Page 44 of What You Never Knew

“I just wanted to know if she knew anything.”

He puts a hand up to stop me. “I think you should go, June.”

“She said that she and my mother had a deal. She would keep the secrets if my mother stayed away. Which means she knows something, Ezra.”

“She’s a senile old woman, June,” he yells, interrupting me once again. “She doesn’t even know what she ate for breakfast.”

I’ve never seen him this angry before. “Ezra, give her more credit than that.”

He crosses his arms and looks down at the ground. “Just please go. I don’t want to be around you right now.”

“But what if she does know something?”

He looks up at me, his eyes cold. “That’s my mother, June. Not just another person to use for your own benefit.”

What he says stings, but only because there’s truth to it. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say. If I’d known how much it would upset her, I never would have come here.” He doesn’t say anything or look at me. “You of all people should understand the need for answers.”

He lifts his head and glares at me. “That I do, June, but I certainly wouldn’t risk someone’s well-being to get them.” His words are like a punch in the gut. He turns toward the stone cottage, crosses the backyard, and disappears inside—back to his mother.

While hastily untying the boat, I notice movement out of the corner of my eye. Glancing up at the neighbor’s yard, I spot somebody sitting in the shadows of the screened-in porch. I put a hand over my eyes to shade them so I can get a better look. I can tell from the size and shape of the person that it’s Judy. She’s close enough to have heard everything that was said between me and Ezra.

“Out causing trouble, are you, June?” she calls to me. “Just like your good old mom.” The coldness in her voice is unmistakable, and it sends a chill through me. I give a curt wave and get into the boat, never feeling more unwanted somewhere than in that moment.

MAY

Something is wrong with June. She’s lying on my parents’ bed, dressed in one of my mother’s dresses, with an arm thrown over her eyes to block out the afternoon light.

The sheer white curtains move with a soft breeze coming into the room, but it does nothing to cut through the stillness. Sweat glistens across June’s chest. Why is she wearing that dress? And why is she in here? It was always the hottest room in the cottage on sunny days like this.

It could be June or it could be my mother lying on the bed. That’s how similar they look—the body, the hair, the facial features, the dress. My mother would be proud. She loved pointing out how we were similar to her. The strength of genetics and influence pleased her.

As we got older, my similarities to my mother lessened. She often commented on how like my father I was, and from her pursed expression, you could tell it wasn’t a compliment. And so she put more focus on June, who was just naturally more like her.

She used to call her June bug. She only ever called me May. Some mornings I would go into my parents’ room and find June in the bed beside my mother, the two of them stilled from sleep, looking like twin china dolls, a child version and an adult one. I could have felt left out—resentful that June was favored. I didn’t. I was relieved that it wasn’t me and worried for June.

She never learned that my mother’s attention came at a cost. You were expected to be her enthusiastic playmate, her confidante, her emotional support. Essentially, you were expected to fill the bottomless well that was my mother.

But no one could ever actually fulfill that responsibility, especially not a child. And so the fallout would always come. June would say something wrong, not show enough gratitude or enthusiasm, show too much devotion to me or a friend, and my mother would turn.

You’re a taker, June. You’re selfish and inconsiderate. You don’t appreciate all that I do for you, how much I love you. You’re deceitful, manipulative, always trying to get your own way. My mother whipped those character assessments into June’s soft flesh. It’s no wonder June grew up to embody them. I just wish she’d learned that essentially my mother was describing herself, not her younger daughter.

After the fallout, June would attach herself to me—literally. Holding on to the end of my T-shirt so that I couldn’t walk away, curling up at the foot of my bed, pressing herself against me on the couch, putting one foot on top of mine under the dining room table. She did that until she’d been filled up with my love. The quiet kind that didn’t need big words or actions. That didn’t have any terms attached to it. That spread easily by osmosis from the skin of my heart to hers.

I didn’t escape my mother’s cutting character assessments entirely. I was the aloof daughter, closed off, too serious for my own good, no fun at all. I accepted her evaluation, used it like a shield; it was what protected me. At least enough to allow me to take care of my sister when she needed me to. My wounds didn’t go quite as deep as hers.

June suddenly sits up and lunges forward toward my mother’s dresser. With a roar, she wipes everything clean from its surface. Perfume bottles, an old jar of face cream, a hairbrush, and tubes of lipstick fly against the wall and scatter across the floor. She pulls at the zipper of the dress, freeing her upper body from it before sinking down onto the floor, her back against the bed. There are no tears, only frustration and anger in her blazing eyes. It scares me.

I bring myself as close to her as I can, wrapping my essence all around her like a virtual ghost hug. June. What’s wrong? I ask, knowing I won’t get a reply.

She shivers. “My god, May. I wish you were here.”

I’m here June. I’m right here. I say the words forcefully, hoping she can at least feel them if she can’t hear them.

“It’s so fucked up.” She sounds like she’s on the verge of tears but holding them back. “Mom had an affair.” She chuckles. “But I guess you already knew that. What else did you know, May? What didn’t you tell me?”

She looks up into the room as though searching for me. “So many fucking lies and secrets, May, and you’re not even here to …” Her voice catches and she trails off.

She can’t hold the tears back any longer. She lets them fall down her cheeks onto the fabric of the dress, the light-blue fabric dotted dark with each drop. It’s the kind of crying that has no force behind it because you’re too weighed down by grief.