If shadows could speak

If shadows could speak

"While you thought you were not good enough and sounding like an over played record this is what really happened said Shannon to her sister who suffered the intense emotional trauma of a cheating fiancé ".

Lucy and Shannon grew up in a small town and all they were subject to was a good household with strong family values and a solid church foundation combined with a good college/university degree and the support of their single mother whom their late father left with sufficient resources to take care of his three girls. Shannon studied law, while Lucy opted for Medicine. They're mother Mrs. Betsie couldn't be prouder that she had raised strong young women who had a zeal for life and a future that couldn't look much brighter than it already seemed.

 Mrs. Betsie sat relentlessly on the chair she had almost sat on for the past eighteen years, a chair her husband had made from scratch with his bare hands. The hands that helped her have what he had today she thought to herself, she sat up straight on it, although every time she moved a squeaking sound emerged indicating how worn out it was, and with being a widow for almost eighteen years now she didn't have luxury of having a man's handiness around the old yard. Shannon announced by a brief phone call that morning that she and her sister Lucy were coming home for the holidays and Lucy had a surprise for her. Mrs. Betsie silently hoped Lucy had finally found herself a good gentleman who would take care of her fragile self.

And so it became that evening, Lucy brought a guest along, Mrs. Betsie couldn’t be happier to finally have her daughter home. Shannon arrived seconds later, just in time to meet Lucy at their mother’s door.

“Oh my!! Shrieked Mrs. Betsie, is this what I think it is? “Pulling her daughter’s hand closer to assess the big rock on her ring finger”

“Yes Mama”, said Lucy with contempt in her voice.

“Careful now” said Shannon to Lucy, who wasn’t aware that her sister was standing right behind her, as she tried to take a step back to allow her ring to be examined in enough patio space. 

Shannon has always been there for Lucy, and she was rather surprised that Lucy decided to get engaged and not bother to inform her.

“You weren’t aware”? Said Mrs. Betsie, to Shannon, who looked like she had just seen a ghost.

 If she could turn back the hands of time she would not only recall how Shannon seemed to always be there for Lucy, even when she least expected it. She was there when her little sister got bullied, almost broke her arm and finally there for her at the most pivotal stage of her life back at university. "My dear "Shannon” always so meticulous and cautious Mrs. Betsie thought to herself.

 But how was she about to break it to her little sister “Lucy” who is not little anymore, that the man standing before all of them was a man she knew very well, a man who had been having his dinners at her place and only leaving before midnight to return to his fiancé . How?

They never shared much as sisters, they're relationship wasn't necessarily transparent but they knew when to look out for one another. They're mother interrupted Shannon’s thoughts and asked that she would take her sister's fiancés bag and not be a rude host. Shannon tried by all means, to not make eye contact with this man who played them all for a fool, and took the bags from his hands. They briefly all gathered at the dinner table and Shannon tried by all means not to sit across this man who felt like a stranger now, more than a lover she became accustomed to. She recalled how many times Lucy had asked her to come meet her new found boyfriend,but she was always too busy. How would she explain to her sister that she was blindsided about his man's relationship status and she had fallen in love" but nonetheless that's no excuse she thought to herself, this man should've been honest. She was no secretive person all right so she hurriedly asked her sister to join her in the next room and said to her  :

“You were good enough, but this man you came with today, he’s about to create raft so deep between us, that no relationship would not survive, the question were faced with here is whether or not we knew how scandalous and selfish this person we thought we knew, was" This awful selfish man was now inhumane in Shannon’s eyes. But Lucy, She sat there in disbelief, shedding a tear that carried a million stories that she could not articulate, she just sat there, in silence. "She really didn’t know love at all.”

-MisssMinnie