Page 96 of The Unmaking of June Farrow

“June,” Eamon tried for the third time. “You can’t just stand there all night.”

I ignored him, refusing to blink even though my eyes ached.

I’d tried to go to bed, only to toss and turn, my feet bringing me back to this spot again and again. Every time she was out of sight, that crippling fear found me, its grip closing tight. I needed to see her with my own eyes. I needed to know that she was safe.

Those few seconds in the field had torn open an ocean of memories inside of me.

This changes everything.

I’m standing on the porch in the dark, the wind pulling my waving hair across my face. Eamon is only inches away, but he doesn’t touch me.

“This changes everything. You know that, right?” I say.

It’s a long moment before he nods, but it doesn’t feel like an agreement. It feels like a divide between us.

I blink, and I’m in our bed, naked beside Eamon, with the quilt pushed down to keep us cool. We’re in the last few moments before sleep takes hold, and my eyes are heavy. Eamon’s hand slides around my waist to the crest of my swollen belly, and I feel his lips press to the back of my shoulder.

I blink, and I’m at the farmhouse. I’m screaming, but not a high-pitched cry. It’s a groan from deep inside of me. Eamon’s hands are bracing me, his mouth pressed to my ear, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.

I can feel sweat trailing down my back beneath my nightgown. I can feel pain wrapping around my body, and I push. That growl breaks in my chest again, and I can see Esther between my legs. Margaret standing in the moonlit window, waiting with a cloth draped over her hands.

And then there’s another cry that doesn’t come from me. I hold out my arms, reaching for her, and then she’s pressed against me as I sob. A deep, broken sound I’ve never heard before.

Warm, is all I can think. She’s so warm.

Eamon’s face presses into my hair, and I can feel his body trembling. Feel his arms tighten around me.

They were only a few of the dozens of memories that had worked themselves loose in the last few hours. My head was filled with them now. Annie in my arms as a baby, nursing at my breast. Eamon pacing the house with her in the dark, early hours of the morning. They were things I couldn’t unsee.

Mama.

That word contained multitudes. In an instant, it had wiped me from the face of the earth.

“June.” Eamon’s voice only made the ache inside of me cut deeper. That voice. Iknewthat voice. I’d known it before I ever walked through the door. “You need to get some sleep.”

“You should have told me I was sick,” I whispered.

“You weren’t sick.”

That’s what Gran had always said. It’s what Esther had told me, too. But being stuck between time, having a mind that was frayed, thatwasbeing broken. We were malfunctioning, all of us. It didn’t matter if it wouldn’t show up on a brain scan. There was somethingwrongwith me.

“This is what happens,” I said. “I’ve seen it. With Gran. She saw it with Susanna and Esther, too. It was happening to me, even before I got here. This is what happens to us, Eamon. This is what’s going to happen to her.”

This was where it was always going to lead, wasn’t it? I’d known this as long as I’d known myself. So why did it hurt so much?

He looked at me with eyes that said he’d heard all of this before.

“This changes everything,” I repeated, watching his face.

He was watching me, too.

“That’s what I said when I told you, right? I warned you that this would change everything.”

I could see that he remembered standing out on the porch when I told him I was pregnant. He remembered when I spoke those words.

“How could I have left her?” My voice cracked. “How could I have just left her here by herself all alone?”

Understanding settled in his eyes. “Esther told you?”