Page 73 of The Unmaking of June Farrow
No blue shoe like the one Caleb had.
I sank down to the floor, feeling like this was another one of those threads, unraveling so fast that I couldn’t catch hold of it.
I looked at my hands, resting on the neatly folded stack of Eamon’s shirts. Without thinking, I curled my fingers around the one on topand picked it up. Before I could stop myself, I was pressing my face to it, inhaling deeply.
That smell was warmth. It pooled inside of me, filling the narrowest of spaces, and I closed my eyes. It hurt, unleashing a physical ache that reached through my entire body. It was alive, that feeling. A trapped thing trying to get out.
When my eyes opened, they focused on that swath of white lace in the back of the wardrobe.
Slowly, I set the shirt back in its place and got to my feet. I took the dress from where it hung and the length of it fell to the floor, kissing my feet. It was a simply cut garment with a fine layer of lace over the top that fluttered at the shoulders and clasped at the back of the neck.
The fabric was perfect and unstained, a creamy color that tinged gold in the dim light. Beautiful. And just looking at it made me lose my grip on that pain threatening to erupt inside of me. I couldn’t contain it anymore.
I’m standing beneath a willow tree, cool grass beneath my feet. Before me, a tortoiseshell button on Eamon’s shirt comes sharply into focus. I’m staring into his chest, but then my eyes find his.
I’m wearing the dress. I can see two tiny pink flower petals caught in the lace below my shoulder, and I know they’ve fallen from the woven crown that Margaret made for me to wear.
“For as long as we both shall live.” The words drip from my mouth in a softness that echoes the sting of tears I feel behind my eyes.
Eamon’s mouth lifts just the slightest bit, a tiny smile meant only for me. “For as long as we both shall live,” he says.
He doesn’t wait to be told that he can kiss me. He just pulls me toward him, and his hand slides around my ribs, down the center of my back, so that he can hold me against him. Once I’m fully enveloped in his arms, he moves his face close. Our noses touch before his lips part on mine, and he kisses me deeply, every single atom in my body like blinking Christmas lights.
It’s not a vision. This is an embedded, sleeping beast that’s beenwaiting to wake. My head is filling with it, forming a map of memories that stretch and connect.
For the first time, I can feel a tether. It stretches tight between me and this man.
Eamon’s fingers slide around my neck, finding the nape of my hair. His thumb presses to my cheek, just above the edges of the red birthmark that stains my skin.
And then it was gone, snuffed out from the world around me, but I could still see it in my mind’s eye. I could recall it in perfect detail.
I’d been able to smell the honeysuckle in the air and feel the give of the earth beneath my bare feet. And it hadn’t been like the jarring, head-splitting episodes that I’d had before I came here. This was as smooth as slipping into cool, still water.
The wind picked up outside, making the house creak around me, and a soft cry echoed on the other side of the wall. After a few seconds of silence, it sounded again.
Annie.
It was followed by the creak of the sofa as Eamon got to his feet. The pop of the floorboards as he crossed the sitting room. I followed the sounds, moving along the length of the wall with my fingertips trailing the wallpaper.
I could hear Eamon climb into bed with her the same way he had every night since I’d been here, a predictable pattern.
I met my own eyes in the mirror, still feeling the sting on my lips where Eamon’s mouth had pressed to mine in the memory. They were a pale silver in the lamplight, shifting with the shadows in the room. And before I could see my mother there, looking back at me, I turned out the light.
That morning was different.
Eamon and I moved like planets around each other in the kitchen, the smoke from the cast iron making the light hazy and the air rich with the smell of bacon. Annie was sitting on top of the table with a bowl of black cherries, bare feet dangling over the wood floor.
There was a sudden ease in the house, like an unclenched fist, and I wondered if it was because more of the truth had worked its way out between us. Eamon had let me see what lay behind that clenched jaw and those pensive eyes. I hadn’t been able to tell if he’d meant to do it, or if it had just happened, but he hadn’t hidden that pain from me when he had the chance.
My life ended when you left.
The echo of it inside of me made me shudder.
He handed me a bowl without looking in my direction, but instead of an attempt to avoid me, it appeared to be more a movement that was done by memory. It felt like a lived-in thing. Was this how we’d looked, standing side by side in the kitchen as the sun rose each morning? Was this our rhythm?
He reached over my head for two mugs, and for once, I didn’t leanaway from him when he got close to me. I could smell that summer scent, sun-warmed wood and grass. I found myself inhaling before he pulled away, and it lit on my tongue in a way that didn’t feel new anymore.
He poured the coffee with one hand, a distracted look on his face as he pushed the bacon around in the pan with the other. Without any apparent thought, he set the spatula down and moved the sugar bowl toward him. I watched as he opened it, scooping two spoonfuls into one of the cups. The cup closest to me.