Page 4 of The Unmaking of June Farrow

I half laughed. “No. I don’t.”

“Did you look at the schedule?” he asked.

I sighed. “You know I didn’t.”

“The larkspur is tomorrow.”

“Well, it’s getting cut today,” I said, a monotone note creeping into my voice.

I wouldn’t tell him that the tinge of pink at the tip of the petals had told me they were ready, and that tomorrow just a little of their color would be gone. I wouldn’t tell him that the amount of dew on the stalks this morning had me worried about the leaves, either. Mason didn’t believe in the wives’ tales Gran had taught me. He put his faith in plans and data and forecasts, and I’d resolved myself not to argue with him. He was running things now, and that was best. There was no telling how long I had before I ended up like Gran or my mother.

“We have schedules for a reason, Farrow.”

I rolled my eyes before I found the joint of the next stem, not bothering to look back at him. Again, I wouldn’t argue, because there was no point. That was one of the benefits of working with your oldest, and in my case—only—friend. You got good at not wasting energy where it would be badly spent.

“Well?”

“Well, what?” I echoed.

“You okay?” His voice softened a little, but I could still hear him cutting.

I took the bundle underneath my arm and followed the row to its end, where a bucket was waiting. The memory of those eyes on the porch last night made me clench my teeth. Even now there was a part of me that thought I could still smell that cigarette smoke in the air.

“I’m good.” I dropped the larkspur into the bucket, returning to the place I’d left off.

Every woman in the Farrow family was different, but the end was always the same. Gran hadn’t started showing signs until she was in her sixties, and it had progressed very slowly. Her mind had crumbled in those last years, the light in her eyes all but flickering out. In the end, I lost her to wherever that other place was. She faded. Disappeared.

But the town had already begun to see it in my mother before she went missing, and by all accounts it had been a fast-growing, hungry thing.

The statements collected during the investigation were filled with accounts of inexplicable behavior. Speaking to someone who wasn’t there. Confusion about things that had or hadn’t happened. There was a particularly concerning story about her walking barefoot in the middle of the night during a snowstorm. And it wasn’t the first time she’d disappeared with no explanation. But the day she left me in Jasper was the last of her. After that, there was nothing left.

This time, the ease of Mason’s voice gave way to hesitation. “What are you doing later? I’m going into Asheville if you want to come.”

I glanced over my shoulder. He was still hidden behind the towering thicket of dahlias. “You’re never going to find someone if you spend your weekends babysitting me.”

He was quiet for a moment, and I wished I could see his face. We were both thirty-four, and for most of those years, the town had speculated that we were more than friends. We were, I suppose. We were family. In the few times I thought there might be something beyond that, it was smothered by the reality of what we both knew was coming. I’d made promises to myself a long time ago that kept me from ever crossing that line. Mason hadn’t crossed it, either.

“I’m all right, Mason,” I said again, hoping I sounded more convincing this time.

“I’m just saying…”

I made the next cut, irritated now. “I said I’m all right.”

Mason’s gloved hands lifted into the air in a gesture of surrender, and he fell quiet, making me instantly feel guilty. The truth was, he was waiting for me to fall apart just like Birdie was. He didn’t know that the waiting was over. I just hadn’t figured out how to tell him yet.

We worked in silence, keeping pace with each other as we moved down the row, and when I reached the end of the larkspur, I slipped the clippers into my belt and sank down, taking hold of the fullbuckets at my feet. When I rounded the corner of dahlias, Mason was crouched low, cutting away the yellowed stalks from where a section of drip line had busted and flooded the roots.

The rim of his hat was low over his eyes, his denim shirt already wet and darkened down the center of his back. When he finally looked up at me, his blue eyes held the question he wasn’t going to ask again. He wanted to know if I was okay.Reallyokay.

“Want me to take those?” He stood, wiping his brow with the back of his arm, but his gaze was on the buckets I was holding.

“No, I got it,” I said, readjusting one of them into the crook of my elbow so I could take the one he’d filled with the ranunculus.

Before he could think better of biting his tongue, I ducked past him, heading for the peak of the barn’s rusted rooftop, visible in the distance.

“You look at that schedule tomorrow before you come out here hacking away,” he called out.

A smile broke on my face, and I waved a hand in the air, not looking back.