Page 44 of Shadow Target

“Was she able to love you? Hug you? Be there when you needed someone to talk to?”

Shep rested his forearm across his brow, looking off into the darkness. “No. Like I said, she just dried up, died inside, and went away. Now, looking back on it, my mom was in deep, severe depression. Eventually, she went back to illustrating books. She kept me fed and clothed, but I felt like I was living with a ghost in that house.”

“So, you had no one to talk to about how you felt at all?”

“No. I was ashamed of my mother’s depression, although at that time, I didn’t know what it was called. I only saw the symptoms of it every day; I thought everyone who had that experience would behave like that.”

“Not to mention the trauma of your father leaving, too.”

His mouth tightened. “He had a new life, Willow. A new wife. A new son.” He looked over at her sad face. “I guess he was happy, but I don’t know that for sure. I know my mom and I weren’t. I missed him so much…”

“I see why you closed up,” she said gently. “In a sense, you were abandoned by both your parents in different ways. You grew up never sharing how you felt with anyone because no one was there to ask you questions or care for how you were feeling about all of it.”

Shrugging, he said, “It was just the way it was.” He reached out, capturing her hand resting on her crossed knees. “I got a different slant on it when you walked out on me. I understood the pain of what my mother went through.”

Rubbing her brow, giving him a look of apology, she whispered, “I’m so sorry, Shep. I felt so strongly that something wounded you in your childhood, and that’s why you couldn’t bridge the gap with me. But you never told me.” She curled her fingers around his hand. “Until now… This all makes sense to me now.” She released his hand and lay down beside him. She curved one arm around his torso, her head resting on his shoulder. “Now I see why you didn’t understand what I needed from you.”

He caressed her unruly hair. “I cheated you. I cheated us. I was behaving exactly like my mother. It took me three years of wandering the wilderness of Peru to get what you were talking about, what you needed from me, Willow.” He sighed raggedly. “No one is sorrier than me for the pain I caused you or the pain I caused myself.”

Shaking her head, Willow tightened her arm around his middle. “Don’t apologize. You were raised to be silent on all levels of yourself, Shep.” She pulled back, holding his murky, regretful gaze. “You were in a circumstance not of your own making. You were only nine, so young and vulnerable. It tells me why you were afraid to be equally vulnerable with me.”

“I thought I was open to you, Willow. Especially when we loved one another.” It sent his heart aching to think that she’d thought he was that much like his mother: completely and emotionally unavailable. Shep knew the coldness of the shield his mother bore after the divorce. He could never get inside it to touch her like he had before. “I mean, I hated that my mother was closed up and I couldn’t ever get through to her again. I didn’t want to be like her. I tried to be open with you. And I failed.”

“No, you weren’t completely unavailable, Shep. You were open when we loved one another,” she soothed. “I fell in love with the man who made love to me so exquisitely. I wanted THAT MAN twenty-four hours a day,” and she searched his eyes. “Not for an hour at a time.”

It all fell into place for Shep in a blinding instant. Shellshocked for a moment, he digested her impassioned plea. He pushed himself up on his elbow, facing her, caressing her shoulder. “The good news is you are changing that,” she concluded.

Absorbing her words, hearing the hopefulness in them, he nodded. “Okay, I’m going to become that for you, Willow. It’s not going to be easy, but I’ll try every day. Hmmm… Something just occurred to me,” he rasped.

“What?”

“My mother’s drawings, the books she illustrated. She went on to keep doing them for the publishers and… whenever she was painting? She seemed fully absorbed into her creativity. Sometimes, I remember as a teen, I’d come home from school, and she’d be humming as she worked. I always thought she was happy then.” He grimaced. “Well, as happy as she could be.”

“Her creativity gave her some of what she lost when your father left you,” Willow murmured. “She was happy when she was painting, and I’m so glad she had that positive outlet. I’ll bet her depression lifted when she was doing that?”

“She was always lighter, more responsive toward me,” Shep said, nodding. He rubbed his face. “I didn’t put that together until just now.”

“Well,” she laughed a little, “you know how self-absorbed teenagers are, right? You wouldn’t have recognized it then, but I’ll bet you do now.”

Nodding, he said, “Yeah, I can totally relate to that.”

“At least your mother got some happiness out of her life,” Willow whispered, giving him a warm look.

Shep grew quiet and frowned. “You need to know the rest of my family story, Willow. When I was leaving for college, my mother suddenly died of a heart attack.”

Gasping, she sat up. “Oh, no!”

“Yeah,” he muttered, holding her wide-eyed gaze. “I was getting ready to put my bags in my car. Mom wasn’t around and I called for her. I found her laying on the bed, and I couldn’t rouse her. I called 911, but by the time the EMTs got there? She was dead. In fact, the medical examiner told me she had died hours before and there was no way to resuscitate her. I went into shock.”

Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she whispered, “I’m so sorry, Shep… so sorry…”

“I called my dad and told him.” His voice lowered in pain. “He cried, and so did I.” The moments lulled between them and finally, he forced out, “Her funeral was three days later, and he came… he stood next to me. I was crying and couldn’t stop. He put his arm around me, hugged me, and we cried together.”

“Thank goodness he was there, and he held you,” she whispered, closing her eyes tightly.

Shep inhaled deeply and released it. “I have a lot of mixed feelings toward him to this day. I haven’t worked through all of it. I don’t know if I ever will. Or how I feel about him; what he did to my mother…”

“Things like this takes decades to resolve, if at all. Are you in touch with him now?’

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