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He didn’t realize he was in love with her until it was too late.
Stupid, stupid. When had it even happened?
Was it the night by the cliff? Even now when he recalled that night, it was hard to remember anything but her face, the look of genuine worry and no trace of pity. The rest was obscured by beer haze, but he had a vague memory of a small, warm hand around his and her soft voice – Come on, Shane. Do it for Jas.
Was it the time she’d come into JojaMart with a huge, secret smile? He’d been moving boxes, doing his best to ignore her, and she’d understood. Of course she did, fresh out of the Joja machine herself. She’d waited for Morris to round the corner, then sidled up to him and smuggled a plastic container into his jacket. Just that brief moment, the exchange of hands to hands and jacket to jacket, made his heart stutter.
“Marnie said you didn’t pack lunch,” she had whispered. Her smile grew wider and Shane knew that there were homemade pepper poppers inside the container. Did Elliott have a secret language with her, too?
Was it the first night at the Stardrop, or the fifty-first? She’d been almost aggressively nice, even from the start. Gone straight to his corner, where all of Pelican Town knew that he came to drink alone. She’d bought him a beer to replace the one he’d just finished, even though he could tell she could barely afford it. She talked like the city, dressed like the city, but he sensed a resignation in her so familiar that he listened to her speech about being neighbors, and even offered his name when she introduced herself.
He wasn’t bothered when they’d come into the Stardrop together, drank and blushed and laughed and gazed at each other a little too long. So it must have happened after that.
It hadn’t hurt when she’d sat down and said “Yoba, Shane, I’m so in love with him,” her face more red from the conversation than from the half-drained tankard of mead in her hand.
Okay, it had hurt a little.
But it had definitely hurt more when she’d showed him the blue seashell pendant. He’d felt his vision tunnel in, and he realized what had happened. When did it happen? He knew it wasn’t quantifiable, but it had to be, because if he could pinpoint an exact moment he could carve it out and throw it away and make everything normal again.
“Will you be my Man of Honor?” she’d asked, and he’d put his momentary crisis on hold just to comprehend the question.
“What?”
“Well, Elliott already asked Leah to be his Best Woman, so I… I thought I’d ask you to be my Man of Honor.”
Shane forced himself to look at her. Her flushed cheeks, her starry-eyed smile. Elliott made her happy. Despite all odds, he made her happy, and Shane knew that was something he could never offer. He tried to smile.
“Sure,” he said. “I’d love to be your Man of Honor.”
WHY did they have a summer wedding? Shane thinks to himself. He tugs at the collar of his dress shirt and attempts to wish a breeze into existence. It’s a welcome distraction from the reading of the vows.
Elliott looks… all right, he supposes. Shane might have said that he cleans up well, except Elliott always dresses clean. Maybe that was it. Maybe if Shane had worn more sweater vests and less old hoodies, the story would be different. Maybe if he’d finished his degree or didn’t move boxes at JojaMart for a living, or…
She starts to speak.
Shane had avoided looking directly at her as much as possible, like how you can’t look right at the sun. He had been afraid that if this all became too real he might try to stop the wedding, or something equally stupid. But as she reads her vows he looks, and it hurts, but he wants to remember this.
She looks beautiful. Leah had helped with the hair, as the extent of his hair styling experience was putting pigtails on Jas. She looks radiant. She looks… happy.
The words come back into focus.
“… As long as you both shall live?”
“I do.”
“If there is any reason these two should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
See, this is the part in the movies where the young hero comes banging on the window of the chapel, screaming, “Elaine! Elaine!!!” and steals the bride away onto a bus out of Pelican Town where they sit in a few moments of exhilarated silence before the gravity of what they’d done catches up to them. Now or never.
“Then, by the power of Yoba vested in me, I pronounce you husband and wife.”
Shane’s hands go through the clapping motion as his brain starts to process the consequence of his inaction.
Leah sits with him at the reception. The wine is good, straight from the farm, but it’s not as good as her small batch beer.
“Did she seem nervous to you?” he asks. He doesn’t know why he asks.
“Well, I mean, it’s her wedding day,” Leah says. “She only gets to do this once.”
“Well, divorce is a thing,” Shane says, and he kicks himself immediately for saying it.
Leah looks at him with an expression of What is wrong with you? and Shane wants to scream I don’t know what’s wrong with me! What is wrong with me? but instead he tries to make a recovery.
“Sorry,” he says. “It’s just… my best friend is married now and I feel like everything’s gonna change.” Not an untruth, technically.
Leah’s face softens into sympathy. “Aw, Shane,” she says. “It’s not like they’re leaving the valley.”
Shane answers with a weak grin and takes a gulp of his wine to swallow down his words.
Maybe she should have left. Maybe that would be easier.
She comes into the Stardrop on a Tuesday in winter. Shane watches her stamp the snow off of her boots, hang her coat on a hook, catch his eye and wave. She gets only a glass of water from the counter and a rock drops into his gut.
“Shane,” she says, and her smile seems so distant, an emotion that he can’t even remember how to feel. It’s their secret language again, he knows what she’s about to say, he knows, he knows, he knows–
“I’m pregnant!” she says, and the joy on her face reminds him of when she bought her first chicken from Marnie. “We’re having a baby!”
He knows he should smile, he should laugh, congratulate her, do something, but all he can think about is the mediocre, missionary-position sex they probably had and he’s repulsed by the thought, revolted that he’d even had the thought, and yet now he can’t stop thinking about it.
“Shane?” she asks, too perceptive as always. “What’s wrong?”
Aw, fuck. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s wrong,” he says, not sure which parts are spoken out loud or in his head.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and Oh Yoba, don’t say you’re sorry. You shouldn’t be sorry. “I just thought you would be happy for me.”
“I am—I want to be happy for you,” he says, and now that he’s started the words just tumble out. “All I want is for you to be happy, but this is so hard.”
“What’s so hard?” She’s so honest, so oblivious, although he feels like her suspicion is growing.
He’s suddenly aware of all the eyes at the saloon – Gus and Emily, attentive to their customers; Marnie, drinking wine and pretending not to eavesdrop; Pam, too drunk to notice; Leah and Willy, who will certainly tell Elliott if she doesn’t when this is all over.
“Watching you. Watching… this. Watching you get married, and… have kids, and be happy, and it’s with… with him. And he’s… he’s so…” He’s run out of ways to stall it. “I love you.”
There. It’s out now. The rush in his chest settles into a heavy dread as her face goes through the stages of confusion, comprehension, realization, and then something that he’d never seen from her before and decides he never wants to see again – pity.
The chatter in the room seems to quiet down for a moment, but he hopes that’s just his imagination.
“Oh, Shane,” she says, and he needs something stronger than beer right now. “I didn’t know.”
He wants to laugh. Of course she didn’t know.
“I don’t expect anything,” he says. “I just couldn’t keep it in anymore.”
Stupid, stupid. He can see his whole life ahead of him now, without her in it. No more fresh picked peppers in brown paper bags. No more late nights at the Stardrop with too many beers, throats raw from laughter. No more drunk confessionals in the rain on the cliff over the water.
He gets off his stool and the alcohol hits him hard. “Sorry I fucked up our friendship,” he says, because there’s nothing else to say.
“Shane—” she calls after him, but he’s already pushed his way to the door and left without his coat.
Outside of the saloon, Pelican Town is dark, quiet, and frozen. Good. The snow that pelts his face keeps him awake long enough to get back to Marnie’s. He’s numb by the time he gets there, but part of him doesn’t ever want to feel anything ever again.
Months later, he’s taking canned soup from a box and arranging them in straight lines at Jojamart. He had stayed in his room for three days after the night at the Stardrop to avoid the multiple attempts she would make at reconciliation. And when he emerged he went to work early, during her chicken feeding time.
She never came to visit him at work, with a tub of hot pepper poppers tucked into her jacket. She hardly came to the Stardrop anymore, and when she did it was just to drop off a bottle of wine to Leah or something for Willy’s fishing challenge. And then she would leave, having never even made eye contact with him.
He picks up another can. That row’s full, time to start a new one.
The automatic door opens. Sneakers squeak on linoleum. Someone’s running through the store. Shane looks up.
It’s Maru, in her scrubs, out of breath.
“Shane,” she pants. “We need you down at the clinic.”
He doesn’t think. The can falls out of his hand, dents on the floor. He doesn’t think about the inventory slip he’ll have to file for it. He runs with Maru out the door, into town. He doesn’t think about dealing with Morris when he gets back. He doesn’t even think about getting back.
His first thought is Jas. Did something happen with Penny this morning?
His next thought is Marnie. Did she have an accident in the barn?
Maru doesn’t talk – there’s no time. He follows her into the clinic, past the counter, into the exam room. And it’s not Marnie. Not Jas. It’s… her.
She’s sweaty, tired, dressed in a crisp blue hospital gown with some hair stuck to her forehead. And there’s a baby asleep in her arms. He’s so caught off-guard that for a moment he considers turning around and leaving before anyone notices him.
But before he has a chance to, she looks up and sees him. There’s a moment where time slows for Shane – a moment where he tries to guess what she will do – and then she smiles. It’s a radiant smile, like there’s so much joy inside of her that it has to overflow somewhere. An old, familiar feeling flares up inside him. That smile is just for him. Not for Elliott, who is in the middle of a conversation with Harvey on the other side of the room.
It’s just the four of them there, since Maru returned to the front counter. The question burns.
“Why did you call for me?” Shane asks. It’s a stupid question to end a months-long silence, but might as well put it out there.
“I wanted to give you some space after… well, you know,” she says, and yes, he knows. “But she just couldn’t wait.”
She? The baby has the faintest dusting of reddish auburn hair, just like Elliott. She stirs at the sound of her mother’s voice, but doesn’t wake.
“But why me?”
“Shane,” she says. He can hear some hesitation, but not in a bad way. She’s finding her words. “I know you have a lot on your plate already with Jas, but… we talked it over, and I want you to be her godfather. If you want to."
He feels like the wind’s been knocked out of him. Elliott’s stopped talking to Harvey and looks straight at him. There’s no hatred or malice in his face, just that same serene expression he always has.
“What?” Shane says, because that’s all he can think to say. “Even after…”
“You’re still my best friend,” she says. “I don’t want that to change.”
She motions for him to come closer and as he does, the baby’s eyes blink open. Dark brown, just like her mother’s. He suddenly sees a whole life ahead, a little girl calling him “Uncle Shane” and family dinners and Winter Star gifts and this is life. This is living.
The baby starts to cry and she holds her close, rocks and soothes her.
“Have you decided on a name?” Shane asks her, and it’s the first conversation they’ve had in months that feels normal.
“Amelia,” she says. Her smile is still there, still radiant, but it doesn’t have quite the same effect on him that it used to.
“Amelia,” he repeats.
For the first time in a very long time, Shane experiences something that almost feels like happiness.