Sharon Shale is Meredith Shale's mother and Charles Shale's wife. Although her husband has been convicted of raping their daughter and molesting other children, Sharon refuses to accept the idea that he is a child molester. She is pleased when he is released from jail early and seems angry with Meredith because he is not allowed to live with them. Although Meredith thinks that her mother should have gotten a divorce from her father while he had been in jail, her mother hadn't done so. Meredith has also learned that her mother sold their house so that she could pay for a good lawyer for her husband. Although members of the community don't want him there, Sharon fights the homeowner's association in the condo complex where they live to get her husband set up in a condo near their own. Although there is a court order that Charles not be left alone with Meredith, Sharon ignores this order and leaves the two alone the day after Charles is released from prison. She leaves them alone again the following Monday, the day that Charles tries to rape Meredith again. Sharon is arrested on several charges as a result of her husband's attempt to rape Meredith including leaving her daughter alone with a pedophile. At the conclusion of the novel, the reader also learns that Meredith is pregnant by Charles. Meredith suggests that she believes that her mother will abort the baby since her father will not be able to take care of it and Sharon will not want to have to share her husband with anyone else.
