“Now,” Esther began. “The best thing we can do is to act as normal as possible. June, you’ve been in Norfolk taking care of your mother after a stroke. She’s doing much better, so you’re home for good.”
I stiffened. “For good?”
“As far as the town’s concerned, yes.”
Eamon watched me, dark eyes studying my face in a way that made me shift on my feet.
“People will be curious.” She continued, “They’ll ask questions. So, it’s important that you’re careful with your words. Don’t embellish, don’t share details. Do you understand?”
I gave her a small nod. I did understand, but I didn’t like the feeling that filled the room. I didn’t have any idea what had taken place here in the last five years. The choices I’d made. The people I’d hurt. All of this felt like being dropped into a stranger’s life and it was clear I wasn’t welcome here.
“I’ll take Annie for the night. Give you two a chance to . . .” She paused. “Talk.”
She gave me one last, long look before she went out the back door. Seconds after I heard her call Annie’s name, the little girl was standing in the open doorway of the barn. The remains of what looked like a muffin were clutched in her small hands as she followed on Esther’s heels toward the truck.
When I looked back to Eamon, he hadn’t moved, but the coldness in his eyes seemed to thaw just a little. He looked more curious now. Appraising. Like he was just beginning to let himself take in the sight of me standing there.
“I don’t have to stay,” I said, my attention dropping to his hands. They were darkened, streaked with something black that had been only half-heartedly wiped off.
“That might have been true if you listened to me yesterday and stayed out of sight.” The words were buried beneath the deep tenor of his voice. The accent was easier to pick out now, a dim Irish lilt that had lost its most recognizable traits. “But everyone in town will know by now that you’re here. There’s no getting around that.”
I folded my hands together, unsure of what to do with them. He wasn’t trying to make me more comfortable or put me at ease, the way Esther had. This man was angry, and he didn’t care if I knew it.
“You’ll stay here until . . .” He didn’t finish, as if he couldn’t even bring himself to say it.
“The door,” I murmured.
He nodded. “When it comes back, you’ll leave, and we can all get back to our lives.”
My jaw clenched, my whole body going rigid at the thought that followed. “And if it doesn’t?”
“It will. It always comes back.” He dropped his gaze from mine. It sounded like there was more meaning to the words than I knew. “You can take the bedroom. I’ll sleep out here.”
I looked to the door off the kitchen. Behind it, the remnants of a life I didn’t remember were preserved like a tomb. The thought of going back in there made my stomach turn.
The light in the house changed as the clouds drifted in, and outside, the wind caught the leaves of the tobacco, making a sound that reminded me of the ocean. Eamon’s eyes found the window, a distracted concern surfacing in his expression.
“What were you looking for yesterday,” I asked, “when you looked at my arm?”
He considered the question, taking his time with the answer. “I was checking for something.”
“What?”
The muscle in his jaw clenched. “A scar. A couple of years ago, June burned herself on the stove.” He glanced to the kitchen, like he was remembering it. “It left a scar on the inside of her wrist.”
That was how he’d figured it out. I’d never been burned because I’d never been here. But the fact that he’d known my body that well made my pulse race. For a fleeting moment, I thought I could feel the remnants of heat there, below my palm. A faded, throbbing pain.
“Why did you come here?” His tone was flat, but there was a strained sound beneath it, like he’d been biting back the words since I’d walked through the door.
It was a question that didn’t have an easy answer. I wasn’t sure I even knew what it was. How had I ended up here, exactly? Gran’s photograph? My mother’s disappearance? The episodes? They’d all converged into a woven thread that had been pulling tighter and tighter until I opened that door.
“It’s not that simple,” I said.
“Then explain it to me, June. I’m not an idiot.”
Again, I shivered at the sound of him saying my name, the way the u stretched deep in his faded accent. It was, impossibly, both familiar and foreign at the same time. My hands tightened into fists every time I heard it.
“I didn’t mean—”
“What did you mean, then?”
“I was trying to find out what was happening to me. What happened to my mother.” My voice rose, defensive now. “I don’t know anything about you or . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say the little girl’s name.
“Annie.” He enunciated the word.
My mouth opened before it clenched shut again. I couldn’t say it. I didn’t want to. “So, she’s . . . ?”
“Mine. And June’s.”
I could feel the dress pulling tight across my chest as my breaths deepened. “If she’s mine, then why doesn’t she seem to recognize me?” I asked, grasping for any thread I could.
“She’d only just turned three when you disappeared, but children aren’t the fools we are. She knows you’re not her mother. Not really.”
I wasn’t sure if he’d meant to, but that last sentence felt like a line drawn in the sand. A boundary and a warning not to cross it.
“I just don’t see how any of this is possible.” I said.
“It is. I’ve lived it.”
“You don’t understand, none of this makes sense. I never—”
“Your plans changed,” he snapped.
I stilled. “My plans?”
“To never marry. To never have a family. To be the last Farrow.”
I bristled, stung by how bitterly he’d said it. Almost mocking. And the way he’d plucked the thought from my head was unnerving, because he was right.
“Yes.” He swallowed. “I know you.”
“You don’t know me.” I didn’t want to believe it.
He leveled his eyes on me, his expression shifting. “There’s a diamond-shaped window in your bedroom—the one you grew up in. It’s in the house that hasn’t even been built yet,” he began. “You drink too much coffee. You kept that notebook beneath your bed. In a few weeks, once the summer’s come, you’ll have freckles just here.” He gestured to the rise of his own cheekbones, and immediately, I felt myself blush. “Your neighbor’s name is Ida, you lived with a woman named Birdie, and your friend Mason will be looking for you, right?”
It was the mention of Mason that made my stomach drop. What else did he know about me? What else had I told him? Everything, I realized. If I’d been married to this man for four years, if I’d trusted him enough to tie my own life to his, then I’d told him all of it.