Too lazy to post? Give 'em more Nano!

“Do you like school?” Shannon asked her young stepsisters.

One said yes, the other said no. Shannon couldn’t remember which of the small blonde almost teenagers was which and so dropped the question. Similarly, no one taught Jenny how to ask on open ended question.

“Was boot camp hard?” she asked Shannon.

“Oh yes!’ Shannon said. Longing to be enthusiastic, entertaining. Family.

But Dion, she was charming as ever. She helped the time pass more smoothly. She helped people laugh.

“I should say it was hard! You had to cut your hair. I never had a harder job then getting you to sit down and get a haircut.” Her face dimpled, her eyes sparked. Terry laughed, knowingly, though he never participated in any kind of hair cut.

“When you went on Sailor Bill’s Cartoon Schooner, you remember, you were 6? I wanted you to have Shirley Temple curls so bad. First, I tried to do it at home, with my sponge rollers and my hair dryer. You were in your karate phase and with a very deft hand blocked every attempt to put a roller in your hair. So I ran as fast as I could to Aunt Suzanne’s salon. She got you in the chair and started to put the apron around you. You were sure she was going to cut off your hair so you kicked her! You kicked your Aunt Suzanne. I couldn’t believe it.”

And then, because Dion was a very good story teller and knew how to include her audience, she turned to the young girls and said, “Terry’s sister Suzanne is a very good stylist. But she has MS and walks with a cane. I was never more mortified in my life than when I saw my sweet tempered, darling six year old kicking a woman with a cane. The one person on earth who loved Shae-shae as much as mommy and daddy did having her cane kicked right out from under her. That day, I almost became a spanking mom.”

Dion didn’t find a new husband when she divorced Terry. She dated a few men, mostly from bars. As she had thought when she first loved Terry, a man as good as him was hard to find. Dion’s mother, still a force to be reckoned with, advised her that nice men aren’t found in bars.

“Men in bars are after one thing and that is not your security or well being. Men worth having in your life are not found among them. Those men who want the best for you are only found in church. You come with me on Sunday and you will see.” Lucille was ardent and adamant.

“Oh mom, we aren’t church people. What would I do with a church man?”

“You don’t “do” with a church man, Dion. You marry them.”

So Dion went to church with Lucille. At first it was just on the weekends that Terry had Shannon. Eventually she was at the Coushay Life Ministry Center as much as she possibly could be. Around the same time that Terry found Jenny, Dion found religion.

She spent her “free” weekends at conferences and spirit filled retreats. She spent her weeknights having experience quests to find the center of her balance. She was finally able to put aside her loneliness and start to seek her lone path. She forgave Terry for being away at work their whole marriage. She forgave him for letting her divorce him. And she forgave him for finding love again.

And she pitied him because he lacked all spiritual insight or drive for enlightenment. She found love at The Center. Love of the Eternal Spirit of Man, and love of Self. And she found a fine replacement for getting married.

She began to think and eat and breathe her new goal—to become an ordained Minister of the Faith. She was ready to go to Alberta where the ministry of the Coushay family originated. She would attend their seminary so she could serve others the way they had served her. She only had to wait for her one daughter to graduate high school.

Terry was up for Shannon’s high school graduation. But the girls were still in school so Jenny stayed home in Los Angeles with them.

Terry’s eyes filled with tears as his poised and gracious daughter walked across the stage. She had a gold scarf over her shoulders that only a handful of the graduates were wearing. So it must have meant that she was special.

He found her in the crush after the ceremony and swept her up in a great fatherly hug. “Good job Shae-Shae! Well done!” He kissed her on each cheek and let her go. “We are so proud of you. Jenny sent this.” He handed her a box of chocolates and a card.

“Thanks Daddy,” She grinned from ear to ear. Today Shannon was done with relying on people who were always somewhere else. With precocious maturity she looked at her father, was sad for him, happy for herself and glad to be free all at the same time.

“When do you hit the road?” He asked her. He didn’t love the idea of his daughter joining the Coat Guard. She tried to sell it as a way to save money on college. He told her and told her they had plenty of money for her college. And he was pretty sure he did. But the war with Iraq
hadn’t started yet, so no mention of danger could possibly sway her.

“I leave for basic training in two weeks.” She could hardly stand still. She wanted to bound around the auditorium with her friends, young and free and alive.

“Well take care. I’ll bring everyone out for your graduation from basic, okay? We’ll all be there.”

It was a funny idea to Shannon, to first meet the three other women in his life after they had been family for almost a decade. She laughed and dimpled and shone with the glorious freedom of youth and graduation. “Do that, Dad. That’ll be great.”

And then Terry got back in his rig to drive home. No stopping on the way as the fruit needs of the I5 corridor had already been met that week, on the Northern drive.

Dion and Shannon celebrated at Starbucks with hot expensive decaf bistro drinks and cheesecake from behind the glass display.

“I love you so much kiddo. And I am so proud of you. I can only imagine the amazing things you will experience. The travel and the adventure. You will remember to write to me?” Dion drank slowly from her coffee, enjoying the experience of being with her newly made adult daughter. There was so much to tell a young person on a night like tonight.

“Oh of course, mom. Of course. I’ll write. You think I won’t write just because, what? Because I’ll learn to shoot a gun?” Shannon baited her mom. She wanted to get the lecture over with so she could enjoy the rest of her night.

“I wish you wouldn’t honey--work with arms. I really do. I understand the need to follow your own path. And I pray that you will find one eventually that leads to peace. There is just so much aggression and darkness in the military machine. You write me if the darkness is too deep for you, please.” She would never stop fighting against the darkness on behalf of her daughter. It was the job of a mother.

“Mom. It’s the Coast Guard. I’ll be rescuing boaters. I’ll be…a part of the light. Don’t worry.” Shannon displayed her aptitude for the adolescent eye roll and deep sigh and she said this to her mom.

“Well. I’m just saying. I know I could get you a position at the Coushay Seminary in Edmonton
with me.”

“Okay mom. Really. Seminary is your stuff. Just let me do my stuff.” The coffee tasted burnt and the cheesecake was cloying in the back of her throat. Shannon never went to the Life Center with her mom and her grandma. She found the sisters and brothers who came by the house for fellowship experience embarrassing and strange. She hated seeing her beautiful, charming mother shuffling around with these effusive, jargon spewing, well…cult members.

The next morning Shannon made real coffee and sat down to her bowl of cereal. Her mom bounded down the stairs, dark hair shining, her whole body filled with the same excitement Shannon had had the night before.

She kissed her daughter on top of her head. “I love you so much!” She cried out.

“Oh mom.” Shannon shrugged but was delighted by the love. She was always delighted by affection.

“I love you. Don’t forget to write.” Dion dropped the keys to the house on the table. “Wish me luck?”

“Luck?” Shannon raised an eyebrow at her mom. She was pretty sure luck was a concept they didn’t encourage.

“Ahh well, I suppose even the most centered believer could use a little luck.”

“Well then, luck to you, mom. I love you.” Sat down her coffee mug and got up. She wrapped her arms tight around her mom. Four years wasn’t that long. She’d be out of the Coast guard in four years and have her mommy back.

Dion gave her a big motherly smooch on the cheek. Then she loaded her bags and herself into the Rabbit, top down. She blew a kiss to her darling and drove off North to her future. Shannon finished her cereal at her table in the house that was all hers for the next two delicious free weeks. It felt very good.

Those two weeks went quickly. Shannon had one big party with her friends from school and some boys got in a fight and broke a window. Shannon’s cool factor was greatly increased. She called her mom on the spot and got a credit card number to buy a new window. Shannon new she could get away with this. Despite her great excitement, Dion felt guilty for leaving her daughter. Kids had figured Shannon was just like them before, but the post graduation party with the broken window and the credit card number and no punishment whatsoever catapulted her out of the atmosphere. She was as close as they would ever get to a brat packer--all privilege and no responsibility.