I shoved the clothes to one side of the wardrobe, hiding the white lace from view, and pulled a blue dress from one of the hangers. The door of the wardrobe closed, making the whole thing rattle, and I stepped away from it, swallowing hard. I tugged the nightgown over my head and folded it neatly. The locket watch still hung around my neck, the air making gooseflesh rise on my skin despite its warmth. With any luck, that door would appear before the sun went down again, and the mark I left on this place would be almost undetectable. I would throw the locket watch from the top of Longview Falls if I had to. I would never, ever open that door again. I’d go back to Mason. Back to the Jasper I knew.
I shrugged on the dress, buttoning it up and letting the locket fall inside. The fabric was soft and lived in, a bit loose around my frame, and I tried not to think too hard about why. Had this body changed after I had a child? Had love and marriage softened my curves in the five years I’d been here?
I turned toward the mirror, my skin crawling as I studied the image of me standing in that room. It was me, painted onto the canvas of a life I hadn’t lived. The worst of it was that I looked like I belonged here, seamlessly rendered into the scene.
I smoothed my hands over the dress before running my fingers through my hair and letting it fall over one shoulder in an attempt to make my reflection more familiar. From the outside, I looked like any of the women in those photographs that were stored in our basement. It was convincing, even if I didn’t feel anything close to normal on the inside.
My eyes fell to the little dish on the dressing table that was made of what looked like abalone or some kind of oyster shell. In its center, the gold ring stared up at me. It was just a simple, smooth band, too small for Eamon’s hands. When I blinked, I could see it on my own finger. I’d left that behind, too. It hadn’t occurred to me until then how strange it was that for an entire year, he’d kept the room that way, filled with my things. Her things. Had he still been hoping his wife would come back?
When I finally got the nerve to open the bedroom door, the hinges creaked, filling the silence of the house. I came around the corner of the kitchen, steps halting when I saw Margaret. Not Eamon.
She stood in the middle of the sitting room, folding the afghan that had been draped over the sofa the day before. Eamon had slept there, leaving the blankets behind, but he was nowhere to be seen now.
“Morning,” she chirped, a bright smile finding her lips when she saw me.
Her blond hair was curling at her temples, her cheeks pink. I couldn’t get over how impossible it was to stand there in front of Gran, but a whole different version of her.
“Morning,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Gran thought it would be good if I came over today.” She draped the afghan over the back of the sofa. “Keep an eye on the three of you.”
It took me a moment to understand that the Gran she knew, her grandmother, was Esther.
The curtain on the other side of the sitting room moved just slightly, and small fingers pulled the checkered fabric back just enough for Annie to peek out at me. She was perched on her little bed, her shoes toppled to the wood floor.
The stockings that covered her small feet were dusted with the same dirt that stained the hem of her dress, a characteristic that made her feel more real to me. I’d only caught glimpses of her before, like a photograph taken out of focus. But now I could see her. Really see her.
Her lips twisted to one side of her mouth as she pulled the curtain back farther, but she only looked at me with those wide, brown eyes. They were the exact same color as Eamon’s, another detail that felt like something clicking into place.
I could feel more pieces just like it lined up and waiting to fall like dominoes. I waited, half bracing myself for another speeding train of images to push back into my thoughts. But they didn’t come.
“Hi,” I said, the lonely word carrying with it a thousand questions.
What was an appropriate introduction between a mother and child who didn’t remember each other? What did it mean that this girl had come from me and yet, I could hardly bear to look at her?
Margaret’s eyes went from me to Annie, waiting.
“I’m June,” I tried again.
I didn’t know what else to call myself, and I figured it was the least confusing thing to say. Surely, she would have known me as Mama. Or Mommy. Thinking this gave me that falling sensation again, like I was dropping through the air.
Without a word, Annie climbed from the bed. Her eyes were fixed on me as she stepped with silent feet across the floor, toward the kitchen. Then she was out the back door.
“Does she talk?” I stared at her little bed, where a rag doll had been left behind. “I haven’t heard her say a word.”
Margaret smirked. “She talks plenty. But she’s something of a quiet creature, like Eamon.”
Eamon hadn’t struck me as the quiet type in the couple of days I’d known him. Half of the time, he’d been shouting at me. But her answer to my question made me feel embarrassed. It was probably a stupid thing to ask.
“I don’t really know anything about children,” I admitted, though I wasn’t sure if I was talking to Margaret or myself now.
“I know.”
She gave me a sympathetic smile, like she could tell what I’d been thinking when my eyes landed on Annie. I’d spent years faced with my own death, lived and breathed grief since I was a child, but that was nothing compared to this. I didn’t even have a name for the feeling inside of me.
Margaret’s eyes sheepishly dropped from mine, and she went into the kitchen, taking the percolator from the stove and dumping the grounds inside.
“Where is he?” I asked.
She glanced at the window. “Working. He’s out there before sunup most days.”
I went to the back door, watching the wall of tobacco rustling in the wind. I’d noticed yesterday that there was no sign of anyone else working on the farm.
“Who helps Eamon with the crop? I haven’t seen anyone in the fields.”
“You did. You did it together.” She turned on the water, pulling the block of soap closer to the sink. “He had a couple hired hands from town, but . . .” She didn’t finish, her lips pressing into a line as if she’d caught herself before she said something she shouldn’t.
I couldn’t tell where exactly her and Esther’s loyalties lay. Esther had seemed almost protective of Eamon, and she hadn’t hidden the fact that she expected me to keep my distance from Margaret. We were blood, but I’d abandoned them, too, along with a husband, a child, and a farm. The list of things I’d left behind was growing.
If Eamon was running this place alone, I didn’t know how that was possible. I leaned into the door with one shoulder, studying the faint yellowing tobacco leaves along the rows farthest from the house. I’d noticed them yesterday, and it wasn’t good, no matter what decade of farming we were in. During an uncommonly wet season, the water would have drained down those hills, and if blight had taken hold, it could ruin the whole crop before Eamon could harvest. From the look of it, he’d barely been able to keep this place going.
Margaret turned off the water, scrubbing the pot in the sink. It looked like it had been caked with something that resembled oatmeal. I took the dry rag that hung above the stove, drying the bowl she’d already finished.