“What are you going to do?” I ask, my voice breaking.
“Call 911.” His phone is already out of his pocket, but he stops before punching in the numbers. “Go, June. Please. Take the path by the lake and through the fields. I’ll meet you at home later, but you need to listen to me: you were never here.”
“My necklace.” It seems like such an inconsequential thing, but my fingers are brushing the place where the chain is supposed to fall. I can feel the narrow welt on my skin. I know it’s important somehow.
“What?” Jonathan’s brow furrows.
“I lost it. In the barn. It’s—”
Understanding dawns. There’s evidence that I was here. But he waves his hand, shooing me away. “I’ll take care of it. Just go.”
“But—”
“Later.” He shakes his head. “We’ll talk later.”
“We were together,” I say, backing away slowly. “After the Pattersons’， we met at the farm and watched the fireworks from the bed of your truck.”
“With Sullivan.”
I don’t understand, but there’s no time to question him, so I say, “Of course. With Sullivan. Then he went home—”
“And you went upstairs to shower,” Jonathan supplies.
“But you heard gunshots.”
“I did,” he says, but he doesn’t sound like my brother anymore.
I rush forward and give him a quick, hard hug, wrapping my arms around his neck as if I’ll never let go. “Everything is going to be okay,” I lie.
Then he pushes me away and bites off one last word: “Go.”
I do. God help me, I do exactly as he says. I turn around and run blindly, working from muscle memory and all the years I spent playing on this farm.
Rides on Penny with Cal holding her halter, picking flowers with Beth. “The key to zinnias,” she once told me, “is to pinch back the lead when the plant is still young.” She took a pair of clippers and lopped off the tallest shoot on a plant that looked nearly ready to bloom. I don’t remember what I said, but she laughed and motioned for me to follow her farther down the row. “See?” she said. Here was another small zinnia, but instead of one tall stem, there were half a dozen shorter ones, each centered by the tight fist of a bud all orange and pink like a ripe apricot. “Early adversity leads to an abundant harvest.”
Trips to the library together and spending an afternoon in the Murphys’ porch rockers while we snapped off the ends of sweet peas. Popping over when we saw the inviting flames of a bonfire or helping Cal pick tomatoes for the roadside stand. The scent of Beth’s peaches-and-cream soap. The way Cal whistled for Betsy to follow. His sunbaked brown skin. It’s over, all of it. They’re gone.
I’m weeping by the time I stumble into the parking lot of Jericho Lake, my knees skinned from falling and arms prickling with mosquito bites from the humid night, the proximity of still water. It’s the calm before the storm, and just as I reach my car, the first cool raindrop splashes on the back of my hand. It hisses against my feverish skin and I turn my face to the sky, wishing for more. Nothing comes. The clouds are pregnant, overdue, and the atmosphere crackles with the hint of lightning, but for now there is nothing the world can do but wait.
Just as I’m about to wrench open my car door, I see the flashing blue lights of a police cruiser. A second later the sound hits me, the whirring scream of a siren as it races down the road. Before I know it, I’m on the ground, bloody knees now scabbed with gravel as my heart pounds hard enough to crack my ribs.
Jonathan made the call. What does that mean? What will they think when they find him there, stained with Calvin’s blood?
But I can’t think about that now. When the cruiser is gone, I slip into my car and start the engine, then pull slowly out of the parking lot. I’m driving without my headlights, on a night filled with shadows and the low rumble of thunder, but our farm isn’t far, and I know the way by heart.
I don’t even realize that I’m aching for my mother until I pull down our long drive and see that the house is dark. That’s not unusual, Law and my mom are often in bed by now, but Law’s truck is gone, and there’s an air of abandonment over the entire homestead. I’m alone.
Pulling my car as close to the front porch as I can, I cut the engine and sit inside the quiet vehicle for a moment. The night is coming back to me in gasps and starts, still frames that have been taken by an unsteady hand because the edges are blurry and indistinct. Already I wish I could forget. I want to scrub the memories from my mind the same way I’m suddenly itching to scour every square inch of my body. I hold up my hands and there is dirt under my fingernails, but also something darker. Something that looks a lot like blood.