“It says you made a good choice when you hired me.” June’s voice was firm but gentle. “It doesn’t say anything about you as a mother. She talks about you constantly when you’re not here. You’re her whole world, Melissa.”
“I feel like a guest in her life.” She turned from the window. “When I watch you with her, I see what it’s supposed to look like. The ease. The warmth. I never had that with my own mother, and I don’t know how to give Lila something I never learned.”
“You’re learning now. That’s what matters.”
“Is it enough?”
“It’s a start.” June reached out and squeezed her hand—brief, warm. “Go to Salem. Fight for your bill. We’ll hold down the fort.”
Melissa wanted to ask all the questions she’d been sitting on for weeks. About what this was between them. About what happened when summer ended. About whether June could see a future here or whether Melissa was the only one quietly, desperately hoping for one. But the words stuck in her throat, and June was looking at her with those steady green eyes, and the house was quiet except for Lila’s distant singing.
“I should finish packing,” Melissa said.
“Okay.” June held her gaze a moment longer. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
Melissa nodded and walked away, and didn’t ask the question that followed her all the way upstairs:but for how long?
The car was scheduled for noon.
At eleven-forty, Melissa brought her bag down to the front door and found June and Lila in the front yard, arranging stones around the base of a small bush they’d planted near the walkway. Lila saw her first and came running, and Melissa caught her and held on, and made the promises again—every night, Wednesday, I’ll be back before you know it—and Lila nodded with that small resigned acceptance that Melissa was still learning to bear.
“Go inside and get my sunglasses?” Melissa asked her. “They’re on the kitchen counter.”
Lila ran. Melissa straightened up and found June watching the street.
“There’s a car,” June said quietly. “Across from Mrs. Pellerin’s. It’s been there since this morning. I don’t recognize it.”
Melissa looked. A dark sedan with tinted windows, no one visible inside, parked just far enough down the street to be unremarkable. She looked at it for a long moment.
“It’s probably nothing,” she said.
“Probably.” June’s voice was careful. Neither of them believed it.
They stood there, not touching, the space between them charged with everything that had been left unsaid inside. Melissa thought about David’s voice:they’re building a picture of something.She thought about the way June had looked in the garden this morning, laughing at a song Melissa didn’t know, alive and young and entirely herself, with no idea anyone might be watching.
“Melissa.” June’s voice was low. “When you get back—”
“When I get back,” Melissa said, “we’re going to have the conversation we keep not having.”
June looked at her. “Okay.”
“I mean it. Not another—” Melissa stopped herself. “Not more of what we’ve been doing. Pretending the edges aren’t there.”
“Okay,” June said again, and her voice had gone soft in a way that made Melissa want to reach for her despite the street, despite the car, despite everything.
She didn’t. But she held June’s gaze long enough that it said something anyway.
Lila came back through the front door at a run, sunglasses held aloft like a trophy, and the moment closed.
Melissa put on her sunglasses, kissed Lila’s forehead, picked up her bag. June stood on the path with her hand on Lila’s shoulder, both of them watching, and Melissa looked back once from the car door.
“Wednesday,” she said.
“We’ll be here,” June said. “Both of us.”
Melissa got in the car. She didn’t look at the sedan as they pulled away. She looked straight ahead, and kept her face still, and told herself she was protecting something worth protecting.
She hoped she was right.
