The Unmaking of June Farrow(64)

“You leave now and you’ll just convince him he’s right. All of that attention will shift to me, do you understand? You might not give a shit about that, but my daughter’s lost one parent already.”

That’s what this was to him. Not concern for himself. He was trying to contain this thing before it spilled over onto Annie.

“Things had died down before you came back. I thought it was behind us.”

His voice faded out, the words almost inaudible, like he’d thought better of saying them mid-sentence. I studied him, trying to pry their meaning from the silence.

“You didn’t want me to come back, did you?” I said.

His whole body tensed, and his eyes found me, disbelief paling his face. “My life ended the day you left. You’ll never understand what that did to me. So don’t talk about what you think I wanted or what you think you know about me.”

He said it with so much hurt that it was as if the words had sucked all the air out of the truck. I suddenly couldn’t breathe. It was the first time he’d let me see him, really see him, since I’d come here. There weren’t any walls built around that truth—it was unguarded. Defenseless.

Another tear fell, trailing along my jaw as I stared at the road. “Who exactly is Caleb Rutherford?”

Eamon took a long time to answer. “He’s your brother, June.”





Nineteen


My eyes were glued to the side mirror, afraid I’d see that police car again. It wasn’t until the house came into view that I loosened my grip on the door handle. Esther was standing on the porch, arms wrapped tightly around herself. She’d been waiting.

As soon as the truck stopped, I climbed out, boots hitting the ground hard. She looked from me to Eamon, waiting for one of us to speak. But I still wasn’t sure what had just happened. Not in the police station, and not in the truck.

Beside me, Eamon looked almost as dazed as I felt.

“Annie’s inside.” Esther answered Eamon’s unspoken question as she came down the steps to meet us.

Behind her, the windows in the sitting room were half-opened, the curtains pulling in the breeze. I had a nagging itch to see for myself that she was in there, perched on her bed with her doll.

Eamon motioned toward the barn, where Callie was pacing again. Esther and I reluctantly followed, and we didn’t stop until we were standing in a pool of sunlight between the paddock and the field. From here, we were hidden from the road.

“She knows about Caleb. And the investigation” was all Eamon said.

Esther’s arms were still crossed. “All right. What happened?”

I stared at them both, so exhausted that I could hardly muster the energy to speak. I’d been forced to trust them, to put my life in their hands, but it was clear now they’d been looking out only for themselves.

“You should have told me about this.”

“We were trying to keep you out of it,” Esther answered. “It’s complicated enough as is.”

“You can’t keep me out of it. The less I know, the more dangerous it is for all of us. What would have happened if I’d said something wrong in there?”

Esther and Eamon met eyes in a silent exchange. They didn’t argue with that.

“Let’s start with Caleb,” I said.

Esther glanced at the road around the corner of the barn. “He’s Nathaniel and Susanna’s son. He was born two years after you.”

I waited.

“After she left you, she wasn’t . . . well. I think she thought having another baby would help or somehow undo what she’d done. But she never got over it.”

“I don’t understand. You keep acting like Susanna was devastated to lose me. If that’s true, then why’d she do it? Why did she leave me?”

She looked past me, to Eamon. “This is how it all started last time. This very conversation. She doesn’t need to know everything.”

“I need to know more than what I know right now,” I snapped.

She unbuttoned the collar of her shirt, opening it to the cool air. I could see her mind turning with the words before she finally started speaking. “She didn’t leave you, June. She didn’t have a choice.”

I could feel the warmth bleeding from my skin suddenly, the air around me like hard, jagged ice. Esther’s eyes were on the ground between us, her silver-streaked hair unraveling from its bun.

“I told you, there was something about Nathaniel that wasn’t right. His mind was twisted. From the beginning, he knew that Susanna was different somehow, that she was something unnatural. But he couldn’t resist her.” She paused. “He thought she was touched by demons, or some other ridiculous thing his father preached about on Sundays. I think, in a way, he both loved and hated her at the same time. He thought she had some kind of hold over him and that God was testing his faith somehow. But he couldn’t give her up, so he decided he wanted to save her, to fix things so that he could have her and still have his own salvation. She was baptized in the church, and not long after, they found out she was pregnant.”

Beside me, Eamon was silent. He knew what came next.

“Nathaniel came to see me. He was desperate. Scared. He didn’t want his father to find out that he and Susanna had been together.” Esther paused. “He offered me two hundred dollars to poison Susanna in order to kill the child growing inside of her.”