldn’t let me handle the food was he’d been slipping birth control into it.

“Can’t you just be happy I’m seeing someone?” Shannon asked, clearly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken.

Millie switched her attention to me. “Elodie, would you marry him if he asked you to?”

“I... um...” I didn’t know what Shannon wanted me to say. I was pretty sure if he wanted to continue this charade to coddle his mother’s fantasies that I wouldn’t have much choice in the matter.

“Mom, don’t put her on the spot. You’re making her uncomfortable. We haven’t discussed the subject. This is still new. I promise if we do, you’ll be the first person to hear about it.”

After that, the rest of dessert and coffee went smoothly. Frank let Millie carry most of the conversation. When everyone was finished eating, I was surprised to see him collect the dinner plates and take them to the kitchen. From the beginning, he’d struck me as the kind of guy that went to watch football immediately after dinner, leaving the women to clean up after the meal they’d cooked.

“I’ve never met a man who loves washing dishes, but Frank does. He also does his own laundry. Did I get a keeper or what?” she asked.

How these two people’s genes had mingled to create Shannon was probably one of the universe’s strangest mysteries.

We didn’t linger long after dinner, Shannon made an excuse, saying he had to get some work done. I wondered what his family thought he did for a living now that he was out of the military.

“Well, that was bracing,” I said as Shannon started the car.

“They mean well. You did good in there.”

I knew there could still be some secret abuse that I wasn’t aware of. But from what I’d seen, they really did seem to love Shannon. They were proud of him, almost achingly so, and believed him to be a good man, a hero even. And in some twisted sense, I knew that was true, both for me and for the country at large.

“What are you thinking?” Shannon asked.

I stared out the window at the nice houses with well-manicured lawns, not unlike the neighborhood Shannon lived in, though it was a bit of a drive to get to his parents’ house since they lived in Savannah, while his house was in a smaller town nearby. “I just don’t understand how you could have been raised by people like that and be what you are.”

Shannon frowned. “It’s not as if they made no difference. In a different environment I would have turned out far worse.”