Page 11 of What You Never Knew

Before the exodus, my mother sat me and June down at the kitchen table. Her hand shook slightly as she lit a cigarette, and her eyes glistened with what looked like unshed tears. She disappeared briefly behind the smoke from her first exhale, and when she reappeared, the tears were gone and all that was left was firm resolve.

She explained, quite matter-of-factly, that she and my father had gotten into a fight the night before, a big fight. She told us that he’d threatened to leave and then stormed off into the woods. She’d woken up early in the morning and looked everywhere for him, but he was nowhere on the island and his boat was gone.

“I think your father has left us, girls,” she said, before stamping her cigarette out in the ashtray on the table.

June sat in stunned silence. Sour bile surged up from the depths of my stomach, and I rushed to the bathroom to avoid puking all over the kitchen floor. My mother followed me in, locking the door behind her and kneeling down on the floor beside me.

When I pulled my head from the toilet, I fell against her and began sobbing. I expected her to hold me, comfort the tears away, and then clean me up before we went back out to face June together. She did none of that.

She gripped my upper arms with her clawlike fingers and wrenched me off her body. “Pull it together, May Bennett,” she hissed into my face, her eyes full of cold fury. “We do not fall apart.” She gave me a little shake. “Do you understand me?” I nodded and sucked in the rest of my tears, focusing on the pain of her sharp nails digging into my bare flesh instead of the greater pain that lay inside me.

“You will go back out there and face your sister with strength. Then you will help me pack up and leave. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” I whispered against her wall of hostility.

My compliance caused her expression to soften, and she finally pulled me into a hug. “That’s my good girl. We’ll get through this, I promise. Just follow my lead, and it will all be fine.” I nodded my head against her shoulder. She gave me a pat on the back and then wriggled away, pushing herself up off the floor.

Grabbing a washcloth from the side of the tub, she tossed it at me. “Clean yourself up. You have vomit in your hair.” One hand on the doorknob, she turned back. “And hurry. The sooner we get off the island, the better.”

The memory is an uncomfortable one, with too many loose ends. Why did we rush away, and where did my father go? Why did we never come back? The questions poke at the memory buried deep down, and I can feel it stir. I bring the fading on myself, wanting to return to the safety of the nothingness.

JUNE

Something jolts me awake. I have the sense of someone else being in the cottage. Moving from my dream world into the real world, I’m not sure what’s fact and what’s fiction. There’s total darkness all around me, and I have no idea where I am. It’s the smell that grounds me. I’m at Avril Island.

“Hello?” I call into the darkness, feeling as though someone might just answer me back. Silence is my reply, so I decide the feeling of company must just be remnants of a dream. Feeling around, I discover I’m on the couch in the living room. Some details from the end of my day are fuzzy—too much wine and not enough food, a common combination for me these days.

As I rise into a sitting position, cold air brushes across my bare shoulders. I fell asleep in my wet bathing suit, wrapped in my damp towel. My bones have absorbed the dampness, and I’m stiff and chilled. The air in the cottage has gone cool with the disappearance of the sun.

I have no idea what time it is or how long I’ve been sleeping—only that my head aches and my stomach is hollow with hunger. I reach out and pat around on the coffee table until I find my phone. The light is weak but better than nothing.

Pushing myself up off the couch, I switch some lights on and go into the kitchen, pull a bottle of water from the fridge, and gulp it down. Standing there shivering, I cram a couple pieces of bread into my mouth to placate my stomach.

I need a hot bath. I haven’t been back upstairs since this morning. Maybe it was seeing my mother’s clothing hanging there, or the fact that somehow, after all this time, her smell still lingers—like she only just left the room.

I rub my eyes hard with the heel of my hands. “Get a grip, June,” I say out loud, as if that will help. A cold draft swipes across my bare skin, and I care more about that hot bath than anything else. Grabbing my suitcase from beside the couch, I boldly ascend the crooked staircase.

Once up there, I turn on as many lights as I can to chase off the shadows. The breeze coming in the windows has blown away the stuffiness, and now it smells mostly fresh and green like it did when I was a kid. I wipe the tub out with my damp towel—not clean, exactly, but it will do. With more effort than I thought I had in me, I unstick the taps of the bathtub and get the water running, then watch it transform from a rusty brown to nearly clear.

As the tub fills, I wander down the hall and into my old room. The lightbulb buzzes to life, and I’m thrown back in time yet again. Wandering around the small space, I touch everything to make sure this mausoleum of my youth is real. The red-and-white quilt is still folded neatly on the end of my bed, the books I read every summer still lined up on my bookshelf.

A gallery of photos ripped from my Teen Beat magazines are still tacked to the wall above my bed. Wrinkles run up and down the pages and the ends are curling, but Johnny Depp, Rob Lowe, and River Phoenix still smile seductively out at me. Untouched by age.

My skin tingles with liberation as I peel the swimsuit off. Stepping into the warm, slightly murky water, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. It shocks me. I’ve never been an adult in this mirror, only a child. The last time I was reflected naked in this mirror, I was studying my chest for signs of development, wishing for breasts. Now I’m looking at stretch marks across my belly from birthing twins and seeing the droop in the full breasts that I once thought would never come. I sink down into the bath to escape the comparison.

Lying up to my neck in the warm water, I notice the white paint peeling in places from the shiplap walls and cobwebs clustered in the corners. The only sound is the tapping of bugs against the screen of the bathroom window—drawn by the light, fighting to get to it.

There’s a creak on the stairs and I sit up, pulling my knees to my chest and covering myself as best I can. Holding my breath, I listen, my head turned toward the sound. Only silence follows and I make myself relax, wondering if I’ll ever stop feeling so jumpy here.

After my bath, dressed in my warmest sweat shirt and sweatpants, I put a load of laundry on, hoping I’ll be able to get rid of the mustiness in the linens that have been sitting here in closets for almost thirty years.

With that done, I think about getting a glass of wine but choose water instead and take it back upstairs, leaving a reassuring trail of lights on behind me. I’m wide awake, as if it’s one thirty PM and not one thirty AM. I want to call the girls, but even with the three-hour time difference, I know they’ll be in bed. It’s a school night, and their dad runs a tight ship without me around.

Maybe to punish myself, or maybe just to get it over with, I decide to venture into May’s old room. The door has warped so much over time that I have to give it a good kick. It swings open dramatically, and a fist closes hard around my heart. Just like in my mother’s room, May’s scent is released from its cottage tomb—warm skin and cinnamon.

I try the light switch, but nothing happens. I try the lamp on the bedside table, and suddenly the room glows with warmth. It’s how I remember this room best—cozy, with sloped ceilings, like some annex room in a children’s novel.

As kids, we would have what my mother called our night swim before bed. She’d walk us down to the dock, a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Darkness would be waiting patiently at the doorstep as the sun slowly sank low in the sky. My mother would stretch out on a recliner, her long legs crossed at the ankle, slowly alternating between sips from her drink and inhales from her cigarette, which would glow red in the purple light.