Page 56 of The Unmaking of June Farrow

Eamon seemed anxious, but I didn’t know why. It was almost as if he was afraid of me knowing something, and I couldn’t help but wonder what it was. I’d been planning to ask him about the newspaper articles I’d found last night, but now I thought better of it.

“I wanted to ask you.” I paused, taking a different tack. “Did I keep a journal?”

He set the coffee cup down. “No.”

“Maybe a notebook of some kind?”

“Nothing like that.”

I stared at the floor, thinking. That could mean that I’d stopped having episodes after I came here, or maybe I’d just stopped writing them down. That, or Eamon wasn’t telling me the truth. The thought hadn’t occurred to me before now. What reason would he have to lie?

“What about—”

“The answer is no,” he said again.

“I’m just trying to think of anything that might help me make sense of why I left. Where I went.”

“I know where you went.”

I looked at him, shifting on my feet. I hadn’t expected him to say that, but he looked directly at me, a confidence in his gaze that couldn’t be mistaken.

My voice was a breath. “Where?”

“Back.” The single word was a heavy, solid thing between us.

If that was true, there had to be a reason. I wouldn’t have just left. Somehow, I knew that.

The screech of the gate out at the road drew Eamon’s attention to the front window, and with his eyes off me, I finally exhaled. Margaret was here, and she and Esther seemed to be the only buffers between me and Eamon. The vulnerable, sleep-infused first moments of morning were gone, and it had taken only seconds for him to put his guard back up and shut me out. He was a field of buried land mines.

If he wasn’t going to talk to me, I’d have to rely on my own memories, maybe even find a way to trigger more of them on my own. That, or find a way to get answers somewhere else. Margaret, I suspected,could help with that. Esther was prudent and careful, but there was a version of Margaret I knew better than anyone.

Three heavy knocks pounded on the door, and the shadow of a figure moved over the wall in the sitting room. Eamon and I looked to each other, the house settling uneasily around us. It wasn’t Margaret, I thought. Yesterday, she hadn’t knocked.

There was a new tension in the air now, and I could feel it almost right away. Eamon’s hand lifted, gesturing for me to stay quiet. He was watching that shadow, gaze moving to the rifle hanging on the wall.

I pulled my flour-covered hands from the bowl, taking a step backward. “Eamon?” I whispered.

The knock sounded again, rattling the glass window on the door, and he finally moved, leaning to catch a glimpse out the kitchen window.

His hand slipped from the curtain. “Shit.”

“What is it?”

“Shit,” he said again, turning toward me.

Quietly, I moved closer to him so I could see what was out there. A police car was parked inside the gate, a drift of dust still swirling in the air from when it pulled in. I looked to Eamon. The muscles of his arms and shoulders were flexed beneath his shirt, his entire body stiff.

“Don’t say a word.” His voice was so low I could hardly hear it.

I searched his face, the fear in his eyes now flooding into my own veins.

He came closer, hand finding my arm and gripping me tight. It pulled me toward him until I was looking up into his face. “June, do you hear me?”

I glanced down to where his fingers touched my skin before my eyes lifted back to his. I nodded.

He let me go, and I slipped into the bedroom silently. I watched around the corner of the door as he went back into the living room, his gaze landing on that rifle again. There was a split second when I was sure he was going to reach for it.

What the hell was going on?