“I’m Shannon Walsh.”
So this was the infamous Shannon. I expected the pricey suit, the chic accessories, the insane heels. I didn’t expect her to be tiny, or look so tired.
“Thank you for meeting me,” she said. She gestured over her shoulder toward a table. “Can we talk?”
“Can you just tell me what happened with Sam? Is he all right?”
She tucked her hair over her shoulder and paused. “Can we sit? Just for a few minutes?”
Hopefully she didn’t bring me here to mention that Sam had chlamydia. That seemed like something he’d delegate to one of his many platonic lady friends.
I nodded and followed her to a table. She summoned the barista and ordered a latte and a sugar cookie for herself. Another cappuccino for me.
Shannon didn’t say anything while our coffees were brewing, and once I stopped being annoyed at her manipulating me into meeting, I noticed she was nervous. She was gnawing on her lip and stealing quick glances at me, then started dismantling her cookie when it arrived on a rustic plate.
“Is Sam all right?”
Her fingers continued breaking the cookie into smaller and smaller pieces until a small pile of sand started forming on her plate. “No, he really isn’t okay,” she said, and tears sprang to her eyes. They spilled over, and ran down her perfectly applied makeup. There were freckles under all that foundation, and they were pretty.
I grabbed her wrist to slow the cookie decimation. “Honeybunch, you need to start talking.”
She nodded and blotted her tears with a napkin. After a shuddering breath, she said, “He’s abandoned all of his projects. He left town, and we aren’t sure where he is, but he said he was going camping.” She returned to the cookie. “I thought it would be a long weekend. I didn’t think he was serious when he said he needed to be away from here.”
He wasn’t sick or injured, and he wasn’t spreading the clap. For that, I could be thankful, but . . . I didn’t think there was a place for me in his life anymore, regardless of whether I wanted one. “And you’re telling me this because . . . ?”
She held out her hands and sent me an aggravated look. “Because . . . because I want to know why! I want to know why he walked away from everything and what happened to make him so miserable.”
Carefully setting the cappuccino on the table, I sat back and laced my fingers together. “You presume I had something to do with it?”
Her eyes widened as she stared at the cookie sand on her plate. “As a matter of fact, yes. I believe you were dating my brother at one point, and now that you’re not, he finds it necessary to vanish into the woods.”
Great. I was going to offend another Walsh today.
“Shannon, I’m not clear how that’s any of your business. Sam is an adult and he does not need you or anyone else managing every one of the minute details of his life. Anything that transpired between us was just that—betweenus.”
For a second, her eyes flashed with fury and I expected an authentic ginger tantrum, but it morphed into sadness. She held the crumpled napkin to her mouth and burst into tears. This was not what I expected from Shannon Walsh.
She cried for several minutes, and I waved off the coffee shop’s staff every time they ventured toward us with concerned frowns. We were probably scaring away their regular clientele.
Eventually it came to a sniffling, gasping stop, and she excused herself to the ladies’ room. When she returned, her eyes were puffy, her nose was reddened, her foundation wiped clean, but her seriousness was now mixed with a stripe of sad.
“My mother,” she started. “She died when we were young.” She motioned toward me with her coffee. “Did you know that?”
“Yes.” I didn’t mention that Sam shared it last summer, or that I knew exponentially more about her and her family than she knew about me.
“Right, of course.”
She nodded to herself and ran her hand through her hair, ruffling the smooth, styled wave she had going. I liked it better messy, but that was my preference for most things.
“I raised my brothers and sister. I’ve been Head Bitch in Charge since I was nine. All I have ever done is manage the minute details of their lives. When they were kids, I made sure they were bathed and wearing clean clothes. I sewed buttons and fixed hems because there was no one else to do it. I took care of them when they were sick. I signed their report cards and paid bills. I went to work selling houses when I was eighteen so they could go away to college. I got themthroughit. And now that we’re adults? I’m still getting them through it. I schedule their doctors’ appointments. I file their taxes. I register their cars. I can’t remember a time when my life wasn’t about taking care of them. I meddle in their lives because I have been a lot more than their sister for nearly twenty-four years.”
I traced the edge of my cup as the minutes passed. I didn’t know what to say. I only knew how to handle these situations with kids, and I usually had an instrument to fill the silence.
“They don’t need me anymore, not the way they used to. I thought it was a good thing, but I can’t find the balance between being there too much and not enough. I’ve been trying to focus on myself.”
She laughed as if it was a ridiculous endeavor and twisted the skinny silver bracelets on her wrist.
“It began with online dating a few years back. That’s pretty much the worst invention in the world.” Shannon rolled her eyes and shuddered. “But then Matt started dating Lauren, and now she’s my best friend. I didn’t know how to be friends with girls before her, and Lauren taught me,” she said quietly. “She says nice things about you.”
