Quickly Shannon scooped up her bills and calculator, placing them onto a corner of the counter before her mother caught a glimpse of Shannon’s finances. It wasn’t that she had anything to hide so much as she didn’t want her mother worrying, fretting, and asking about her current Visa card balance or mortgage payment.
“I just don’t understand it,” Maureen started as Oliver, insisting Shannon take it easy and sit at the table across from their mother, found the instant iced tea and began whipping up a glass. “Why would anyone want to harm Mary Beth? And those poor children.”
Oliver, ever dutiful, deposited the glass in front of her, but she barely noticed.
“I tell you it’s the Flannery curse,” Maureen insisted, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin from the holder on the small table.
“You said so last night.”
“Well, it’s true!” Maureen snapped.
She was known for her will of iron. Her friends had marveled at how she’d handled her strapping, big, hellions of sons and yet Shannon knew that her mother had her own secrets, her own demons to deal with. This morning she was on a roll, taking up where she’d left off the night before.
“If it weren’t for bad luck we’d have no luck at all,” she said, sniffing.
That had been her personal mantra for as long as Shannon could remember.
“It killed your father, you know. Not just you getting pregnant or all that mess with Ryan. The assault charges, the restraining order, the accusations about that stupid Stealth Torcher, the damned murder, and Neville…sweet Neville…oh, dear God…”
She stopped to cross herself and Oliver placed a hand upon her shoulder as his eyes met those of his sister. They didn’t have to say a word, just silently acknowledged that this woman was their mother and she wasn’t going to wind down until she was good and ready.
Caught up in her own theatrics, Maureen started to quietly sob. Shannon, despite knowing better, felt sorry for her.
“Not to mention Aaron being kicked off the fire department and now…Now the fires have started and Mary Beth is dead. Think of poor little Elizabeth and RJ. What will they do without a mother?”
“I don’t know, Mom, but Robert will take care of them.”
“I pray that he does.” She took in a tremulous breath. “He’s been so…distracted lately.”
“He’ll be there for his children,” Oliver said. He stood with his hips resting against a cabinet, his fingers curled over the lip of the counter.
“That horrible fire. What else could it be but a curse?”
“Mother,” Oliver quietly reproached.
Shannon’s headache thundered back with a vengeance. Maybe she needed those painkillers after all.
“And what about the fire here, Shannon? Look at you! Your face still bruised, your arm and ribs.”
“What’s happened has nothing to do with curses or demons or the devil,” Shannon said. “Bad luck, maybe…well, certainly…and stupid decisions and someone out to get us, yes, I’ll grant you that much, but really, not a curse.”
Oliver put in his pious two cents’ worth. “At least we should be thankful that Shannon wasn’t injured any more than she was.”
“But Mary Beth wasn’t so lucky.”
After a few more minutes Oliver mentioned that he had to get back. Shannon tried not to show her relief as she walked them outside, watching as Oliver helped Maureen into the passenger side of her Buick.
Before he left, he pulled Shannon aside, into the shadow of a black oak. “There’s something I think you should know.” His eyes shifted from one side to the other, as if he wasn’t exactly certain how to say what was on his mind.
“What is it?”
He hesitated.
“Enough with the high drama. Please. We get enough of that from Mom, so what’s up?”
He scratched his chin. Avoided her eyes. “Well, I’m not certain, at least not a hundred percent, but I think, no, I’m pretty sure that I saw Brendan in the congregation last Sunday.”
“Brendan?” She was stunned. A dozen pictures of the father of her child flashed through her mind. Brendan in his tux as he’d picked her up for the senior prom, Brendan waving from the stands at her graduation, Brendan with her in the bedroom of his apartment, Brendan’s chalk-white face when she’d told him about the baby…