Shannon felt adrift, completely lost without him. Though she thought she was the dominant one in the relationship, given how easy it was for her to manipulate him, she hadn't realized how much her world revolved around the sensitive, gentle man, she'd married. She'd never really admitted to herself how much she relied on him for everything. Boone gave her life focus, even when he was working or too busy to spend time with her, the knowledge that he was just down the hall or in the garage or wherever, gave her purpose. In his laid back, unassuming way, he really directed their lives more than she did. God I'm getting soft, she thought.
She gravitated out to the store, to see if Joan needed help, but the ever efficient woman seemed to be put off kilter by her intrusion, maybe feeling unsettled by the presence of the boss's wife. Shannon made an excuse and quickly left.
She wandered around the kitchen. Boone had left a casserole on the counter for dinner, the reheating instructions he'd quickly written down for her taped to the lid. He'd shown her the freezer full of meals he'd pre-prepared for those nights when he was too busy to make something from scratch, and had tried to explain the cooking instructions to her before giving it up as a bad job and simply telling her to ask Andrew. Great, cooking tips from a nine-year old, she thought, she really did expect the gold fish to feed her.
Shannon finally packed a few things in a beach bag, put on her bathing suit and wandered across the road to the lake. She swam out to the raft and pulled herself onto it, lying back to catch some sun. Andrew had gone over to Kevin's after Boone left, she was thankful that he was so self sufficient, maybe these few days wouldn't be as bad as she feared. She closed her eyes and dozed off as the warmth of the sun lulled her to sleep.
The raft canted abruptly, and as her head rolled to the side, she awoke. Shading her eyes with one hand, she saw Andrew climbing off the ladder. "I thought you went to Kevin's."
"Uh, Shan, that was like three hours ago." He stood beside her, the water dripping off him splashing on her irritatingly.
"Move." She bushed at the wetness as she lowered her hand and laid her head back. He continued to stand in exactly the same spot.
"What?" She demanded shading her eyes again.
"What about lunch?" he asked.
Shannon thought for a second. "I'll have some fruit and cheese and a couple of slices of that homemade bread." She lowered her hand and laid her head back again, but all he did was drop to the surface of the raft to sit cross-legged beside her.
"Has it always been like this for you?" he wondered.
"Like what?" she finally gave in and sat up.
"You just hold out your hand and, whatever you want, Boone just magically makes it appear for you. And before you get any crazy ideas, I'm not Boone, or your magician, I'm not going to do your bidding." He waited for her answer.
"Don't be ridiculous," she laughed uncomfortably. He just looked back at her, his too knowing adult gaze so incongruous in his nine-year old face.
She felt herself wilting under his stare, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. "I'll go make us some lunch." She started to push herself to her feet.
"No." he reached out to stop her. "This isn't about lunch. Tell me, honestly, why you're the way you are…at least about that. He's not here now, we have time, and I'd like to understand. You're my mom, please." He waited calmly for her answer.
She laughed sadly, and shook her head. "Okay short version though, because you've really reminded me that I'm hungry." Her gaze seemed to turn inward. Shannon took a deep breath. "My parents spoiled me, they didn't think they could have kids, so I was a pleasant surprise, they gave me everything. When my mother died, my dad spoiled me even more; it was guilt, I think, that I didn't have a mom anymore. When he married Sabrina, he upped it again, trying to compensate for how much your grandmother didn't like me. Then, when my dad died, Boone took over. There's more to it than that, of course, but that's the Cole's Notes. I just got used to it." She shrugged.
"He gives without even thinking about it, Boone I mean, it just comes naturally, he likes to feel needed. That must have made it so much easier for you to take advantage of him." Andrew observed.
"That's cruel to say I take advantage, maybe I capitalize on it a bit, but, like you said, he likes to feel needed, that's for sure." She sighed. "Enough psych 101 for now, let's go get some lunch, and I promise I'll try not to poison you."
He went upstairs to change out of his wet clothes. Coming down the back stairs to the kitchen he wondered where she was before hearing swearing coming from the back deck. He opened the door, she was cursing at the barbecue. "How the fuck do you turn this thing on?" he could hear the hissing of the gas, but the lid was down and the air was thick with the smell. He rushed forward just as she exclaimed, "Oh this must be it."
He batted her hand away from the ignition switch as he reached to twist the dial to off, and lifted the lid. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he yelled at her.
"Turning the fucking thing on." Shannon responded without thinking.
"You're going to blow us up, are you crazy? Jesus, keep you out of trouble, how about I keep you alive!" Andrew shook his head.
"There was nothing wrong with what I was doing." She turned on him.
She stood there, humiliated, as her nine-year old son explained the workings of a gas barbecue to her, including as an addendum, a brief description of what happened to frozen chicken when you put it on a setting high enough to nuke most small foreign nations.
"You stick to things in the fridge, it's not an appliance given to exploding; the gold fish will handle the rest of it." He was not impressed. "This better not be an act, just so you get me to cater to you. How you managed six years on your own…" he shook his head and stomped into the house, taking the chicken with him.
Boone called later that night. "Hey, babe, I miss you. How're things going there?"
"Fine, great, couldn't be better." She lied.
Shannon heard him sigh, "Okay, so what could possibly have gone wrong already?"
"I kind of almost blew up the barbecue." She admitted.
The ensuing lecture took about five minutes; she stayed silent throughout, knowing she deserved every scathing word, even though she'd already heard most of it from their son that afternoon. Andrew had reheated the casserole for dinner, but had told her in no uncertain terms that he expected her to produce a salad, without supervision.
"Okay, so now that we've determined that I don't know how to barbecue, how did the flight go?" she questioned.
"I got here okay." Boone sounded falsely cheerful.
"But…" she prompted.
"I'm not sure, but I think I might have groped the woman I was sitting beside. When I woke up…" he started.
"Woke up! You fell asleep? It was the middle of the afternoon for god's sake, and you're terrified of flying, how the hell did you fall asleep?" Shannon couldn't believe it.
"It might have been the three drinks I had before boarding." He admitted sheepishly.
"Boone, you're an idiot, you don't drink. What the hell were you thinking?" She demanded.
"I was thinking that some crazy lady took away my meds." He accused.
"You weren't supposed to substitute alcohol, shithead. So, now I'm married to a perv, what did you do to the woman?" she asked.
"Well, I woke up with my head on her shoulder, she was holding my hand and there was this really weird smile on her face. She kissed my cheek and said thanks when I got up to leave." She could hear his embarrassment over the phone and tried not to laugh.
"Should I be jealous?" Shannon teased.
"Only if you fear competition from women the same age as my mother, I was so horrified, I couldn't get off the plane fast enough." Boone replied.
They talked for a few minutes longer, Boone giving her the name and phone number of the hotel at which he was staying. The funeral was scheduled for the day after tomorrow, and he'd already booked a return flight for the day after that.
Great, she thought, two and a half more days of purgatory.
Heading down to the kitchen the next morning, Shannon suddenly decided she wanted to treat herself to a fancy coffee and pastry. She grabbed the keys for the van and headed out the back door. After a leisurely breakfast at a local café, she decided to stop at the grocery store for a few things. She'd been gone for maybe an hour and a half when she suddenly realized that not only did she not know where Andrew was, he had absolutely no idea where she was either. Leaving the cart in the middle of the aisle she left the store and drove home in a panic.
He was sitting forlornly on the back deck, his arms wrapped around his knees, his face hidden. She breathed a sigh of relief at seeing that he was safe. She approached him slowly, "Andrew?" she grimaced a little, waiting for his response.
He lifted his head, sniffling, his tear stained face contorted. "I was alone," he sobbed, suddenly only nine years old once again. "I woke up and no one was here, there was no note, nothing. Joan didn't know where you were. You left me alone. I was scared; I didn't know what happened to you." His shoulders started to shake, frightened misery was emanating from him in waves.
Oh fuck, Jesus fuck, I should be shot, she thought. Shannon gathered him in her arms, his sense of abandonment washing over her more strongly once she held him. "Honey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. Damn, I didn't think. Andy, please baby…" she started crying as well. They held each other until they both calmed down.
He pulled away from her; she wiped his tears away with her thumbs. "I'm a dreadful mother."
"Yes, you are. Unfortunately for us both, you're the only one I've got." Andrew forced a little smile.
She looked down at the deck for a minute before meeting his eyes. "I'll make you some breakfast." She offered, hopefully.
"Oh god no, it's not enough you scare the crap out of me, now you're going to try and poison me on top of it," he looked at her in mock horror.
Shannon stood and held her hand down to help him up. "Fruit, granola and yogurt, no actual cooking involved."
The rest of the morning passed, miraculously, without incident. A few hours after a breakfast, which proved to be non-toxic, he left for a friends' house.
Returning in the afternoon, he asked her if he could cut the lawn. "Knock yourself out." She responded, before stopping to think that maybe that wasn't the best choice of words.
She was standing at the kitchen window when she saw the ride on law mower pass by in the back yard. She went back to washing the dishes from breakfast when it passed by again going the other way. She lifted her head slowly, her eyes widening as she realized there hadn't been anybody on the thing either time it had gone by. She was out the back door in seconds.
Andrew was standing by the garage a look of helpless horror on his face as he watched the seemingly possessed machine careen wildly around the lawn, more or less describing slightly decreasing circles. She swept her eyes over the escalating devastation it was leaving in its' wake, before making her way over to him. She stood beside him with her hands on her hips shaking her head, "What have you done?" she demanded.
He couldn't tear his eyes away from the carnage. "Andrew Adam Carlyle, what the hell have you done?" she grabbed his arm and turned him to face her. His eyes were the size of saucers as he stared up at her.
"I thought I'd use the ride on, I figured if Boone made it look easy to use it couldn't be that hard. It jerked when I put in it gear and I fell off." He kept glancing at the raging machine.
She took a deep breath, trying to hide a smile at his slight dis of Boone. "Yeah, right. Why the hell's it still running with no one on it? Isn't there some kind of safety device, kill switch or something?"
"I, uh, I kind of disabled it." He winced.
"Soooo, you're smart enough to disable the safety device, but not smart enough to know that you shouldn't have in the first place? Smooth move." She stared at him flatly.
"Seems that way." He grimaced. "Shan, what're we going to do?" he wailed.
"Fuck if I know, I'm sure as hell not going to chase after the thing. It'll run into a tree eventually. I'm guessing from its' speed that you've got the throttle set at max." She couldn't believe that it was still speeding around the lawn considering it had already run into pretty much every piece of lawn furniture, and overturned a table.
"Yeah." He admitted. "Dad's going to kill me." He looked up at her.
"We'll tell him it was aliens, trying out a new site for crop circles." Just then the poor beleaguered machine crashed into one of the larger trees, bounced back a foot or so, then crashed forward again coming to a stop with its' engine revving and wheels churning ruts into the grass. Shannon rushed forward and turned the key off.
Andrew walked up to stand beside her as they surveyed the damage. "I think we're even." He offered, referring to her solo outing of that morning.
When Boone phoned that night she told him glibly that she'd gone for coffee in the morning and they'd done a bit of landscaping in the back yard in the afternoon, then she tried to deftly switch the conversation to what was going on in Pittsburgh. After wringing the truth out of her, he hung up and poured himself a drink.
Things weren't going well with Will, which was to be expected, after all the man had just lost his wife. He'd started drinking again, and had latched on to Boone like a drowning man clings to a piece of wreckage. The irony that he'd picked quite possibly the least emotionally strong person he could have wasn't lost on Boone. Boone had finally managed to escape from his Uncle and had fled to the sanctuary of his hotel room that night an emotional and physical wreck. He'd found some of his old prescription meds in the bottom of his travel bag, and had shaken some out in his palm and stared at them before forcing himself to flush them down the toilet. Shannon's news from home hadn't helped his self-confidence, but he didn't want to worry her, it sounded like she already had her hands full.
She waited for Andrew in the kitchen the next morning so they could have breakfast. They'd made supper together the night before, thawing and reheating one of Boone's containers of soup and adding some bread and salad, it almost seemed as if the disasters of the day had brought them closer.
After breakfast, Andrew asked if it was okay if he took his bike to Kevin's. Shannon ruffled his hair and sent him on his way, admonishing him to be careful.
She answered the knock on the back door at about two. There was a police officer standing there. "Are you Mrs. Carlyle?"
"Well, kind of, but not really no." She was never sure just how to answer that.
He raised his eyebrows, "Wow, usually we get that kind of evasive answer from questions like: have you been drinking? You care to elaborate?"
"I'm married to Mr. Carlyle, but my name's Rutherford." She explained.
"Okay then, I guess my real question is: do you know this boy?" he pulled Andrew out from behind him.
"He's my son." She admitted with a sigh. "What's he done?"
"He was riding his dirt bike on the streets." He informed her.
"Oookay," she frowned not understanding.
"That's illegal." The officer prompted.
"Right, yes, of course it is." She smiled and nodded, feeling like a complete idiot.
"I'll let him off with just a warning this time. Please Mrs. Rutherford, keep a eye on him." He pushed Andrew forward into the house. "Afternoon ma'm," He turned and left.
She looked down at him and tried to hide her smile, "Brought home by the cops and only nine. I'm impressed; I think I was at least fourteen before that happened. You're positively putting me to shame, I should have tried harder."
"I asked you if I could take my bike to Kevin's." he protested.
"Nice try. Way to pull the bait and switch, get me to agree to something without giving me quite the whole story." She looked at the clock, twenty-four hours and counting, please god let us get through it.
All she'd told Boone that night was that Andrew had been practicing his dirt bike riding skills and that all meals gone without grievous injury. He didn't bother asking what it was she wasn't telling him, not sure he could take it. He was seriously beginning to regret flushing the pills the night before.
They were both standing in the driveway when he pulled in early the next afternoon. He'd been so exhausted that he'd gotten on the plane without even thinking about it. The landing had been rough though, and he'd found himself with her necklace clenched in his fist, his eyes squeezed shut, his other hand in a death grip on the armrest. Boone wearily climbed out of the car, and looked at them with a frown. They each had false smiles painted on their faces and their hands behind their backs.
"Oh god, guys, what, just what?" he closed his eyes and squeezed his brows together; his shoulders slumped as he waited to hear about the latest debacle.
"Well…" Andrew pulled a twisted bicycle tire out from behind his back. "I, uh, I kind of left my bike lying on the driveway."
"And…" Shannon brought her hand forward to reveal a broken side mirror from the van. "It startled me when I ran over it, so I swerved too close to the side of the garage door opening.
Boone dropped his head to his hands, not sure whether to laugh or cry.