Page 28 of What You Never Knew

She gives me a condescending smile and reaches out to pat my hand, her bracelets jangling loudly. “Just be careful, June. Stay aware and wary.” It feels like a veiled threat, but what on earth could this woman do? “As for your sister,” she unfortunately continues, “she’s all around you. Open your heart and you’ll feel her.”

“I’m sorry?” The mention of May immediately gets my back up.

“I’m a medium as well,” she explains. “I can communicate with spirits.” Before I have the chance to tell her my thoughts on ghosts and her predictions about my sister, there’s a knock at the door. “There’s my twelve thirty,” she says, then turns and exits the room in a flurry of billowing fabric and lavender.

“Welcome, Ann,” she calls to the older woman waiting at the front door. “Ann is head librarian for the town library,” she reports to me over one shoulder, as though it really matters. “I was just visiting with June Bennett here,” she says once we reach the door. “But we’re all done, and I’m ready for your session.” The woman steps inside and nods politely at me as I pass by her.

“Thank you again, Leslie,” I say on my way out.

“Come back anytime, June,” she calls out loudly, even though I’m only a few feet away.

Before stepping off the front porch, I hear the older woman say, “That’s not an Avril Island Bennett, is it?”

“It most certainly is,” I hear Leslie reply.

I suddenly feel watched and scrutinized. Does everyone know about what happened years ago? Everyone but me?

After my visit to the Swann cottage, I spent most of the day trying to distract myself from what Leslie had told me. I cleared the rest of the path around the island, checking in on the tree in the clearing, relieved that the cross hadn’t found its way back again. Now, washing my dinner dishes at the sink, a Van Morrison album playing in the background, I work at getting lost in the view of the garden outside the window. The tiger lilies and daisies have started to come up, and the ferns are bushy and a vibrant green. I never fully appreciated the landscape as a child. Returning to it as an adult, having thought it was lost forever, I’m grateful for every blade, bloom, and bit of earth.

With the dishes done, the evening stretches out in front of me empty. My mind inevitably travels back to everything I learned today. It didn’t do much to answer any of my questions; in fact, it only seemed to create more. Is my father actually dead, or did my mother just try to make it look like he was dead to get his money faster after he left? And why would my mother ask Mrs. Swann to lie to the police for her? What was she doing that night after my father disappeared that needed to stay a secret? Most confusing, though, is why she didn’t take Mrs. Swann’s offer to buy Avril Island and settle her debt. She’d already told us it was sold by then, and she never came back here, so why hold on to it?

The number of questions piling up actually causes my head to throb. I resolve to venture into my parents’ room in search of some clues. If May had a stash of secrets in her room, maybe my mother did too and I just didn’t look hard enough the first time. I grab my glass and the bottle of wine, which is already half-empty, turn the music up loud enough that I can hear it in the bedroom, and head upstairs.

I start with my mother’s dresser first. The top drawer still contains undergarments, and after close inspection, I realize that’s all it holds. For the first time I actually notice the finery of my mother’s lingerie. The other drawers hold nightgowns, T-shirts, and shorts but nothing of great interest.

Checking the nightstand on the side of the bed where my mother slept, I find an old sewing kit, a novel in French, an empty tin of butterscotch candies, and a lighter. I take the novel out and hold it in my hands, imagining her lying in bed with it late into the night, her mind soaking up the words of her native tongue—a reprieve from always speaking and thinking in English, which she said was a clumsy, unattractive language, though she insisted on using it more than her own.

I put the novel back and get down on the floor to look under the bed. There’s nothing there but giant dust balls and unidentifiable bits of things. I get up, making a mental note to vacuum under the bed, and move to the closet.

Pulling all her dresses out, I lay them on the bed. When they’re lined up on display, I realize that every single one of them would still be considered fashionable today. My mother was never one for trends; she liked classic looks and often said she preferred the 1950s to the 1980s, which were, in her opinion, garish.

I pull my tank top off and slide my shorts down so that I’m just in my bra and underwear. Choosing my favorite dress, a white one with red flowers and capped sleeves, I lower it so I can step into it, then slide it up my body. It smells of damp and mustiness, and I have to contort my body to get it zipped up. It’s a little tight around the chest but otherwise fits perfectly. The bodice is tailored and the skirt is full, so when I turn, fabric swishes around my thighs.

I remember zipping this up on my mother more than once. She wore it to the bigger events, not just dinners but parties and fund raisers. She had lipstick that was the same color as the red flowers, a purse and high-heeled sandals to match.

The sight of it brings back memories of when I’d watch her getting ready for a night out. She’d lazily thumb through the dresses hanging in her closet, a silk robe draped over her but left open against the heat. When she found the right one, she’d drop the robe to the floor, not caring that I sat watching her every move, studying the economy of curves and the flat plains of her body, the warm brown of her tanned skin. I was proud of my mother’s beauty and I think she knew it, as she never shied away from putting it on display for me.

After choosing the right dress, my mother would carefully apply her makeup—wiping eye shadow across her eyelids, outlining her full lips with a deep-red pencil and then filling them in with an even deeper shade of red lipstick. Her final step was dabbing perfume behind her ears and on her wrists. She’d then drink the last of whatever cocktail she’d fixed for herself, touch up her lipstick, and lean down to give me a hug good-bye.

Bonne nuit, mon amour, she’d whisper in my ear, overwhelming me with the heat of her body, the scent of perfume and alcohol, before disappearing from the room. She was always in a good mood on those nights—happy to escape.

I’d stay sitting on her bed, listening to the echo of her heels on the wood floors and her careful descent down the crooked staircase. The screen door would slam, and I could hear her as she made her way down the path to the lake, humming a song to herself. Most nights she’d drive herself across the bay and I’d hear the boat start up and then roar away from the dock until it was just a faint whirring. Other nights friends from the lake would swing by to pick her up—their laughter and talking bouncing from the water up to the cottage until their sounds became faint murmurings as they sped away from the dock.

About this time May would appear in the doorway. We’d often put my mother’s makeup on, covering ourselves with so much color that we were unrecognizable, then head down to the lake to wash it off with a swim. Other nights we’d play a board game or pick a VHS tape from the shelf and watch a movie that we’d seen at least three or four times before.

We’d eat peanut butter straight from the jar and make bowls of popcorn drowned in butter—neither one a great offense, but they felt liberating all the same as a child. When we got older, we graduated to the odd sip from one of the bottles in the liquor cabinet and the smoking of no more than one cigarette between us. May liked to rebel, just like any other teenager, but she gave even rebellion a set of rules.

Going back into the closet, I pull out some shoe boxes, throwing them open until I find the pair I’m looking for. Stepping into them, I move to the full-length mirror on the wall to survey myself. The sight is somewhat startling. With my tanned skin and short hair, I could be my mother back in the day. All I’m missing are the red lips and hazel eyes. When did I turn into her? I wonder. And the affair? She runs deep in my blood, even in her death. The thought doesn’t warm me like it might some daughters. It prickles through me. I step away from the mirror, pull the shoes off, and carefully unzip the dress and toss it onto the pile of other dresses on the bed before putting my own clothes back on.

Going back to the closet one more time, I reach up and feel around on the top shelf. My fingers brush up against something. Straining to reach higher, I can feel that it’s a small wooden box tucked in the very back corner. Inside are some rings and necklaces, nothing of great value, most of it green with tarnish. Underneath everything is a delicate handkerchief folded into a neat square.

I pull at one corner and a ring slips out, a gold wedding band. Picking it up, I see an inscription carved on the inside, the date of my parents’ wedding. It was inscribed on both of their rings. My mother’s ring is sitting at home in my own jewelry box, so that would mean this one is my father’s.

I slide it onto my finger. It’s too big, and the weight of it feels strange on fingers that have been bare for at least two years now. Turning it in circles, I wonder, did he give it back to my mother before he left? Shove it into her hand before storming out? Or was it taken from him? Why did she leave it locked up here on Avril Island? Why didn’t she sell it the way she did all his other valuables?

The record downstairs ends, and the cottage is suddenly very quiet, making the unanswered questions once again echo too loudly through my head. I pull the ring from my finger, tuck it back into the handkerchief and return it to the jewelry box, and then place it in the closet where I found it.

It could have just been sentimentality that made my mother keep it. The explanation feels weak and hollow. My mother was not a sentimental person. In any case, the ring doesn’t explain anything, and I’m left feeling even more confused and in the dark then when I started looking through the room.