Ten long minutes later, with the couple safely atop the boulder and out of sight, Junie hurried through the brush and out of the woods. What the hell was she doing, anyway? They were flowers, nothing more than flowers, probably placed there by some young couple in love.
Junie drove to her mother’s house with tunnel vision, her mind focused on Ellen. She wasn’t a believer in ghosts or spirits, but by the time she got to her mother’s house, she was convinced that Ellen was guiding her toward something. The way her body tingled and her mind went foggy when she saw Ellen’s image was just not normal. What it was that Ellen was guiding her toward, she had no idea.
She came through the front door to find Sarah curled up on the couch next to Ruth, who was flipping through pages of an old photo album, telling Sarah where each photo was taken. Sarah looked nonplussed.
“Feel better?” Ruth asked.
“I don’t know.” Junie threw herself on the couch next to Sarah and kissed the top of her head. “What are you guys up to?”
“A trip down memory lane.” Ruth turned the page. Ellen’s face beamed up from behind oversized sunglasses. Her cheek was mashed against Junie’s, each girl missing a front tooth. “That is your mommy,” Ruth said to Sarah.
Sarah looked up at Junie, then back at the picture, and up again.
“How old were we?” Junie asked.
“Seven.” Ruth looked up, her eyes sad and thoughtful. “This was two weeks before she disappeared.”
“Mom, tell me about that day.” She watched her mother steel herself against the conversation. “Please.”
Ruth let out a long sigh. “It was a day, Junie, just like any other day. You girls went to school. You went to visit Katie Lane after school; Ellen had gone to the library. You came home and waited for Daddy. It was Tuesday, after all. And well, as you know, he didn’t make it, so you and I went for ice cream. Ellen never came home.” Ruth shrugged. “There isn’t much to tell. After that, everything changed. Suddenly our safe little neighborhood came under scrutiny, and the days of kids playing freely outside came to an end.” Ruth looked away. “It was a shame. Nowadays, kids don’t even play outside at all. Selma can’t get her granddaughter away from the darn computer—and she’s eight.”
Junie didn’t care what kids did nowadays. She was focused on the day Ellen disappeared. “I went to Katie’s house? I don’t remember that.”
Ruth nodded as she turned the page. Her father stood with his arm around Junie, a test tube held up to the light. Junie was looking up at him with a wide grin.
“Mm-hmm. You had gone home with her after school. Daddy was going to pick you up there after work, but you decided to come home early, so you walked.”
“Why?”
“How do I know why? That was a hundred years ago.” She turned the page. Ralph stood before his shed with a bucket of tools.
“Why can’t I remember that?” Junie ran her finger over the image of her father.
“I don’t remember everything from when I was seven. I don’t remember everything from five years ago. Junie, we age; we forget. Let it go.”
Sarah glanced from her grandmother to her mother.
“Does Katie still live around here? I haven’t seen her in ages.” Maybe Katie had some answers. Suddenly her heart sank. “It could have been me that day. If I walked home alone, why didn’t they take me? Why Ellen?”
“Why is the sky blue? I don’t have the answers, but I’m certainly glad it wasn’t you,” Ruth said.
“Geez, Mom. I just got lucky, that’s all.” Junie got up and went to the computer.
“Now what?” Ruth asked.
“I’m looking up Katie’s address.”
“She’s Katie Frank now, and she lives on Laurel.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Katie Frank looked nothing like the freckle-faced, red-haired, lanky girl that Junie remembered. Her hair was a mousy brown, obviously dyed, and she had gained enough weight that she had a muffin top hanging over her too-low hip-hugging jeans.
Katie squealed when she opened the door. “Junie Marie!” She wrapped her arms around Junie as if they’d been the best of friends. Junie couldn’t remember ever being very close to Katie, but she went along with the charade.
“Katie! You look amazing!” She followed her inside the small rambler. “You have a beautiful home.”
“Nah, but it suits me. It’s just me, you know. Bobby and I separated two years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Junie said, though for the life of her she could not remember what Bobby Frank had even looked like. She had a vague memory of a bulky, aggressive football player. Junie mulled over the word separated. She wondered if she’d be using that word soon; Brian and I are separated. I’m separated. Oh God.
Katie waved her hand through the air. “Aww, you’re so sweet. It’s a good thing. Bobby and me, we were just like oil and water.”
They settled onto a worn flowered couch.
“So what brings you here? I hear you’ve got a daughter now, and you’re a baker! Gosh, I wish I could cook. I could burn water.” She laughed. “Probably one of the reasons Bobby left me.” Her tone was light, but Junie detected a sad undercurrent. Katie perked up a moment later and said, “Why, I haven’t seen you since you got married.” A smirk formed on her lips. “How is that hottie hubby of yours?”
He hates me. “Great, working, you know.”
“I couldn’t believe you married him after everything that happened.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “With his sister, I mean.”
Junie was too anxious to stomach being fake for much longer, so she cut to the chase. “I’ve been thinking about Ellen.”
“Oh, that poor girl. Remember the rumors?” She winked.
Junie’s stomach turned.
“Rumors spread that she was abducted and sold as a sex slave.”
Sex slave? How could the people in this town go that far? How could they think of her in that way? Junie felt even more like her world, her past, was crumbling around her. Junie crinkled her nose. “Really? No, that can’t be true.”
“Well, of course not.” She smirked. “That’s what they said about fifteen years ago.” Katie grabbed a piece of chocolate from a dish on the table.
“Do you remember the day she disappeared?” Junie leaned forward, eyeing the chocolate.
“Of course, like it was yesterday. It keeps me up at night, all that happened.”
“Do you know something? Was there more than one person who took her?” Junie reached for the chocolate.
Katie popped another candy into her mouth and laughed. “Oh, we’re still doing that? Okay, I’ll play along.” She spoke as if the two of them were part of a conspiracy. She lowered her voice, and her eyes darted around the room. “Nah, I just assumed, you know? I mean, one person would have to drive the getaway car.”
Play along? Freak. You’ve got it all figured out. “What did we do that day? My mom said I was with you.”
“You were with me for only about twenty minutes before you took off after Ellen. Don’t you remember?” She looked at Junie expectantly.
Junie shook her head. “I don’t remember a darn thing.” What the hell? Where did I go?
Katie rolled her eyes, again acting as if Junie were privy to some secret between them. “We were playing out front when Ellen walked by and waved you over. You came back and asked if Ellen could play with us, and I said my mom would only let me have one friend over at a time. You watched her walk around the corner; then you took off. Oh, I was so angry at you for dumping me like that.”
Took off? Junie had no memory of following Ellen. “I’m…I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“No worries. I got over it.”
“So, then what happened?” Junie asked.
“Really?” She flapped her hands in front of her face. “Okay. How should I know? You took off, and the next day the police were all over the neighborhood asking questions.” Katie leaned forward. “Junie, don’t you remember any of this? She
esh, I can see it like it was yesterday.”
Junie shook her head. “Not a second of it. It’s like it never happened. Like you’re telling me a story.” Junie rubbed the knot in her neck that had tightened as she listened to Katie speak. She couldn’t remember being at Katie’s house, much less leaving and returning. She didn’t know if she’d forgotten being at Katie’s house or if she’d blocked it out, but either way, she hated that there could be anything in her life that she failed to remember and Katie did remember.
“I wish I were.”
Junie wanted to push her for answers, but she held back. The fear of what she might hear was suddenly too much for her to deal with in front of Katie, and in some strange way, Junie wasn’t sure that whatever Katie had to say would be the truth.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Junie lay awake in the guest room at her mother’s house, wondering where she’d gone when she left Katie’s house. The image of Ellen standing at the edge of the woods of the park kept coming back to her. Her father’s voice—Only derelicts hang out back there—played over and over in her mind. She threw her blankets off and went downstairs, fully prepared to bake her emotions away. Instead, Junie found herself in the kitchen, staring at her father’s keys, which hung on a hook on the wall.
Junie slipped the key ring from the hook, opened the back door, and headed out into the night. Crickets chirped in the bushes. The moon shone bright, casting an eerie glow on the backyard.
The shed was dotted with tiny rust spots, like freckles on a pale body. Junie touched the lock, feeling guilty for wanting to enter her father’s sacred shed. This is silly, she thought, and turned back toward the house. She looked up at her childhood window, which overlooked the backyard. The room was dark, the curtains drawn. She looked at the next window over, her parents’ bedroom. How many nights had her parents gazed out that window when she and Ellen slept in a pup tent? Times were so different back then. She couldn’t imagine letting Sarah spend the night anywhere outside of the four walls of a locked house. She couldn’t even imagine Sarah wanting to.
She turned back and contemplated the shed. Taking a deep breath, Junie fished for the small key among the larger ones. She pushed it into the lock and waited for the click of the gears. The lock sprang open, heavy in her hand. Junie nearly jumped out of her skin. Goose bumps crawled up her arms.
She pushed the lock through the clasp. The door remained closed. Junie grabbed the clasp and pulled. The door swung open slowly, easily, until there was nothing between her and the inside of her father’s sacred toolshed.
She should have brought a flashlight, a candle, something. She reached inside, knowing there was no light switch, but grasping anyway. She took one step into the shed, feeling the presence of her father, as if he were looking down on her, ashamed of her. Junie bit her lower lip, then stepped back out of the shed. Something skittered along the ground in the woods behind the shed. Junie jumped.
She looked behind her, but found no one there. She glanced into the woods and caught a glimpse of a raccoon disappearing into the darkness. She stepped back into the shed and felt around the wooden tool bench.
“Ouch!” A sliver poked her finger. She put her finger to her lips, pressing it there. Junie crouched, opening the wooden doors under the tool bench. She felt around until her fingers landed on a big flashlight. Yes!
In the beam from the flashlight, Junie saw the neat and organized tools that her father had cherished. She looked in the cabinets and found shelves filled with different sized screws, nuts, bolts, and nails, impeccably sorted into little plastic bins. She turned around and looked at the shelves her father had constructed. No clues to Ellen. Nothing. Junie wasn’t sure if she was relieved or discouraged. She aimed the flashlight up to the roof and across the ceiling. The beam cast a shadow on the shelf above the door, a lumpy shadow. She was here, and she wasn’t leaving until every inch of the shed had been searched.
Junie spun around, snagging the stepladder. She climbed up, hoping it wouldn’t topple over, and felt along the shelf with her fingers, flicking dust and dirt into her eyes. She closed them, then brushed off the filth, thinking about how lucky her dad had been to be tall enough to reach that height without a ladder. She aimed the flashlight beam so it illuminated the shelf. Adrenaline rushed through her.
She reached for a mound of darkness, moving her fingertips along the shelf. Her hands trembled with anticipation. What she expected to find, she hadn’t a clue. Torn between guilt and anticipation, she wavered. What if I find something bad? Clues to an infidelity? Something worse? She felt fabric beneath her fingers. Junie took a deep breath and pulled the bundle down from the shelf. She climbed down from the ladder and set the flashlight on the tool bench. Junie shook out the small sweater she held in her hands. She gasped. The image of her father leading Ellen into the shed flashed before her—Ellen had been wearing the tattered blue sweater Junie held in her hands.
The sweater slipped from her fingers, landing on the tip of her shoe. Junie stepped backward, covering her eyes, as if by doing so, she might hide from the memory that had now come true.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Junie sat on the back porch waiting for her mother and Sarah to come back from the early-morning jaunt to the store they’d taken. We both need cheering up, Ruth had said.
She gnawed her fingernails down to the quick, staring at the shed as if it held the answers when it really only confused her even further. Why would Ellen’s sweater be in her father’s shed? She had to ask her mother.
Tires rolled onto the driveway. Junie listened as one door, then the other, opened and shut.
“Come on. Let’s show Mommy what you got,” Ruth said.
Sarah didn’t respond.
Junie looked up at the sky and wondered just how much God wanted to test her and why. She thought she’d dealt with Ellen’s disappearance long ago, and she now knew that she had just blacked it out, like a bad dream. She had no idea how to help Sarah, and today’s round of changing sheets had just about put her over the edge. Had she become so complacent about Sarah’s regression that she was actually enabling her?
Junie jammed her throbbing finger back into her mouth, cursing the splinter that had pricked it in the shed.
The door behind her opened. “There you are,” Ruth said, and sat behind her. “What’s going on out here?”
“Just thinking.” Junie feigned a smile.
“Well, I didn’t see any more baked goods, so I guess that’s good.” She laughed.
Junie turned to face her mother. “Thanks for taking Sarah out. I know I suck right now as a mother.”
“I wouldn’t say suck.”
Junie laughed under her breath. “Stink, sorry.”
“No, suck is a good word. I just don’t think it describes you. I think you’re sidetracked, overwhelmed, unable to set aside the hurt that Daddy’s death has unearthed, that’s all.” Ruth put her arm around Junie’s shoulder and sighed. “You know, June Marie, I think there’s a lot in this life that can make us crazy. Don’t let Daddy’s death be one of those things.”
“I have no idea how you do it, Mom. You lost your husband a few days ago. Where does your strength come from? How can you just turn off the hurt?”
“I don’t turn it off. It’s there every second of the day. I just don’t let it own me. Daddy didn’t love me because I fell apart easily, you know. He loved my strength, and I am just honoring that trait.”
“Doesn’t it hurt? Don’t you want to cry and curl up in a ball and beg him to come back?”
Ruth withdrew her hand, fiddling with her wedding ring. “Yes. I have my moments, when I think I hear him coming down the stairs, or I wake up in the middle of the night and he’s not there. But mostly, I’m thankful for all of the years we had together. Many couples aren’t quite as happy as we were, so mostly I feel like I miss my best friend, but I was lucky to have had him in the first place.”
Junie nodded, wondering if she’d ever feel that way about Br
ian again.
“Mom, I did something that I’m not proud of.” Her face flushed.
“We all do,” her mother said seriously.
“I’m not sure you’d be so forgiving of me if you knew what I did.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Junie lifted her eyebrows and cocked her head to the side.
“Junie, life isn’t about always doing the right thing. It’s about forgiving those who do the wrong things.”
There you go again, being all that I cannot be. “Do you think Daddy ever did the wrong thing?” She watched her mother’s eyes grow sad.
“Sure.”
“Wrong, or bad?”
“Depends on your definition, I guess.” Ruth sat up straighter and faced Junie. “Spit it out. What’s on your mind?”
Junie shook her head. “Nothing.” She couldn’t bring herself to lay another layer of discomfort on her mother.
“It’s okay, Junie. There isn’t much you can say that would rock the boat now.”
Junie hemmed and hawed, unsure if she should reveal her worries. Ruth was strong, but Junie didn’t want to test her strength and possibly be the reason it failed her. She ran her finger along the step, then jammed it back into her mouth and began chewing previously gnawed skin.
“June Marie, say it already, before you bite that finger off.”
“Okay, well, I keep seeing these images of Ellen…and Daddy.”
“Normal. He spent a lot of time with and around you girls.”
Junie bit her lower lip. “But did he spend too much time with Ellen?”
“What are you getting at?” Her mother stood, her voice terse.
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