Chapter 11: Shannon

"Dad, do you know a Seamus Monahan?"

"Yes. He's a very fine writer at the Sun. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I met his daughter, Shannon. She's a sophomore like me. We got to talking and discovered that her dad worked for you."

"He does editorials, but I'm trying to get some interest with the Managing Editor to have him write some feature pieces. He's a very talented writer and I'd like to see him get some exposure. I've seen a couple of his humour pieces and they are very good."

"Shannon says he admires and respects you a great deal. He thinks you're one of the smartest men he's ever met," I said, wondering how Dad would react to the praise.

"Does he now? Well, I think he has an inflated idea of my talents. I wish I were half the writer he is. He has a wonderful gift of the language and some of his prose is almost lyrical. I think he's wasted at the paper. He should be writing for The New Yorker, or one of those classy magazines."

"Sounds like a harmonious relationship," I laughed.

My father looked over at me and shook his head slightly. I think I still baffled

him but I couldn't help it. I was being less guarded with my language these days. I was going to have to be careful since I had a tendency to swear. What might have been acceptable in the nineties was definitely not in the sixties. I was growing accustomed to my surroundings in this second life, but I still had all the knowledge and tendencies of my first life.

Shannon became a regular at my table for lunch. Vac and Charlie stopped by once in a while, but I think they could see we were absorbed in our own world and they weren't going to be able to penetrate that. Zoe stopped by one day, and I introduced Shannon to her and we chatted for a few minutes. I could see Shannon was impressed with the big blonde, but even more interested in how I came to know her. After all, she was a senior.

"I helped her with a history course she was having trouble with."

"Was that this year?"

"No ... last year."

"You mean, when you were a freshman, you tutored a junior?"

"Yup."

"That explains a lot," Shannon said thoughtfully.

"You mean that reputation thing, I suppose."

"Yes. You are really quite remarkable," she said slowly, enunciating every word.

I shrugged but remained silent.

"Are you a genius?"

"God no! Far from it."

"That's hard to believe. There is something about you that is ... magnetic. You attract attention, even when you aren't trying to. It's like you were a guy from outer space or something. You look like us, but you don't talk and act like us."

I let out a big sigh. It was starting all over again and I didn't have the patience for it.

"Look, Shannon. I'm sorry if I'm weird, or different, or confusing. But frankly, I'm tired of apologizing for it. I'm not a genius and I don't have any special powers, and as far as I know I'm not from outer space. Now, you can accept that or not. It happens to be the facts!"

I didn't realize I had raised my voice and when I took the time to look, I could see the shock on Shannon's face. She wasn't ready for a tirade from me and she was clearly taken aback.

Shit! Now I had to defuse this too.

"I'm sorry, Shannon. I didn't mean to get on your case. I'm just a bit tired of being treated like I'm some kind of freak. I'm just an ordinary guy with ordinary ambitions. I like girls, I want to get a degree here, and someday have a wife, kids, a house and all that normal stuff. If I talk funny, well ... just think of me as some kind of DP, new to the country and English is my second language. Okay?"

She hadn't said a word, and the shocked look on her face was locked in place. I buried my face in my hands and waited for her reaction.

"That was quite something, Mr. North," I heard her say in what seemed to be an even more Irish lilt than normal.

I looked up and she was smiling, but not with happiness. It was more of a sad smile. She reached across the table and held my hands. It was a gesture I would long remember. They were soft and dry and held my hands gently, but with kindness.

I had nothing I could think of to say, so I did the one thing I learned in my previous life in this situation: shut up.

"This whole business of your fame hasn't been easy, has it?" she said softly. Again, there was more Irish in it than I was accustomed to hearing from her.

I nodded my agreement, looking at her briefly, but still saying nothing.

"I can't imagine what it must be like, but you're probably handling it better than I would. You have a nice sense of humour and I think that's your main protection, Lee. You can't let this get to you. You might not be a genius, but you're pretty smart, and if you don't mind, I'd like to be your friend. A girlfriend if you're interested."

I looked up at her in surprise. She was still holding my hands, but had been speaking in that almost whispering-soft voice of hers. I'm sure no one could have heard her. But I did. I heard her loud and clear. I let my brain kick in for once.

"I'd have to be crazy to turn down an offer like that, and I assure you ... despite what you might think ... I'm not crazy."

This time the smile was broad and perhaps with a tinge of relief. We were back on solid ground.

"Just for the record," I said quietly, "it isn't about fame. It's about reputation and the baggage that is carried with it."

She looked at me curiously, wondering, I suppose, what I was talking about.

"Reputations are largely about rumour. You know, second or third or fourth-hand information. The farther they get from the source, the farther they get from the facts. I don't really know exactly what other people are saying about me, but I know I'm a misfit. I don't slip into the normal twenty-something mould people have cast for me.

"I'm not used to it because it hasn't always been this way. Most of my problems started after an accident. I can't account for how I am different, and there are parts of my memory that aren't too clear, but I know that's when it all started. That was just as I was finishing high school. Maybe that explains why I react the way I do. I haven't even had two years to get used to who I am."

"That does help explain it," Shannon said. "I had a friend who had a fall and hit her head when skiing. She changed too. But not like you. She got very moody and unhappy with everything around her. She dropped out of school this year. I think she's getting some professional help, but I don't know much more."

"Well, I suppose I can be grateful that the only thing that happened to me wasn't that dramatic. I'm probably overreacting too. I guess I need to calm down and just get on with it."

She had propped her chin on her palm, her elbow on the table, looking at me from a cockeyed angle. She was incredibly lovely, and I smiled at her as she brought me back down to earth.

"You're good therapy, you know," I said with a sincere smile.

"Thank you. You can talk to me anytime and not worry about where it goes."

I nodded. "You'd like my friend, Dave. He's someone I can talk too as well. I'll introduce you when the opportunity arises."

She was smiling and the tension that I had created was now gone. I had a new girlfriend. One with ambition and direction in her life. It reminded me of Diane, but Shannon was very different in her personality. I wondered if the stories of redheads and their temper were true. I suppose at some point I would find out.

We began dating the following weekend with the usual movie and a snack. Shannon lived with her father in an apartment in the west end of the city. Her father often walked to work at the newspaper, just a few blocks from home. The first time I called on her, he answered the door.

"Hullo ... ye must be Lee," he said with a smile. "Come in. Shannon'll be roit along."

He had a thick Irish brogue, but I had no trouble understanding him. He wasn't very tall, perhaps five-eight, with a portly shape for a man likely in his late forties or early fifties. He had a weathered face and long sideburns in the same salt-and-pepper grey as the unruly mop of hair on his head. An unlit pipe hung from the corner of his mouth. His smile was kindly and relaxed.

"I admire yer da," he said conversationally. "He's a clever man, he is."

"He told me you are his best writer. Thinks you have the talent to do much more," I said in reply to his compliment.

"Aye. He's said as much. But ... Oi'm 'appy 'ere. Shannon has a good school, an' dis is a foin place ter live."

I often marvelled at the difference between his rich, deep brogue and his written word. It was like comparing Mickey Spillane with Winston Churchill. I wondered more than once if he wasn't affecting the accent for his own entertainment. The look of rapture on some of the women's faces when he spoke was something to behold.

Seamus Monahan had been a widower for over fifteen years. His beloved wife Mary had died suddenly and inexplicably from what would now be referred to as a brain aneurism. Shannon was five years old and both her father and she were devastated at their unexpected loss. What precipitated their move from Galway to Vancouver was a particularly insensitive parish priest who tried to assure Seamus that Mary's death was for the best and that she was in a far better place.

Seamus was outraged at the old fool, and wrote a scathing column in his local newspaper that vented his feelings toward both the priest and the Catholic Church. The grieving husband and father might have known that the church was the absolute ruler of all things in County Galway, and it wasn't long before the Bishop descended on the owners of the paper to announce his displeasure at their continuing employment of Seamus Monahan. He was give three months notice and asked to vacate the premises immediately.

It seemed a far reach from Galway to Vancouver, but that was where the Monahans found their new home. The Sun newspaper had hired him on the basis of his experience and the dozen samples of his work that he forwarded with his résumé.

At first he balked at moving eight time zones west, but knew it would give Shannon and him the new start they both needed. She might have been only five, but the young girl was well aware of her father's excommunication. There would be no jobs in Ireland for him. The bishop would see to that. And Irish writers were not in favour in England at that time either. There was little choice but to accept the distant opportunity.

Armed with their passports, the written job offer, his late wife's death certificate, and the few possessions they owned, they boarded a Canada-bound passenger/freighter and landed in Montreal. The five day train ride to Vancouver gave him an entirely different perspective on his new home. He had never imagined a country as large and as sweeping as this.

He had brought a thick notepad with him and had kept a journal of their voyage. Dozens of pages of notes, observations, and impressions were recorded over the two week journey from their Irish homeland. When they stepped off the transcontinental train early one Wednesday morning, he had $300 to his name and no place to live. He made a phone call to the newspaper, talked to the editor, and was directed to a modest hotel near the paper. The newspaper would look after the first weeks stay while he looked for permanent accommodation. Seamus began to breathe again.

WWII was barely over, and Ireland had been neutral, or so they claimed. The population was divided in their loyalties; the lasting hatred for the British against an unknown future with the Germans. Seamus was no fan of the British, but knew in his heart that German domination of Europe would be far worse. Fortunately, the war never found his homeland and now, safely in Canada, he had a sense of relief and acceptance for the new life he had chosen for himself and his daughter.

He found a boarding house not far from the city center, and knew that it would be temporary as soon as he looked at it. It was aging, and not too gracefully. Not well kept up in his opinion, and lacked privacy. The elderly couple who owned it could neither afford to make repairs, nor do the work themselves. It would have to do until he could find a better alternative.

The better alternative was an apartment building in Kitsilano, a very nice, quiet neighbourhood not terribly far from his office. In addition, there was an elementary school only three blocks away that Shannon would attend. His next worry would be how to look after his daughter when she was out of school while he was at work. The answer came quickly and easily.

Mrs. Monica Drysdale lived in the apartment across the hall. She was a widow, living on her husband's pension and an insurance policy. Her husband had died on D-Day at Juno Beach. They made their acquaintance when the Monahans moved in and almost immediately, she volunteered to look after Shannon after school. They would keep each other company.

Shannon took to the middle-aged woman immediately and they became fast friends. The young girl would happily relate her day at school and all the new friends she was making. Monica was delighted with her company and looked forward to her afternoon visits. Their relationship lasted until Shannon was fifteen when her father had found a newer and more spacious apartment closer to his office. Monica, as Shannon had been invited to call her, was heartbroken at the thought of losing contact with the young woman, and Shannon was also distressed to lose the only adult woman she had ever truly known.

But they kept in touch. It wasn't that far from her new home to the older three storey building, and Shannon made sure that she visited Monica often. Seamus was quietly pleased that she had chosen to do so. His daughter had been without a mother for ten years and Monica Drysdale was as close to being a surrogate as anyone could possibly be. At least, he thought, she could confide in the older woman with some assurance that she would give her good advice.

It was no surprise to the father that his daughter would do extremely well in school. She was dedicated and bright, eager to succeed. She had goals, one of which was to win a scholarship to college. She outdid herself with a full academic scholarship, a bursary sponsored by the school board, and a special scholarship dedicated to the sons and daughters of employees of the newspaper. No one was more proud and more tearful than Seamus Monahan when his lovely daughter stood before the assembled high school class and gave the valedictorian speech. His only regret was that her mother could not be here to witness her triumph. Monica Drysdale was her stand-in, and she too was in tears of happiness for the young woman.

By spring, I was completely smitten with Shannon Monahan. She was beautiful, to be sure, but far more than that, she was mature beyond her years. Perhaps it was that single thing that made her so attractive to me. I was operating with a sixty-eight year-old mind, while Shannon was acting more like thirty than twenty. We could talk about so many things that interested her and she was able to grasp new ideas so quickly that I began to assume she had a much higher I.Q. than I did.

I had reverted to my cautious approach when we dated. We had kissed, fairly passionately once or twice, but I was reluctant to try anything more. I wanted her to take the lead in our relationship, but I didn't know quite how to go about telling her that. As it turned out, she really was much brighter than me, and she caught on much quicker than I did.