I pulled open the truck door and climbed inside before I turned the ignition. The smell of the engine and the hot leather conjured countless memories of summer. Countless memories with Mason. Driving in our wet bathing suits as the sun went down after an afternoon of swimming at the river. Picking him up for his shifts at the farm when Gran finally hired him. Parking under the big oak tree at Longview Falls with an open pizza box between us and our bare feet propped up on the dash.
As soon as I was through the intersection, I picked up the phone, finding his number. I did that sometimes, impulsively calling him and then having to think of a reason. It was more for comfort than anything, a way to stave off that lonely feeling that had been with me so long. My world was a very small one, made up of only a few people and places.
My thumb hovered over his name a second too long, and I dropped the phone onto the seat, my gaze going to my bag. I reached into the side pocket, hand searching until it found the photograph. I set it onto the dash in front of me, eyeing its reflection on the windshield.
What Ida said was possible. Our family had never been a large one. Each Farrow had but one daughter, and they’d all kept their maternal surname because most of the men who fathered them died young or faded from the picture. Somewhere along the line, one of the Farrow women could have had more than one daughter, and the Susanna Farrow in the photograph could have been simply lost to history. It didn’t seem that unlikely, especially in a small farming town like Jasper.
My fingers tapped the steering wheel as the road grew narrower, my mind sifting through each thought. I knew what I was doing, throwing myself down one rabbit hole to keep from falling down the other. I was distracting myself from what was happening. And deep down, I knew that it didn’t matter how deep the hole went. Eventually, I was going to hit the bottom.
I bit the inside of my lip and pulled onto the shoulder of the road, cranking the wheel hand over hand until I was turning around, headed in the opposite direction of home. Downtown passed in a blur as I drove back down the river road, turning at the light to cross the bridge. Seconds later, the steeple of the little white church appeared through the trees.
I turned down the sloped, rocky drive that followed the waterfront, passing the cemetery. Gran’s grave in the distance was still darkened with freshly turned earth, the headstone so white that it almost glowed against the green backdrop of the woods. The flowers left there were beginning to wilt, their bright colors fading.
The brakes squealed as I came to a stop, and I pulled the keys from the ignition, setting them onto the dash. The doors to the church were propped open, like they always were during the day. Even from across the river, you could see the light spilling from the entrance and down the steps after the sun went down.
I waited a few seconds before I got out of the truck, as if to give myself a chance to think better of it. But there was something relentless about my need to know about the woman in the photo. It was a sinking feeling inside of me, like something truly terrible was about to happen and the only way to stop it was to know who she was.
The truck door popped as I opened it, and I hooked one hand into the strap of my bag, taking the locket in the other, as if it were an anchor that would calm that stomach-turning feeling inside of me. The cicadas were buzzing in the trees, the river rushing at my back as I climbed the steps.
I froze when I felt it. A slow tingle of gooseflesh started on the back of my hand, moving up my arm to my shoulder. The moment it touched my collarbone I forced myself to turn and look at the thing taking shape at the corner of my vision.
There, in the middle of the cemetery, a single red door stood among the tilted headstones. It was set into a frame, like it had been pried loose from a wall, and yet, it didn’t look out of place. Like one brushstroke in a painting. The old-style paneling, chipped paint, and brass knob were the same as you’d find a dozen other places in town.
The minute my heartbeat kicked up, I forced myself to breathe.
“It’s not real, June.” My lips moved around the words, but I couldn’t hear them. That was three times I’d seen it now. Once at the farm, once downtown, and now here, in the cemetery. I let myself wonder if Dr. Jennings’s theory was right. Maybe there was a pattern to unearth there.
I looked at it for another moment, hoping it would vanish, but it didn’t. It just stood there, erected in the grass like it was waiting for me. I could still feel the weight of its presence as I turned my face back toward the church, my toes stopping at the threshold. My eyes ran over the sunlit sanctuary inside.
Oil-stained pews were set into even rows below six pendant lights suspended from the curved rafters. They were fit with faceted glass shades that made the light look speckled on the ceiling, and they were the only thing in the room that could be considered elegant. It was just a simple country church, but one that had been painstakingly preserved, down to the single-paned lancet windows that lined the walls.
“Ms. Farrow?”
My eyes darted around the room until I spotted Thomas Falk, the minister. He stood in the doorway at the corner of the sanctuary, forehead scrunched like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. His dark hair was freshly cut, and the pressed button-up shirt he wore was tucked into his pants.
“Hi,” I said, my voice tight.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Can’t pretend I’m not surprised to see you here.”
I looked down at my feet, acutely aware that I didn’t actually want to cross the threshold.
“Afraid you’ll burst into flames?”
My gaze flickered up, finding his expression changed. Now he looked amused.
I dragged the toe of my boot over the lip of the floor, taking me one step inside.
He walked toward me, hands tucked into his pockets. “What can I do for you?”
I had the sudden urge to look over my shoulder to be sure that no one was listening. “Actually, I was told that the church keeps records—marriages and births, things like that.”
“That’s right.”
“I was hoping you could look something up for me.”
“And what is that?”
“I’m trying to track down a birth record. She would have been born sometime before 1900.”
“I see.” He lifted an eyebrow. “We do have records from that time. Why don’t you come back and we’ll see what we can find?”
I hesitated before finding my way up the center aisle, past the pews to the doorway that led to what looked like an office. Thomas disappeared inside, his shadow flitting over the wooden floorboards.
The room was small but packed tight with a desk, a wall of built-in shelves that was filled with books, and a few chairs that looked as old as the pews out in the sanctuary. The only thing that didn’t belong was the sleek black computer on the desk.
Thomas sat down in the leather rolling chair, giving the mouse a shake. “You can have a seat, if you’d like.”
“Thanks.” I tried to sound more comfortable than I was, taking the chair against the window and pulling my bag into my lap. The view overlooked the widest part of the river, where a few boulders split the water into four sections that ran white over the rocks.