March 1982
I thought of Shannon often, actually--more often than I should have, more often than what was fair to Kathy. Our relationship did not end with grace, and for years afterward we both had to live with a certain amount of ugliness and misery.
But for some time, we where happy. "We need to go to Hawaii," Shannon said one morning not long after we moved into her father's rental house.
"We do?" I said. "Why?"
"I like the beach. And the sun." She was still in college then, still not sure that she wanted to be a teacher but moving in that direction anyway.
"I'm not much for the beach," I said. "I kind of stand out in a swimsuit."
"You'll enjoy it. Daddy told me he'd buy me the trip as a graduation present."
"But you haven't graduated yet."
"One more semester--that's close enough. Don't you want to travel?"
"I like London."
"Is there a beach there?"
"Not that I know of. There's a river."
"Is there sun?"
"There can be. It's not as bleak as some people think. Besides, your dad said he'd pay for you--how will I get there?"
"He'll pay for both of us."
"He said that?"
She pressed her top teeth into her bottom lip. "Well, not yet. But he will!"
I knew that she was probably right about that, too--Howard had two daughters, and he doted on them so much that I thought he didn't recognize how they manipulated him. Marilynn, Shannon's mother, rolled her eyes and sighed every time the daughters found a way to get something from Howard, but nothing seemed to change in the years I knew them.
So, we went to Maui. Shannon found a small house a short uphill walk from the beach, and we spent a week eating mangoes, swimming in the ocean, and lying in the sun.
"See, this isn't so bad," she said to me one afternoon as we lay on large towels spread over the sand.
She glistened in the sun. Sweat and a thin layer of oil on her skin were bright and beckoning, and as I tilted my head to look at her I felt like a moth attracted to a light. "No, it's not so bad," I said.
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