EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER

FRIDAY - FEBRUARY 17, 1995

Sarah walked into the kitchen of her small ranch home and headed straight for the phone; she checked the clock, as she pushed in the numbers on the cordless handset. It was 11:45 p.m. and she knew her mother was still awake.

"Working late again?" Jane was concerned. Sarah had been pulling double duty as the manager and a fill in waitress at the restaurant for two weeks.

"I know, I have to hire someone." Sarah yawned as she made herself a pot of coffee.

It was tax time, her busiest season. She also did the taxes for a major part of the town's population. She knew that she had a long night ahead of her. But she hadn't talked to her mother for two days, and she wanted to catch up.

After Sarah caught up with the latest news and the small talk dwindled down, she asked the question that she had asked her mother every couple weeks.

"Anything in the news?"

Her mother paused and Sarah could hear her flipping through her magazines. "No, nothing since September, when I showed you the article about his third divorce."

Blood Brothers was in the charts as a top selling band. They had a number of platinum records and awards. For several years, they were a regular on the top hits lists. It seemed like they were always on tour in the U.S and internationally.

Three years ago, a magazine had run a full feature on his storybook wedding to a famous actress. Sam looked gorgeously handsome, barefoot, in white pants and shirt, as he stood on a beach by the small blond in a long, flowing white dress. They honeymooned in Hawaii, then made their home in Hollywood Hills or so the article had said. The magazine made it sound like it was a match made in heaven.

The last article, as Jane had said, was detailing the messy divorce that was finally settled between the two. The actress was out for blood, the article said, from the lead singer of the Blood Brothers.

Sarah's life had taken a completely different direction than what she had expected. She planned on going back to school and graduating after Shannon was born, but it had never happened.

After living off and on with her parents for years, and a few unsuccessful relationships, she met and married an auto mechanic from the town of Longsboro, about a half hour away from Breezewood. After a few years of what she thought was a reasonably happy marriage, she found out that her auto mechanic was doing more than changing oil for certain ladies in their town.

She packed up and moved back with her parents, all the while, looking for a small house to live in. Dave found her one on an inland street within walking distance from her parents.

She had been able to provide a home for herself and her daughter and enjoyed her life, free of any men. She concentrated most on raising a teenager, one who had all the rebelliousness of her father and the impulsiveness of her mother.

Shannon made her appearance promptly on March 3, 1977, at 11 am. Weighing in at 8 lbs and 10 ozs and 18 inches long, she was proclaimed by her tired mom and proud grandparents as the chubbiest, but most beautiful little baby they had ever seen.

Sarah's labor was as easy as the latter stages of her pregnancy, lasting only 6 hours. She had woken up early that morning, determined that she would go in to help with the breakfast rush, as she had been doing every Monday and Thursday for the last two weeks. But muscle spasms across her lower belly forced her back onto her bed. She sat and rubbed the soreness, then struggled to stand up, looking down in surprise as water trickled down her legs, soaking into the carpet under her feet.

Within five minutes she cramped again, then it was accompanied by another cramp, this one searing across her lower belly and taking away her breath.

Her mother took her to the hospital and followed her into the labor room. She helped coach her through her pains...

"Do you think he's finally settled down?" Jane's voice interrupted her thoughts.

Sarah sighed, "I doubt it. I don't think he will ever do that. He's enjoying the life of a rock star, Mom. It's the life he wanted."

Sarah heard the front door open and called out. "I'm in the kitchen, sweetheart, talking to Grandma. How was your date?"

Shannon knew Cody from school. They were both seniors at the local high school. But just about a month ago, Cody had shown up at their door, offering to shovel their drive. Shannon asked him in for hot chocolate afterwards and the two had been inseparable since.

Sarah felt an uneasiness about Shannon and Cody dating. She saw the attraction between the two and it made her nervous. She wanted Shannon to go away to college and get a degree. She thought the separation from Cody would be good. But now the couple had been talking about going to the same college, even.

Shannon danced into the kitchen, swirling around and sliding across the tile floor to end at her mother's chair. Her long honey blond hair flew out in an arc behind her and her bright blue eyes sparkled as she laughed.

Since the day she found out that she could get places quicker by running, Shannon had been practically non stop. The day they moved into this home, she had slid across the floor in the kitchen, and declared it her dance floor.

Sarah held her breath many times, as Shannon twirled and slid across the floor, coming close to the counters or the walls. But the girl had a grace to her as she danced and slid, knowing just when to turn or stop, to keep from colliding into things.

"It was perfect. Oh, Mom, he is perfect! We went to the movies then he took me to get pizza. It was so great!" Shannon was overflowing with the exuberance that only teenagers in the beginning stages of their first love seem to have. The combination of innocence and happiness that radiated from her face warmed Sarah's heart, even as it clenched tighter with worry.

She never wanted her daughter to go through the pain of having her heart broken. But if it happened, Sarah could only hope that she would follow the example her own mother had set, standing by and supporting her through the misery and pain of all that followed.

"Hi, Grandma." Shannon sang out. She grabbed an apple from the bowl of fruit on the table, dropping a kiss on her mother's cheek, as she went into the hallway. "I'm going to bed now."

Sarah held the receiver closer to her mouth. "She's in love, Mom." She said, softly.

"That's only normal, Sarah. She's going to be eighteen, your baby is growing up." Jane said with the wisdom of experience in these matters.

"What if she takes after me? I don't know if I can handle it like you and Dad did." Sarah said.

"You turned out just fine." Jane said firmly.

"Yeah, after running away from home with a musician and coming home pregnant! That's a hard way to learn about life." Sarah said, dryly.

Shannon stood just around the corner, in the hall, listening. She had been about to go into her room when she heard her mother whispering and she crept back to hear what she was saying. Somehow, this conversation sounded like it was something she wanted to hear.

"Maybe you should tell her about you and Sam." Jane suggested.

"If Sam would just settle down and live a normal life, I could tell her. So far, he hasn't shown that he is fit to be a dad to an eighteen year old daughter. His last wife wasn't that much older than her. And you know Shannon. If I tell her about Sam, she's going to want to meet him. She's been curious all her life about who her father is."

"She'll find out on her own, someday. Is that what you want?"

"No, I would rather she didn't. She has no idea even where to look. I have never given her any reason to suspect who he is. I don't know, I'll just keep watching, maybe someday, Sam will grow up. Then I can tell her about him."

"Well, if you ever decide to tell her; and I think she is old enough to know, by the way; I have a box of your things from that time in your life, you can show her. I kept them in the attic all these years."

"You have that box in your attic? I thought you threw all that stuff away?" Sarah was surprised.

Shannon's heart sped up, this was the first time she'd ever heard any indication that there was evidence of her father still around.

Sarah had always been very vague about the subject, insisting that she had no pictures of the man who had gotten her pregnant. She told Shannon only that he led another lifestyle than hers, one that wasn't conducive to raising children.

Sarah had always taken great pains to tell her how kind and loving he was at first, but that he had changed, through no fault of his own.

"It was the environment he was in that changed him." Sarah always said, sadly. That had always been the gist of their conversations about her father.

Shannon always had a great curiosity about what kind of environment he could possibly live in that had made her mother leave him.

SATURDAY - FEBRUARY 18, 1995

"I'm telling you, Cody! We have to get into my grandparent's attic! There are probably pictures of my dad up there!" Shannon's voice was urgent.

Sarah was outside shoveling the fresh snow off the sidewalk and Shannon jumped at the opportunity to call Cody.

"I don't know how!" She said, impatiently. "But I will figure something out."

Cody walked around his room as he talked to Shannon. He eyed his Super Nintendo and the Final Fantasy VI game that was sitting beside it. He hadn't played the game much since he had started dating Shannon and had planned on getting into it this morning, but after Shannon announced her intentions of getting into her grandparent's attic, he knew that plan was out the window.

There wasn't anything that he wouldn't do for her, even if it meant giving up a Saturday morning gaming marathon. She was the only girl that could make his blood run so hot through his body.

When he ran his hands through her golden hair and looked into her slanted blue eyes, with those long eyelashes, or when she smiled up at him so sweetly, her dimples creasing the sides of those luscious lips, he melted.

He was in love, so far gone, that it scared him sometimes. Shannon had told him so many times that she wanted to find her father. He wanted to help her find him.

Cody ran his hand through his shaggy brown hair, his mom had been on him to cut it, but he firmly resisted. Shannon liked it long. "So when do you want to do this?"

Shannon paused as she thought about it. "This afternoon! Mom is taking them to the boat show! Granddad is helping at the booth they have set up. They'll be gone all day"

Pete and Jim Winston had started up a fishing charter business, years ago, when Pete moved back to Breezewood. He and Toni spent the first years of their marriage in Buffalo, both of them were teachers in the schools in that area.

When his parents were killed in a car accident he approached Sarah's father with the idea of a fishing charter and Jim had wholeheartedly agreed.

Since Sarah had taken over the restaurant, her father had plenty of spare time, and fishing was a passion of his. Pete sold the hardware store and they combined their funds to purchase the boat and equipment needed for their new business.

Pete had also taken the job as principal at the high school and Toni became a stay at home mom, raising their sons.

Shannon liked the perks that came with knowing the principal at her high school and hated the downfalls of it. Her mother knew every time that Shannon had been up to no good. Her Uncle Pete had watched over her as if she was his own daughter.

And that was another sore spot with Shannon. She had known of the rumors that had gone around when she was born; everyone thought that Pete was her father. Those rumors were squashed quickly, Aunt Toni and all of her mom's friends had seen to that.

But every once in awhile, a wisp of them still could be heard. It made her all the more determined that she had to get into the attic and find the pictures.

***

Shannon and Cody stood at the top of the stairway that led up to the attic. They shivered at the cold air that encompassed the room.

"Do you know where to look?" Cody asked, as he put his arms around her to stop her shivering.

"All I know is that it is a box." Shannon studied the pile of boxes lining the walls.

The attic took up the third floor of the house, the entry was through a door in the hallway on the second floor and up a set of stairs. As with the downstairs, Jane kept this room spotlessly neat.

Shannon hadn't been up here in years. Her eyes roamed over the labels on the stacks; a pile for each holiday's decorations, out of season clothing, another pile of boxes that were labelled with everything each box contained.

Something told her that this box wouldn't be so easily seen. Shannon walked around, looking behind everything.

She finally spotted a box in one of the front dormers, behind an old exercise bike and a rowing machine.

"This is it!" She exclaimed, moving things out of the way.

She knelt down and ran her hand over the top, pulling her fingers away and looking at the dust on them. "Look, on the side, it says 'Sarah', that's it, no other explanation to what is in it!"

Shannon tore at the yellowed tape across the top; the brittleness of it made it easy. She held her breath as she pulled out a flat, brown paper wrapped package. "This is addressed to my mom." She turned it over, looking at both sides. "It's never been opened."

Cody squatted down beside her, his breath showed in the frigid air of the unheated attic. "I wonder what it is?" He looked into the box, and pulled out another package, also wrapped in the brown paper, but larger and heavier. "This was never opened, either."

Shannon looked at the two packages then at Cody. "This is getting interesting. Why wouldn't my mom open these packages?" She pulled open the flaps of the box, reaching in further. "Help me pull out this pink thing."

Cody held the box as Shannon pulled on the pink canvas, falling back when it finally came out, free of the tightness of the box.

"It's a duffle bag! Look, the tag has my mom's name on it!" She studied the rectangular, faded pink, canvas bag, lifting the name tag on the handle, then tugging at the zipper. But years of non use and the humidity of the attic had rusted the metal teeth together, making it impossible to open.

She shivered again, as much from excitement as from the cold. Cody pulled her up, hugging her and running his hands briskly over her arms.

Neither of them had thought to wear a coat up here, and with a temperature of 10 degrees outside, it was uncomfortably cold in the attic.

"Why don't we take these back to your house and look at them?" He suggested.