The Unmaking of June Farrow(68)

He knew me.

The same questions replayed over and over in my head. Why had I left this? How had I left this? How could I have just walked away?

I was only just beginning to think of those choices as my own. In some ways, maybe it wasn’t true, but with each passing day, I found it harder to separate myself from the June who’d lived here.

I looked across the room to the rifle that was hanging on the wall. I’d spent the night thinking about what Caleb had said and that look on Eamon’s face in the police station. If he was afraid that Nathaniel would hurt me, would he have killed him? Was he even capable of that? I didn’t know.

I’d thought more than once about the episode I’d had in my bathroom the morning I thought I had seen blood beneath my fingernails. I remembered that ribbon of red in the water, the smell of it in the air. I could see that flash of memory that had found me in the police station, the sound of myself gasping as I ran through the field.

And I’d felt that soul-deep love in the memory I’d experienced last night. If I knew Eamon had killed someone, would I have covered for him, like Caleb said?

Eamon pulled on his overshirt, stretching his stiff shoulder as he glanced out the window, toward the barn. He started toward the door, pulling the collar up around his chin.

I hadn’t said anything, but I’d been watching the color change in the field, marking the difference by the day. From the look of the tobacco, the blight was spreading. Slowly, but it was. I wasn’t sure the crop would make it. Not at this rate.

“I could help,” I said, chancing a look over my coffee cup.

He stopped, holding the back door open.

“I know how to irrigate the field and trim the infected stalks without contaminating the others.”

“I know you do.”

I stared at him. Of course he did.

“Margaret will be here soon to look after Annie.” He changed the subject. “The Faire’s tonight, so she’ll be here until the afternoon.”

He looked away from me, as if that would soften the meaning of the words. Each morning, he never disappeared into the fields until Margaret had arrived. And he wouldn’t stay out there if I was the only one at the house with Annie. The last time he’d done that, I’d left her.

I cleared my throat, trying to loosen the thick feeling there. “I think we should go. To the Faire, I mean.”

He stared at me. “I don’t think so.”

“There were people on the street who saw me go into the police station yesterday. If we’re the only ones in town who aren’t there, which we would be, then it’s going to look like we have something to hide.”

He didn’t deny it. “What about Caleb?”

“You said yourself that if he had anything real, he would have made an arrest.” I waited, and when he didn’t respond, I set the mug down on the counter. “If you’re telling the truth about there being nothing to find, then all we have to do is keep things from getting out of hand until the door reappears.”

“What do you mean, if I’m telling the truth.”

I leveled my gaze at him. “We both know you’re not telling me everything, Eamon.”

He didn’t deny it.

“But the only choice I have right now is to trust you.”

He turned his face away from me. “Just . . .” His hand squeezed the doorjamb. “If you’re going to work in the garden, can you leave the gate open while you’re in there?”

“The gate? Why?”

He ran a hand through his hair uncomfortably. “So that I can see you from the fields.”

I pressed my lips together, eyes tracing that stiffness along his shoulders as he said it. He wanted to be able to check on me, to keep me in his sight.

“Just call out if you need me. I’ll hear you,” he said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

I only half admitted to myself that I hoped it was true. It had been five days since I’d come through the door, and it hadn’t reappeared. Now I was almost afraid that it would. That I’d cross back without ever really knowing what happened here. I didn’t know if I could live with that.

The sunlight glowed around Eamon’s frame as he walked toward the barn, and Callie’s ears perked up behind the fence. I watched until he was out of sight and then looked back to Annie. Her feet swung softly as she watched me with a steady, focused gaze. Was there something new in her expression, or was I imagining it?

I took a step toward her, inspecting every inch of her I could take in. I still hadn’t had memories of her push through, and I suspected that might be because they were buried the deepest. Still, I was getting hungrier for them, the urge to chase them down growing by the day. There was a part of this story I’d never understand until I remembered her. There was a version of me that I’d never know.

Her toes brushed my legs, their shadows painting the floor.

“We’re going to the Faire tonight,” I said, my voice finding a calm that I hadn’t yet been able to muster. “Won’t that be fun?”

She nodded, picking up another cherry with her sticky fingers. “Will there be cake?”

I went rigid, mouth dropping open as I stared at her. She was looking right at me, eyebrows raised as she waited for her answer. But I’d never heard her voice before. She’d never spoken a single word to me.