Here's the next chapter-enjoy!
Shane wasn't sure how long she wandered the streets before returning to her home.
Making the decision to leave was perhaps the hardest thing she had done in a long time. Even transferring from D.C. to Denver had been a welcome change. If she had wanted to transfer back to Direct Line Operations it would take six weeks, six weeks too many. But would she even want to be part of the Post Office, spending her time wondering if the letters were making it to their intended recipients, remembering how many she had returned in person in the company of Rita, Norman and Oliver?
Finally back home after hours of wandering, Shane opened her front gate. It occurred to her that it was locked when she left.
Instinct caused her to look towards the door, only to find her front stoop occupied.
"Oh, Oliver," she fumbled, she was too exhausted to wonder how or why at that exact moment. It would take everything she had to simply deal with whatever this was in front of her.
Oliver wasted no time getting to the point.
"I was very disappointed to receive your letter," he began, rising from her stoop and approaching her. "I do believe this is the second attempt you have made to tender your resignation, Ms. McInerney."
Shane might have fought the urge to smile or laugh when he tried to chastise her like this, with his big words and his authoritative explanations. Tonight, she struggled to even look him in the eye.
"And, as in the first instance, I am here to inform you that I do not accept." By now he had met Shane halfway between the gate and her porch.
Somehow just the sound of his voice was enough to cause Shane to fight against everything inside of her to keep from shedding another tear. She had already shed so many. Why did they still come?
He must have felt the need to fill the silence, because he began to speak again.
"I knew the second I crossed the threshold into the DLO this evening that something was wrong. That was before Rita and Norman rounded the corner to hand me this letter," he explained, pulling the letter she had left on his chair from his coat pocket.
"My attention was immediately drawn to your work station, and do you know what I found there? Nothing. Not a single trace of you was left. Even as we stood there, a sense of emptiness filled the room."
Still all Shane could do was look at the box under her arm, the snow at her feet, or anything else that wasn't Oliver's eyes.
"To say that I was alarmed would be a gross understatement. I was immediately compelled to find you. Rita was kind enough to inform me that you had left letters for she and Norman as well. We hoped, if we put them together, that we might glean some information as to your whereabouts."
This was beginning to feel like some sort of lecture, and she intended to look him in the eye and tell him so.
"Oliver, a lecture is the last thing I need right now," she said, walking around him and heading towards the door. The decision to do so shocked her, and she could imagine it had probably shocked him, too.
"Shane!"
She stopped in her tracks. It was a force of habit any time he called her by name. Right now, it was a habit she wished she could break.
"Do you know what I read in Rita's letter, Shane?" he asked, leaving her to wonder if the question was rhetorical or if he genuinely wanted her to recall what she'd written.
"Please don't let what happened here with Oliver and I happen to you and Norman," he repeated quietly. "What did you mean?"
Shane put the box she still carried down next to her in the snow, suddenly unable to contend with its weight anymore. She finally turned to face him.
"Nothing," She replied bluntly, "I meant don't let 'nothing' happen between them. They are so in love with each other they don't know what to do about it. I just want them to finally be happy together."
From the look on his face, Shane could tell that Oliver was beginning to put the pieces together.
"I held out hope as long as I could," Shane confessed, recognizing that if this wasn't the moment to lay out what was on her heart, then that moment didn't exist.
"But it's gone now. It left as soon as she came back. And I know that this is what you want-what you've been wanting-for a long time. You had a life before me, and you'll continue to have one long after I'm gone," Shane cried. "I just can't watch you live it. I don't know how else to say it."
He took a moment to process what she'd just said, but he looked as if he needed to cut in.
"Before you say another word, I think you should know that Holly and I have decided to end our marriage."
A cold wind cut across the space between them. Shane was sure that if she had held onto the box of her belongings they would have tumbled out onto the ground in her surprise.
"I should have seen what was happening sooner-I should have felt you slipping away sooner," Oliver began, apologetically, "But I am grateful that someone pointed out to me what I was too blind to see myself. Or, as they put it, what I was willfully ignoring because I was too much of a gentleman to entertain it."
Had Holly said that to him?
Oliver was suddenly speaking another language, one she didn't quite recognize and didn't understand, especially in the midst of this revelation that he and Holly were ending their marriage.
"Shane, don't you see?" Oliver entreated, taking another step towards her, "My wife left and I didn't go after her. You've tried to leave twice and I never questioned coming after you."
Oliver could still see her struggling to grasp whatever message he was trying to convey. She watched him shift his weight as he shoved his hands into his coat pockets, an air of frustration about the action, as if whatever he said next, his life might depend on.
"I have never believed in chance or coincidence, Shane, you know that. In the blocks it took me to travel here, I have realized that this is not by chance or coincidence-that we are not by chance or coincidence. You came into my life, and the Oliver you met that day at the coffee shop would not recognize the world this Oliver O'Toole lives in now-and it's because of you. Not a moment, nor a single word, has ever been wasted between us, Shane. I'm not sure I want to live in a world where you're not by my side."
He removed his hands from his pocket and gently gathered hers to hold. Shane didn't fight him.
"Please," He pleaded earnestly, "don't make me."
Part of Shane had always wondered if there would ever be a day when the two of them admitted how they really felt. She couldn't have ever imagined it would be like this, in the cold, in a flurry of snow, in front of her house. The snowglobe she had envisioned earlier came to mind, only this time she and Oliver were in the middle of it, on the cusp of something she couldn't quite fathom, but knew would be nothing short of amazing. They were present and in the moment. They were together and they had a chance.
For the first time the entire evening, the tears she began to cry were out of something other than loss. She loosed her hands from his and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"Oliver, I never wanted to," she cried. "And I don't want to either."
Shane felt Oliver reciprocate the embrace and sensed relief in his hold.
"This is to say nothing of the fact I promised Rita and Norman I would bring you home-and you know how I feel about keeping promises. I am a gentleman, after all," he sighed.
Shane pulled back from their hug, regaining her composure.
She smiled, "Then let's go home."
Oliver released his remaining hold on her and bent down to retrieve her box of belongings, which was filling with snow. He tucked it under one arm, and grabbed her hand with the other. They walked in silence till they reached the gate.
"I don't see you Dark of Night Award," Oliver commented, having visually perused her box.
"It didn't seem right to break them up."
"I am glad you realized that," Oliver replied, giving her hand a squeeze.
Shane could feel her cheeks warming. And it was a comfort to her. Oliver was no longer on the other side of the glass. The snowglobe had become his home again, too.
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