The Unmaking of June Farrow(10)

In those last few weeks, Gran was slowing down. Getting quieter. She was sleeping longer and not wanting to leave the house. I’d had a sense she was coming to the end, even though she didn’t say it and neither did Dr. Jennings. But there’d been something different about her.

That single thought is what finally made it click—that maybe it didn’t make sense because it didn’t actually mean anything. How Gran got her hands on a picture of Nathaniel Rutherford, I didn’t know. But she probably thought the same thing I did—that it looked like Susanna—and somewhere in the thick mist of her mind she’d decided to mail it to me.

I couldn’t see a ring on the woman’s finger, but the inscription called her Nathaniel’s wife. And then there was the way she leaned toward him, like there was a center of gravity I couldn’t see. Or maybe it was the wind giving her a gentle nudge in his direction.

“June?”

A muffled voice upstairs called my name, making me jolt.

“June!”

Birdie. I hadn’t even heard her come in. I looked down at the photos on the floor, as if just remembering where I was. The open bin. The basement. My loosely tied robe.

“Shit.” I groaned. The tub. I’d left the water running.

I pushed the folder from my lap, dumping it and the pictures into the bin. My hands clumsily got the lid back on before I slid it against the wall and climbed the wooden steps to the sitting room.

“June!”

When I made it back to the second floor, Birdie was pulling towels from the hall closet, dropping them to the floor. Water covered the tile, reflecting the light coming through the window. The old claw-foot tub was filled to the brim, its surface rippling beneath the dripping faucet.

“I’m so sorry.” I took another towel from Birdie’s hands, crouching to spread it across the doorway before the bath water could spill onto the wooden floorboards. “I forgot it was running.”

“Where were you?”

I sopped up the water on my hands and knees, out of breath.

“June? Where were you, honey?”

“Downstairs,” I answered.

“But I was just down there.”

“In the basement, I mean.”

Her eyes focused more sharply on me before moving over the bathroom. That look was scrutinizing. Almost suspicious. The overflowing tub was exactly the kind of thing Gran would have done. I didn’t know how many times I’d come home to a smoke-filled kitchen or all the windows propped open during a storm. But this wasn’t that, was it?

“I was just changing over the laundry,” I lied, stomach turning when I began to worry that she might go and check.

I didn’t want to tell her about the picture. Maybe because it felt like something I didn’t understand. It had been my name on the envelope; Gran had specifically meant it for me.

It doesn’t mean anything, I reminded myself. She was sick, June.

I got back to my feet, glancing down the hall to my open bedroom door where I could see the edge of the quilt that was draped over my bed. The mail was still scattered where I’d left it, the journal tucked safely under the mattress.

Birdie’s hand lifted, pressing to my cheek. “You’re flushed, dear. Are you feeling all right?”

“Fine.” I smiled, still trying to slow my racing heart.

Birdie didn’t look convinced. “You know, I don’t need to go to Charlotte tomorrow. Why don’t I cancel?”

“No,” I said, too quickly. “We’re already behind schedule.”

That was true. We were expanding the willow grove at the farm, and she was going to Charlotte to pick up the new trees. With Gran and the funeral, we’d already pushed it a week, and we couldn’t postpone again with the Midsummer Faire coming up.

“I’m sure Mason can go,” she said.

“He’s got enough to do. I’ll help him at the farm, you go to Charlotte.” When her mouth twisted to one side, I exhaled on a laugh. “It’s just a little water, Birdie. Relax.”

“All right, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

I closed the bathroom door, shutting myself inside, and the smile melted from my face. I stood there, silent, as her hesitant footsteps disappeared. A few seconds later, I could hear her filling the kettle at the sink downstairs.

The water on the floor wasn’t warm anymore. I wasn’t even sure how long I’d been down in the basement. For a fraction of a moment, fear sliced hot through my mind at the thought that maybe I’d imagined it all. That maybe that letter, the photograph, hadn’t even been real.

My hand instantly went to the pocket of my robe, desperately searching for the picture. As soon as my fingertips found it, I let out a painful, relieved breath and pulled it free. Nathaniel Rutherford’s dark eyes met mine, so focused and calm that I almost expected him to move. For his finger to flick the ash from that cigarette, or for the collar of that crisp white shirt to shift in the wind.

In the mirror, the image of me was a faint echo of the woman standing beside Nathaniel. From this angle, the birthmark that stretched below my ear looked like blood. My reflection was blurred, the glass fogged with steam. I wiped the flat of my palm across it in an arc, watching as the reflection began to fade again.

Second by second, it was disappearing. Just like me.