The Unmaking of June Farrow(19)

My eyes went out the window again, to the waterfront down the hill. Only a mile and a half downstream, the river dumped over Longview Falls. The idea of the woman in the photograph tumbling over its edge made my stomach turn.

I swallowed hard. “Try Rutherford,” I said.

“What?”

“See if there are any records for Susanna Rutherford. Maybe it’ll have a birth date somewhere?”

“That could work.” He turned back to the computer, typing.

The phone in my bag buzzed and I reached inside, pulling it out. A picture of Mason standing in front of the barn lit up the screen behind his name. I silenced the call and dropped the phone into the bag, rubbing at my temple in an attempt to soothe the ache growing there.

“Here we go,” Thomas murmured.

I stood, coming around the desk to see the screen over his shoulder. The website looked like some kind of database, the words Presbyterian Regional Assembly visible at the top of the page.

“There’s a baptism record linked to her married name.” He clicked on the file, and a black-and-white scan of an old log opened, filling the entire screen. Row after row of names and dates were recorded in the same ornate handwriting.

Thomas leaned in closer, eyes roaming over the entries, but he looked to the door when the sound of footsteps echoed out in the sanctuary. He pushed away from the desk, getting to his feet. “Hello?”

“It’s me, Tom,” a woman’s voice called back.

“Excuse me.” He stepped around the desk, leaving me alone in the office, and I took his chair.

The old style of calligraphy made the words almost impossible to read, and it was made more difficult by the glare coming through the window. I dragged a finger over the screen slowly until I found it.

Susanna Rutherford.



It was listed under the field MOTHER. The record wasn’t for Susanna’s baptism. It was for her child’s.

The name stared back at me, but it didn’t look familiar anymore. There was something that felt twisted about it. Distorted, almost.

I reached for the mouse and zoomed in on the page, reading the entire entry carefully. It was dated 1912.


Baptized by Nathaniel Rutherford on the 4th day of April, with her mother, Susanna Rutherford, as witness.



My eyes stopped on the next name, my throat closing up painfully. I read it again. And again.


June Rutherford.



June.

I pushed away from the desk, sending the chair rolling backward a few inches. As if that space between me and the computer would somehow change what was written there. But the more I stared at it, the blacker the ink appeared. It was almost as if it were moving on the screen. Rippling like water.

Voices echoed on the other side of the open office door, followed by more footsteps. I pulled the phone from my bag, taking a picture of the screen before I closed out of the document Thomas had opened and I deleted Susanna’s name from the search field. My hands were trembling as my fingers left the mouse.

“Find anything?” Thomas came back through the door as a car engine sounded outside.

“Not really.” I smiled shakily. “But thanks anyway.” I stood, pulling the bag back over my shoulder before making my way past him.

“You know,” Thomas said, waiting for me to look at him. “You’re always welcome here. If you ever need anything. Even just to talk.”

I pressed my lips together, unable to muster any kind of answer. What would he think if I told him about the photograph and baptism record? What would he say if I divulged the creeping thought that was unspooling in my fractured mind?

His smile faded in the eerie silence that fell over the room.

I turned on my heel, following the aisle back to the open doors. My feet flew over the steps, and I didn’t draw in a full breath until I was outside with the sunlight touching my skin. There was a tightening in my chest. A pinch at its center that made the lump in my throat expand.

I’d been telling myself it was just a photograph. Just a name. But that wasn’t true, was it? Something bigger was happening here.

My head turned to the white picket fence that encircled the graveyard, my eyes searching the stones. The red door was gone, but on the hill beside the tree line, I spotted it: RUTHERFORD. The name was engraved on a red marble stone. I took a step, and another, my open hand hitting the fence posts until the splintered wood was scraping my palms.

NATHANIEL RUTHERFORD

The closer I got, the clearer the name on the stone beside it became.

SUSANNA RUTHERFORD

But it was the smaller one beside them that I was looking for.

The grave was marked with a worn, wind-washed granite, and the writing was shallower, obscuring the inscription.

I sank down, jaw clenching when I came face-to-face with it, and my hand lifted, tracing the moss-covered letters with the tip of my finger.

June Rutherford

Beloved Daughter

March 14th, 1912—October 2nd, 1912



October 2. All at once, the weight left my body. I couldn’t feel the ground beneath me. June Rutherford died on October 2, the exact same day of the year that Clarence Taylor discovered me in that alley.

“Five, six, seven,” I counted. “Seven months.”

The same age I was when I was found.

I reluctantly glanced to Susanna’s headstone. The date of birth was September 19. The same as my mother’s.