Born in Shame Read Free

And the light, it’s like a pearl, just brushed with gold.”
    Here was love, Shannon thought, puzzled, and a longing she’d never suspected. “But you never went back.”
    â€œNo.” Amanda sighed. “I never went back. Do you ever wonder, darling, how it is that a person can plan things so carefully, all but see how things will be the next day, and the next, then some small something happens, some seemingly insignificant something, and the pattern shifts. It’s never quite the same again.”
    It wasn’t a question so much as a statement. So Shannon simply waited, wondering what small something had changed her mother’s pattern.
    The pain was trying to creep back, cunningly. Amanda closed her eyes a moment, concentrating on beating it. She would hold it off, she promised herself, until she had finished what she’d begun.
    â€œOne morning—it was late summer now and the rain came and went, fitful—Kate was feeling poorly. She decided to stay in, rest in bed for the day, read a bit and pamper herself. I was restless, a feeling in me that there were places I had to go. So I took the car, and I drove. Without planning it, I took myself to Loop Head. I could hear the waves crashing as I got out of the car and walked toward the cliffs. The wind was blowing, humming through the grass. I could smell the ocean, and the rain. There was a power there, drumming in the air even as the surf drummed on the rocks.
    â€œI saw a man,” she continued, slowly now, “standing where the land fell away to the sea. He was looking out over the water, into the rain—west toward America. There was no one else but him, hunched in his wet jacket, a dripping cap low over his eyes. He turned, as if he’d only been waiting for me, and he smiled.”
    Suddenly Shannon wanted to stand, to tell her mother it was time to stop, to rest, to do anything but continue. Her hands had curled themselves into fists without her being aware. There was a larger, tighter one lodged in her stomach.
    â€œHe wasn’t young,” Amanda said softly. “But he was handsome. There was something so sad, so lost in his eyes. He smiled and said good morning, and what a fine day it was as the rain beat on our head and the wind slapped our faces. I laughed, for somehow it was a fine day. And though I’d grown used to the music of the brogue of western Ireland, his voice was so charming, I knew I could go on listening to it for hours. So we stood there and talked, about my travels, about America. He was a farmer, he said. A bad one, and he was sorry for that as he had two baby daughters to provide for. But there was no sadness in his face when he spoke of them. It lit. His Maggie Mae and Brie, he called them. And about his wife, he said little.
    â€œThe sun came out,” Amanda said with a sigh. “It came out slow and lovely as we stood there, sort of slipping through the clouds in little streams of gold. We walked along the narrow paths, talking, as if we’d known each other all our lives. And I fell in love with him on the high, thundering cliffs. It should have frightened me.” She glanced at Shannon, tentatively reached out a hand. “It did shame me, for he was a married man with children. But I thought it was only me who felt it, and how much sin can there be in the soul of an old maid dazzled by a handsome man in one morning?”
    It was with relief she felt her daughter’s fingers twine with hers. “But it wasn’t only me who’d felt it. We saw each other again, oh, innocently enough. At a pub, back on the cliffs, and once he took both me and Kate to a little fair outside of Ennis. It couldn’t stay innocent. We weren’t children, either of us, and what we felt for each other was so huge, so important, and you must believe me, so right. Kate knew—anyone who looked at us could have seen it—and she talked to me as a friend would. But I