The word landed like a stone. She could hear her father breathing, processing, deciding what to do with it. All the things she hadn’t said all summer. All the lying by omission that had felt like self-protection and now felt like cowardice.
“I need to talk to your mother.” His voice had gone quiet in a way that was worse than anger. “Don’t go anywhere.”
The line went dead.
June stood in the garden, phone clutched in her hand, and thought:he trusted you, and you lied to him all summer, and now he knows, and there’s nothing you can do about that now.The sunflowers moved in the breeze, indifferent and tall, almost ready to bloom.
She stayed in her room until she could breathe steadily. Then she went downstairs to make Lila’s breakfast.
They went to the library that afternoon because June couldn’t stand to stay in the house, and it was a mistake.
The whispers started the moment they walked in. Nothing overt—just glances, murmured conversations that stopped when June got too close, the silence of people who had been talking about you and didn’t want to be caught.
“Miss Hollis?” Lila tugged at her hand. “Why are those ladies looking at us?”
“They’re not looking at us, sweetheart.”
“Yes they are. They keep staring and then looking away.”
June forced a smile. “Sometimes people are just curious.”
At the checkout desk, Mrs. Okonkwo—who had been warm and friendly every other time June had come in—barely met her eyes. And before June and Lila left, she quietly pushed a pamphlet across the desk.
Help if you’re in an abusive relationship.
June stared at it. Then at Mrs. Okonkwo. Then she took Lila by the hand and walked out, leaving the pamphlet on the counter, her heart beating too fast and her face carefully neutral because Lila was watching.
Lila was quiet on the walk home, her hand tight in June’s. Halfway down Maple Street, she asked: “Did something bad happen?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Everyone’s acting weird. And Mom was upset this morning. She was on the phone a lot, and she had her serious voice on.” Lila looked up with those grey-blue eyes. “Is it about the article?”
June stopped walking. “You know about the article?”
“I heard Mom talking to David. She said there was an article and it was bad and she needed to fix it.” Lila’s voice was very small. “Is it about me? Did I do something wrong?”
“Oh, sweetheart. No.” June crouched down, taking both her hands. “You didn’t do anything wrong. None of this is your fault.”
“Then whose fault is it?”
June had no answer. She looked at Lila’s face—seven years old, worried, already so practiced at absorbing adult tension—and felt the unanswered question settle into her chest like something she’d be carrying for a long time.
Her mother called at four.
“Your father is upset,” Laura said. “He’s not angry at you—he’s scared. He doesn’t know how to process this.”
“Process what, exactly? That I’m in a relationship with a woman? That she’s a politician? That she’s older?”
“All of the above.” Laura sighed. “June, honey, you have to see how this looks. From the outside, it’s like—”
“Like she’s taking advantage of me. I know. Dad said.”
“He said that because he remembers what you were like when you came home from Portland. How broken you were.” A pause. “Another older woman in a position of power. Another relationship that started in a professional context. Another situation where you’re the vulnerable one.”
“This isn’t the same thing.”
“Isn’t it?” Laura’s voice was gentle and relentless. “I’m not saying she’s Ember. I’m saying you have a pattern of giving everything to people who have more power than you do, and I’m asking you to look at that clearly.”
