Page 35 of What You Never Knew

I lie back down beside him, and he wraps his arms around me. I think about rolling around to face him, initiating more sex to distract myself from this feeling. But the grief is too heavy. I can’t even muster the strength to turn over. So I choose sleep instead, another trusty escape, falling fast and deep with Ezra wrapped around me.

The next time I wake up, Ezra is no longer beside me. I hear noises downstairs and the light is bright in the room, so I must have slept in, but I feel exhausted. The feeling of the dream and my sorrow still sit along my bones, weighing me down. I want to close my eyes and try to find sleep again, just like I did for so many weeks after May died. The reprieve from those feelings is over and they’ve clearly circled back.

If it weren’t for Ezra, I’d give in. Instead, I’m going to use him as a distraction. I push the covers off me and slowly sit up. Just one step at a time, I tell myself. If I got free from it before, I can do it again—especially here. I put a hand to my chest; it aches as though the virtual hole my sister left is real and is now pulsing with pain. I inhale deeply and try to breathe it away. All because of one goddamn dream, I think to myself.

I get dressed, each movement slow and deliberate, the choice of clothing laborious. I even put some makeup on to cover the dark circles under my eyes and even out my skin tone. When I’m done, I look much better on the outside than I feel on the inside.

The smell of bacon reaches me as I head down the stairs, which is a surprise, considering I didn’t have any in the fridge as of last night. A plate of bacon sits on the table along with some toast and two mugs of coffee. Ezra stands at the stove and is just sliding some eggs out of the frying pan when I arrive.

“Good morning,” he says in his typically cheery way. “Come sit down and have some breakfast.” He brings the eggs to the table and pulls out a chair.

I plop down in it. “I’m confused.” I point at the eggs and bacon.

He sits down across from me. “I packed them along with the dinner food.”

A laugh of surprise escapes me. “Well, that was a bit presumptuous, wasn’t it?”

“Can you really say that, considering I’m sitting at your table the next morning?” I roll my eyes at him. “I think the packing of bacon and eggs could be called more optimistic than presumptuous.”

I can’t help but smile. “Fine, we’ll call them optimistic bacon and eggs, then.”

He pushes one of the mugs of coffee toward me. “I don’t know how you take it, so I just left it black. I haven’t learned your adult ways since we left off in childhood.”

I gratefully wrap my hand around the mug. “I like it black.”

“Aw, just like your personality,” he jokes, and once again I can’t help but laugh. He’s literally clearing away the heaviness just by being here.

I hold up the mug in a small salute. “Touché, my friend.”

I wouldn’t have thought I could eat a full breakfast feeling the way I do, but as soon as I get one taste of that bacon, I become ravenous, eating five pieces, two fried eggs, and three slices of toast.

“June, we really need to take care of your food situation,” he says, once my plate has been pretty much licked clean. “Can I take you into town to do some shopping? I mean, every time I put food in front of you, you’re like a homeless woman who hasn’t eaten in days.”

“And you don’t get off on that?”

“Surprisingly, no,” he says, his beautiful eyes twinkling, making everything in me suddenly feel buoyant.

We pour ourselves another cup of coffee and go out onto the verandah to sit on the glider. As we move it back and forth in unison as we used to, staring out at the crisp blue sky, bright sunlight, and green trees, I feel the grief start to recede once again and I’m confident that I’ll get another reprieve, faster this time. Maybe that’s what happens with this kind of grief. You get pockets of time without it and then it returns, knocks you on the floor, but you get up again and find your way back. I’ve heard the term cycle of grief, but I didn’t understand the cycle part until now.

“Your grass needs to be cut,” Ezra says out of the blue. “I’ll bring my mower next time and do it for you.”

“Can I pay you?”

He shakes his head. “No. Just make me dinner or something.”

“Fair enough,” I reply, thinking how everything is so easy with him. “Also, I think I do need to put up some ‘no trespassing’ signs. Remember that clearing I was telling you about, with the tree and the cross?” I look over, and he nods. “Well, the cross has been put back for the second time. I’m sure it’s just some kids trying to freak me out. It’s just a little homemade cross, nothing serious.”

“It’s strange, though,” he says, his cup in midair. “In all my years coming here, I’ve never noticed any sign of trespassers. And I thought kids were scared to step foot on this island. Rumor has it that it’s haunted and if you come here you’ll disappear.”

“Seriously?” He gives me an affirmative nod. “That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing as haunted islands, or houses or cottages or anything.”

“Ahhh.” He draws the sound out. “So you’re a skeptic, then?”

I lean away from him. “Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts.”

“I like the idea that people can contact us from the beyond. It’s comforting, in a way. What’s the harm in believing?”

I think about telling him my suspicion that May is visiting me from time to time, but something stops me. It’s too private, and if she is, I don’t want anyone else to know about it.