I stilled, waiting for Eamon’s footsteps to follow, but they didn’t come, the empty silence of the house widening. When her cries grew louder, I struck a match and lit the candle on the bedside table.
The glow of the light gathered in the eaves, floorboards popping underfoot as I came out of the bedroom. Eamon’s boots were toppled beside the fireplace, and I spotted his sleeping form on the sofa. One black-stained hand was resting on his broad chest, and he hadn’t even gotten undressed. He was exhausted, too far fallen into a desperate sleep to hear his own daughter’s cries.
Annie’s whimper drifted through the dark, and I crept toward it, my eyes adjusting to the shadows as I moved by the moonlight coming through the window. The lace curtain draped over her nook cast shapes on the wall as I set the candle down on the shelf. She was sitting up, knees curled into her chest and the rag doll in her arms.
She sniffed, hiccuping through another cry.
“Shhhh.” I crouched beside the bed, finding her cold little hands with mine.
I half expected her to call out for Eamon, but she quieted just a little, wiping her face with the doll’s skirt.
“Lie down, Annie,” I whispered, trying to guide her back to the blankets, but she pulled at my fingers.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I was climbing into the bed, scooting behind her so that I could lie against the wall. She settled down, tucking herself beside me. Her feet wedged themselves beneath my legs and she went still. It was only seconds before she fell back asleep.
Her hand loosened on the doll until it rolled between us, and I lay there, watching her, like at any moment I would wake and find myself somewhere else. This felt like one of those memories—where I both belonged and didn’t belong to the slice of time that was playing out.
Her face turned into the candlelight, and I breathed in her smell, like sugar and soap.
The wood floor popped again, making me still, and I searched the darkness until I saw him. Eamon was on his feet, slowly crossing the sitting room until the light painted his face. It was shadowed with sleep, his hair mussed, and he looked so confused, as if he thought he was dreaming. But the waking settled over his features as he looked down at us, a deep breath escaping his lungs.
I waited for him to tell me to go, but he didn’t. He looked at me a long while, and in that space that hung between us, I could feel the tension of countless conversations that would never be had. What did he see when he looked at me? Was it still a counterfeit version of his wife? It didn’t feel like that anymore.
He sat on the edge of the bed, and I watched as he lay down on the other side of Annie. His arm came around her, resting beside mine, and he met my eyes over the tangle of her blond hair fanned out over the pillow. The air grew thick with the weight of what this was—a rendering that was too real. I fit into this space. All three of us did.
The light grew dimmer as the last of the candle melted down, and when it snuffed out, the darkness fell over us. The smell of smoke bled through the air. I couldn’t see Eamon’s face anymore, but I could sense him, the warmth of his body on the other side of the bed. His arm so close to mine that if I moved even an inch, I could touch him. And somehow, I knew what I’d find. I could predict the feel of his skin, the hair that thickened along his forearm and the bones that framed his arm.
His hand found mine, moving up my wrist to my elbow, and my fingers slipped beneath the sleeve of his shirt. We held on to each other, Annie sleeping between us.
It was the first time since I’d come through the door that I didn’t feel like I was broken in two, and it wasn’t until that moment, the red door skipping through my mind, that I realized this was the first day since I came here that I hadn’t looked for it.
No, I hadn’t thought of it. Not even once.
Twenty-Four
The only person who knew the whole truth—all of it—was me. I just had to remember.
Annie was up first, feet shuffling from the sitting room as she rubbed her sleep-heavy eyes. I had a dress out waiting for her, and I helped her into it quietly as Eamon slept, braiding her hair down her back before I tied a little satin ribbon to its end. The strands were like silk in my fingers, that sweet smell of her filling my chest.
When she was dressed, I peeled one of the boiled eggs on the counter and cut a peach into slices, removing the skins without even thinking about it. The fact that she didn’t like them was another dredged-up detail that had the feel of something I’d always known.
I rifled through the chest of Eamon’s clothes until I found one of his button-up work shirts, a blue cotton with brown buttons. I pulled it on, tying up my hair with a bandana while I looked at myself in the mirror.
By the time he woke, I had breakfast ready, and Annie was on her way to Esther’s. I stood in the kitchen, coffee cup in hand, and I had his waiting. Black—he drank it black, I remembered.
He stalled when he came around the corner, eyes dropping to the shirt of his I was wearing.
“We’re smoking the fields today,” I said, before he could get out whatever he was thinking. “All of them. We’ll cut and clear as we go. Re-dig the ditches that need it.”
“What are you doing? Where’s Annie?”
“I had Margaret take her to Esther’s. She’s staying there tonight, too, in case we have to work late.”
Something passed over his face that I couldn’t read, and it occurred to me that maybe he didn’t want to stay here alone with me. Annie’s presence in the house was like a safety net between us in more ways than one.
“June—”
“Look, I know you don’t want my help. But we both know you need it if you’re going to keep from losing that crop.” I met his eyes.
His jaw clenched, and we stood there staring each other down until his gaze fell to the coffee. He picked it up, taking a sip. That was all the answer I’d get out of him, but he wasn’t arguing. That was good enough for me.
I headed for the back door with my own coffee in hand. The sweet smell of honeysuckle stirred in the air as the sun warmed the wind. The soil was turned out in the rows where Eamon had already torn up the infected tobacco, and if we were going to get every single plant treated by nightfall, we had to start working.
Callie stamped her hooves excitedly behind the fence when I made it to the barn, mane flicking as she shook her head.
“Hi, Callie.” I caught her nose with my hand as I passed, stroking along her chin before I opened the door.
Eamon was behind me a moment later, hanging a bucket of oats for her on his way to the barn. He got straight to work, fetching two chains from where they were hung on the post. I took another long drink of my coffee before I set it down and rolled up my sleeves.
“Okay. Tell me what to do,” I said.
For a second, I thought I saw the shadow of a grin at the corner of Eamon’s mouth, but he turned away from me, crossing the barn to the racks that were stored on the opposite wall.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ve just never known you to take orders.”