I watch him jog right past the carport where his Highlander is parked and take off down the drive, sticking to the gloomy shadows cast by the trees. He glances over his shoulder up at the house and I instinctively edge behind the blinds. Where is he going at this time of night and why isn’t he taking his car? We’re three miles out of town so it’s a little odd to go anywhere on foot.
Halfway down the drive, just where the road curves and disappears into the orange grove, a set of headlights flash on, giving me a start. They briefly douse Gene in a halo of light and I watch him dart to the passenger side and jump in. The car – a dark SUV – takes off down the drive and I lose sight of it. Who was that? And what’s with all the cloak and dagger?
I go and pour a large glass of Pinot, a gift from our neighbor’s private vineyard, and carry it with me upstairs, pausing to straighten a painting in the hallway (my wedding present to Robert – a sketch I’d drawn from memory of him on our first fateful meeting). I stop again on the landing outside June’s room. The wall here is covered in photographs that I’ve taken over the years. There’s a black and white one of Robert and me on our wedding day. I look like a child bride, albeit one glowing with happiness, and Robert looks as dashing as a movie star. There’s another of me – taken a few months later, visibly pregnant with Hannah – with my arm around a smiling, chubby-faced Gene. I was younger than Hannah is now, just nineteen, and every time I pass that photo I feel a pang of something – an ache – for the girl I was. I was so stupidly young. If Hannah got pregnant now, I’d strangle her.
I knock on June’s door and turn the handle but I’m stopped by her shouting from the other side for me to hold on. I hear her scrambling around, opening and slamming a drawer, and a few seconds pass before she finally wrenches the door open. She’s pulling her robe on and she’s a little out of breath. ‘Yeah?’ she asks, using her body to try and block my view of her room.
What is with my family tonight? Everyone has secrets all of a sudden.
‘I just wanted to see how you were feeling,’ I say. Her room is a mess – clothes strewn all about, her desk overflowing with books and drawings, the hamster cage looking like it hasn’t been cleaned in weeks. I think about speaking out, at least about animal welfare, but as usual I bite my tongue.
‘I’m fine. Better,’ she adds quickly.
I give her a long, hard stare and place my hand on her forehead. She jerks out of my way. ‘Mom,’ she moans. ‘I’m fine, honestly. It’s just a headache. I took an Advil. You don’t have to worry about me all the time.’
‘It’s my job to worry about you,’ I say, kissing her on the top of her head.
She doesn’t pull away this time, but lets me hug her. ‘I love you,’ I tell her.
‘I know,’ she sighs, ‘I love you too.’ There’s a pause and I smile to myself. Here it comes.
‘Mom?’
‘Mmmm?’
‘Should you always tell the truth?’
‘Of course,’ I say.
‘Well, what about that time you told Dad you loved the earrings he bought you for Christmas?’
‘I do love them.’
‘Then why do you never wear them?’
I hesitate.
‘See!’ June pounces. ‘You just lied. You said you liked them and you don’t.’
Hmmm. She’s got me there. They’re great big diamond drop earrings and when I wear them they make me feel like a chandelier.
‘And remember when you told me that I was only a little bit sick and there was nothing to worry about?’
I make a sound in the back of my throat, knowing where this is going.
‘And it turned out I had cancer and was probably going to die?’
‘You didn’t, though, did you?’
‘But you and Dad didn’t tell me the truth.’
‘No, we wanted to protect you. And how would it have helped you knowing?’ I kiss her forehead. ‘There are times when telling the truth isn’t always the right thing to do.’
She’s silent for a bit. ‘But how do you know when it’s right and when it’s wrong?’
‘Do you want to tell me what it is? Did Abby do something?’ I know last semester June caught her going through another girl’s bag in the locker room at school, something Abby denied when confronted – probably because if she’d admitted it, her parents would have sent her off to the Christian reform school they often threaten her with.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ June mumbles.
‘OK,’ I say, trying not to pry further. If she wants to tell me she will. ‘If you need anything let me know.’
She gives me a smile and I feel a sharp tug on my heartstrings. She’s in that beautifully awkward in-between space – half girl, half young woman; long limbed and gangly, with pink-colored braces on her teeth, but her face is losing the softness of childhood and she’s starting to fill out her training bra. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want me to come in while she was getting undressed.
I think about how I used to fear never seeing her grow up and before I can stop them, tears start to well up.
June rolls her eyes at me. ‘Mom,’ she says, laughing, ‘I’m not dying, OK? Good night.’ She pushes me out of her room and I go, laughing too.
I didn’t want June. When I found out I was pregnant I seriously considered an abortion. Hannah was ten and I’d just got my life back, had finally graduated from college – the oldest in my class at twenty-nine – and had scored
