Jeannie stood in the doorway staring at her parents, stunned and speechless. She surveyed the room, her lower lip quivering. Looking past them, she saw the unkempt bed in the next room and her shock immediately turned to distress. Maybe it was because of what almost happened with Tim or the memory of reading her mother's private journal returning. But suddenly her emotions got the better of her. Seeing her parents like this, in each other's arms, certain of what had just transpired, sent Jeannie into a rage.
"How could you mother, how could you forgive him?" Jeannie cried to Kim, her face twisted in a pained expression.
There was that comment again about forgiving Shane, thought Kim, still perplexed by it. Not understanding what Jeannie meant, Kim innocently reached out and gently grabbed her arm. "Jeannie, let me explain."
"No, I don't want to hear it." Jeannie flinched away from Kim's grasp, startling Kim with her anger. Then turning to Shane, her voice full of anguish, Jeannie lashed out. "So this is what it was always about. You just wanted to get back with my mother." She glowered at him defiantly, shaking her head. "I feel so foolish thinking it had been about me, that you genuinely wanted to be with me."
"Jeannie, please. Let me explain –" Shane said softly, putting his hands out to her, his palms turned up in a beggar's gesture.
"No, I don't want to hear your excuses," Jeannie interrupted sharply. She moved away impatiently, almost knocking over a lamp as she took huge strides, larger than necessary for the size of the room, to reach the fireplace on the opposite wall. Leaning against the mantle with her arms crossed, she looked from Shane to Kim before finally setting her gaze, full of contempt, upon her father. "You see, I know the truth. I know how you always loved Andrew, even when you thought he wasn't your own. But not me. You couldn't love me."
Shane stood stunned by the accusation while Kim once again tried to reach out to her daughter. "Jeannie, what are you talking about?"
"I read it all in your journal. I know everything." Kim gasped while Jeannie continued her tirade. "You thought I wasn't yours so you didn't love me. You turned your back on me, on all of us." Jeannie's slim shoulders shook as she desperately tried to fight the tears that were threatening to spill over.She fought the lump forming in her throat to get the words out, each one laced with sarcasm and anger. "And now you want to be a family. I won't be a part of it."
"Jeannie, stop it right now." Kim spoke firmly but inside she was trembling. At last she fully understood it all, Jeannie's belligerent attitude, her strange comments, everything.
"No, I won't stop!" Kim jumped at the intensity of Jeannie's outburst. "He didn't love me when he thought I wasn't his. Phillip always loved me and I was never his." Jeannie threw her hads up in frustration. "I don't understand how you can forgive him. You're a fool, Mother."
Unable to hold back any longer, Shane crossed the room towards Jeannie and spoke to her in a level voice, striving to remain in control. "You have a right to be angry at me. Fine, I accept it. But Jeannie, you have no reason to behave this way towards your mother."
With one final blast of fury, Jeannie turned again to her father and with venom in her voice cried, "Leave me alone. I wish I had never come to Salem. I hate you." She glared at him one second more before turning and running out the door. Shane was certain he had never seen such hostility in anyone's eyes before
Kim started to run after her but Shane held her back. "Let her go Kim. Give her time to settle down."
"Oh Shane, I'm so sorry." Kim sank into the sofa emotionally exhausted, putting her face in her hands. She fumbled for the right words to say. "When I wrote the journal … it was so long ago. It was a way to help … for me to cope. I never meant for anyone to read it."
"It's not your fault Kim, not your fault at all." With sad green eyes and a voice heavy with remorse, he said simply, "Everything she said is true. Every single word."
They sat together for the longest time, in silence. Neither knew what words to say that would comfort each other. The feelings of joy and promise they had held such a short time ago had vanished. In its place there was now only hopelessness and despair. Their plans for a bright future together had disappeared with the angry outburst of a young girl.
Kim was the first to break the silence, her voice tired and sad. "I better go and find her."
Shane nodded but as Kim turned to leave, he reached up and grabbed her hand. "We don't have to let it end," he offered, holding on to one last tenuous thread of hope.
Kim smiled weakly, shaking her head, before leaving.
She first searched the house and was not surprised to find it empty. Jeannie associated this house so much with Shane. From the anger she had displayed towards him, Kim knew it was the last place she would go. Relieved to find the car still parked in the garage, she continued her search in the garden, finding that too empty. Guided only by the moonlight, Kim followed the gravel path down to the lake, the one that Andrew so often talked about. There she found Jeannie sitting on the bench by the shore of the calm, still water.
"Jeannie," she said softly.
Jeannie looked up at her mother. Even in the moonlight, Kim could see her red swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks. "I know I shouldn't have read it," Jeannie admitted.
"No, you shouldn't have," Kim concurred. "There's a lot you don't understand."
"But he left us. He left you."
Kim stood nodding, wondering how she could make Jeannie understand. How could she make her understand that through it all, the unbearable pain and hurt, there was one constant, an enduring love that drew her to Shane. How could she make her understand that Shane was her best friend, her companion and confidant from so long ago, her one and only soul mate.
Jeannie refused to look at Kim, choosing instead to look down at her finger. She started nervously tugging at a hangnail on her forefinger, pulling at it as if the slight pain could make her forget the greater pain she was now feeling. She felt the wobbly, rotted bench heave under the slight weight of her mother as Kim took a seat beside her. Kim gently put her hand on her shoulder and with her other hand, cupped Jeannie's chin and turned her face so their eyes could meet.
Then Jeannie started to cry again, her face wet and twisted in pain. "I just want to go home. I miss home. I miss my friends. I don't want to be here anymore." With one final sob, she pleaded, "Can't we go home?"
Looking at Jeannie's sad green eyes, the ones that so matched her father's, Kim accepted that her time with Shane had passed. Seeing her daughter's anguish made Kim realize that no matter what hopes and promises she and Shane made to each other now, the choices they made fifteen years ago and the consequences those choices wrought still prevailed.
Reaching out to stroke her daughter's hair, Kim spoke quietly but assuredly. "Yes, we can go home." The two then sat there by the lake well into the night, Jeannie softly crying in her mother's arms while Kim wondered how she was going to say good-bye to Shane once more.