Page 176 of June First
“June? Dear God… What’s wrong, honey?” Mom drops beside me, immediately pulling me into her arms as we huddle on the driveway. “What happened?”
I can hardly speak. I shake my head back and forth as she combs loving fingers through my hair.
“June, please talk to me. Is someone hurt? Is it Brant?” Mom’s comforting touch turns tense, wrought with fear. She pulls back, clasping my face between her hands. “June. Is Brant okay?”
My stomach roils. I’m sure she’s flashing back to that hospital right now.
Hearing the devastating news.
Finding out that she just lost a son.
She’s about to lose another.
Blinking back the wall of tears, I manage to croak out, “D-Dad saw us.”
“What?” Her deep-blue stare is full of bewilderment. “Sweetheart, you’re scaring me.”
“Please…” I choke, sniffling and gasping. “Please don’t hate him.”
Mom frowns, inching backward as her hands fall from my cheeks. “Why would I hate your father?”
I swing my head back and forth, a piece of hair catching on the wet tears pooled along my lips. “No…not Dad,” I rasp, still trying to catch my breath, trying to keep an asthma attack from overtaking me. “Brant.”
Confusion clouds her eyes. We both face each other on the pavement, our knees touching, while the humid late-summer breeze seems to go still. The air turns stale and stifling, like it’s waiting for the next moment to unfold.
Expectancy hums all around me.
My mother licks her lips, inhaling a slow breath. “What would make me hate Brant?”
She asks the question softly, so softly, almost as if she doesn’t want me to even hear it because she’s terrified of what the answer may be.
Only…I think she already knows.
She knows the answer.
It lights up her eyes like a bushfire.
How does she know?
Her head shakes slightly. She pats at her loose hair bun, like she’s searching for the pen that usually resides inside it, but it’s not there today. Mom pulls her lips between her teeth, falling back on her heels and gazing off over my shoulder at a bicyclist riding by on the sidewalk. A long, quiet moment stretches between us, causing my skin to prickle with anticipation.
Then she cups a hand over her mouth and sighs. “How long?”
Pushing my hair back with my fingertips, I stare down at the cracks in the driveway, hoping one of them will suck me in. I can’t seem to muster a response.
She repeats louder, “How long have you been sleeping with him, June?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and let out a shuddery breath. “A week,” I confess, mortification heating my face. It’s horrible enough talking to my mother about having sex, but this?
Her daughter is admitting to a sexual relationship with the man she deems a son.
Cowering on the pavement, I wish I could shrink away into nothingness.
“A week,” she clarifies.
“But…it’s more than that,” I say, lifting my chin and braving a glance at her. My voice breaks as I repeat meekly, “It’s so much more.”
Teardrops fall hard, disappearing into the stone cracks, but they don’t take me with them.