Everything We Didn't Say(21)

Juniper’s first meeting with Willa wasn’t what she’d hoped it would be at all. She hadn’t even gotten to touch her daughter, much less wrap her in the hug that Juniper’s arms were aching to give.

Seeing her daughter in Mr. Crawford’s office had been a sobering reality check. Still, like it or not, Willa was moving in with her, so Juniper did the only thing she knew to do and drove to her parents’ farm. Of course, the least disruptive solution was for Juniper to just move into the farmhouse with Willa, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. In a way, she was getting exactly what she wanted—her daughter under the same roof—in the worst, most unimaginable way.

The door was unlocked, of course, and she helped herself to sheets from the linen closet, a faded quilt, and a lumpy feather pillow that had seen better days. The futon in the spare room of the bungalow would work in a pinch, and though Juniper wanted to set up Willa’s room with things that would make her feel comfortable and at home, she didn’t dare to enter the inner sanctum of her daughter’s bedroom. Never mind that it was Juniper’s old room and that her fingerprints surely crisscrossed every square inch. What she saw as unimpeachable, Willa would surely consider the gravest of sins.

But Juniper had already done her worst, even if she’d never been charged with any of it: perjury, obstruction of justice, trespass, abandonment. Was it treason to turn against your own flesh and blood? To wonder—even secretly, silently—if everything she believed to be true about her life was a lie? Juniper stood in her mother’s kitchen with old bedding clutched to her chest and wished that she could click her heels together and go back to a time before everything fell apart. Before there was blood blooming from Cal’s chest and spilled on the ground. Staining her fingers.

That kind of wistful magic didn’t exist. But maybe the secrets she had buried in the Iowa soil were just now bearing bitter fruit. Maybe all she had to do was take a scythe and harvest the truth. Hold it, firm and heavy, irrefutable in the palm of her hand.

As Juniper slipped back into her car, outfitted with the barest essentials for turning the bungalow into a home for two, her phone buzzed in her pocket.

“Do you have Willa?” Cora asked, skipping the niceties.

“No. I—”

“Good.” Cora cut her off. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but someone poisoned Jonathan’s dog.”

“Diesel?” Juniper’s mind stumbled, trying to keep up. That sweet dog had lain by her feet throughout the entire sickening supper at her parents’ house only days before. Jonathan loved that dog.

Cora’s heavy sigh was confirmation enough. “Apparently the cops found him floating where Jonathan was pulled out. Either Jonathan was trying to rescue him, or…”

“Or what?”

“Look, I’m just telling you what I heard, Juniper. I wanted you to hear it from me.”

“So they think—what? It was a suicide pact? That if Jonathan was going to off himself, might as well take the dog, too?” Juniper pressed the side of her head to the cold window, trying to leech a little sanity from the cold pane. “Where did you hear this?”

“It’s Jericho,” Cora said. There was no need for more explanation.

“I have to go,” Juniper said. “I’m driving.”

But when she hung up, she sat in the icy car for so long that her fingers went numb.





CHAPTER 6


SUMMER 14 AND A HALF YEARS AGO



When Sullivan pulls down our driveway in his fancy new four-wheel-drive truck, Jonathan looks up from the mountain of pulled pork he’s devouring and raises one dark brow. “What’s he doing here?”

I know exactly how to needle him, so I lean with my elbow on my knee, chin in hand, and say all coy: “He’s here for me.”

We’re sitting on the porch steps, me flush against the banister and Jonathan hunched over a plate heaped with food he has balanced on his knees. It’s after eight o’clock, but he just got off work.

Normally when I sit with him at night, he teases me, tossing his filthy work gloves at me to get a rise, or regaling me with stories of his day. But he’s quiet tonight, and when his eyes snap over to mine, Jonathan’s not smiling. “You’re hanging out with Sullivan now?”

I shrug. “He’s my friend too.” Which isn’t strictly true. Sullivan is two years older than me—a senior when I was a sophomore—and our groups never overlapped. He ran with a wild crowd, a group of farmers’ kids and cowboys who never cared much about their grades or fitting in, and who spent their weekends splitting cases of cheap beer and shooting at stop signs on gravel roads. Their futures were determined the moment they were born: they’d work with their daddy, then take over his farm, marry a local girl, have babies, and start the cycle all over again. Me, I’ve never considered myself a local girl and I certainly don’t want to stay. Even after what feels like a lifetime here, I still don’t feel comfortable with townies who think Jericho is the whole wide world. Sullivan tops that list.

“Yeah,” Jonathan barks, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You and Sullivan are besties, for sure.” He’s not happy.

“Lighten up,” I tell him. But my heart is beating faster than normal, and my mouth is dry as dust.