Into the Storm (Signal Bend #3)(70)

She’d tried very hard to stay on the side of choice. Since the day she’d left Karville, she’d made it her mission to choose her life. To chart her course and not let circumstances decide where she’d land.

Nothing in this moment was her choice. Not sitting here on Show’s lap, his arms tense and tight around her, being told she couldn’t leave. Not the daughter she’d given away probably sitting upstairs, here for what reason Shannon could only guess. Not what Show would do when he heard her story. The course she’d charted for herself simply didn’t exist any longer. Her choice was moot.

Shannon sighed, and then she started a story she’d kept close for twenty years. To Keith, who’d found out parts of the story on his own, looking into why she was being followed, she’d told only what was necessary to explain. Show, she decided, would hear it all. No point trying to control it now. And when he turned his back on her, she’d go and start over in a new place, farther away. Try, anyway.

“Yes. She could be my daughter. There’s reason to believe she is.” His arms relaxed a little, and his hand moved to her hair, stroking. She closed her eyes and felt it, taking some strength from it.

“Okay. I’m going to tell you a story. Most of it I’ve never told before, so bear with me. If I tell it all, maybe you’ll understand a little.” She cleared her throat. “All through high school, I had the same boyfriend —Jeff. He was a typical country boy, cowboy hat and all. No aspirations beyond taking on his daddy’s farm someday. He was pretty nice, pretty cute, treated me pretty well. He could be a jerk, too, but no different from every other guy in town. I guess we were ‘in love,’ in the high school way, though we never said it. I don’t know why, but we never did.

“Anyway. I was planning to go to college after high school—just SEMO, nowhere far or fancy. I just wanted more than working at the Kustard King until I married Jeff or some other local boy, stuck in the same loop everybody in town was stuck in—the constant struggle to stay above water, every day the same.

The town was sickly then, on its way out. Most everybody was in the same boat.

“We didn’t have an MC looking out for things. But we had the Pentecostal Church. The pastor led the town, a lot like Isaac leads Signal Bend. It was his word that mattered. Seems to me that Reverend Allen was less interested in making the town better and more interested in making sure people didn’t notice how bad it all was. I don’t know. But nothing happened in town without his input. He was a good man, all in all.

But he had a particular view of the world. Still does, as far as I know.

“Jeff hated me talking about college. We had some huge fights about it, because I was determined. But then, toward the end of senior year, I got pregnant. We’d started having sex the summer before. We were careful. We always used a condom. Sometimes, he’d push in and try to get something started before he had it on, but I never let him get far with that. Far enough, though, I guess. At least once.

“I was devastated. Jeff was ecstatic, thinking he’d won. He wanted us to get married right after graduation. I said no. I said I wasn’t keeping the baby, that we were too young and stupid, too poor, and it wasn’t what I wanted. I was going to college. I knew I couldn’t get an abortion, partly because I couldn’t afford it, and partly because I’d come up in that church and just couldn’t imagine doing it. But as far as I was concerned, being pregnant was delaying my college plans, nothing more. I was giving the baby up.”

Telling all of it, remembering it, Shannon had begun to tremble. She took a long, deep breath and, for the first time since she’d started her story, she looked Show in the eyes. What she saw gave her some strength. She saw patience. He hadn’t judged her yet.

She took another breath and went on. “When Jeff couldn’t convince me, he told everybody—my family, his family, Reverend Allen. Within a couple of days, the whole town knew. And everybody was on Jeff’s side. Everybody. My brothers beat the hell out of him for soiling their baby sister, but they were on his side about what should happen next. We were the topic of Sunday sermons. Everywhere I turned, somebody was standing there, trying to change my mind. People were even dropping their babies in my arms, in the middle of the market or outside church. I guess so I’d feel how much I wanted to hold my own. Girls who’d been my friends told me how lucky I was, what a catch Jeff was, how jealous they were.

When that didn’t work, they called me a selfish bitch. I swear, it was like the whole town was having planning meetings about how to get me to marry Jeff and raise his baby.

“Home was worse. My father was furious and disgusted. My mother was weepy. I’d dirtied my sister’s name. She never would have found herself in such a predicament. She was their angel, and I was unworthy to be her namesake. I had to do what was right and redeem myself. It was relentless. After a few weeks, it was obvious that no one was going to back off, ever. And I wasn’t going to marry Jeff. God, by then I hated him. So, I emptied out my little savings account, packed up my little beater car in the middle of the night, and left.”

Shannon stopped. She knew she had to finish, but she was exhausted. Show had barely moved while she’d spoken. She looked at him now and said, “I’ll tell the rest. But I need a break. Want a drink? Or something to eat? I have some leftover meatloaf I swiped from the kitchen. I could make meatloaf sandwiches.”