Ch. 7: This Is Yours To Carry

This shadow has been chasing all of us for too long.

This is chapter 7 of 8, that I’m publishing one chapter at a time every Friday. I wrote this first draft of my novel in 2022, and I’m sharing it here along with new artwork exploring what it could be like if I turned it into a graphic novel.

PREVIOUSLY: June learns about Fay and Imogen's past by talking to Fay in morse code and reading Imogen's returned letters. Imogen has a more public memory lapse in front of Phoebe and Hank.

You can also listen to me read this chapter—just hit play above.

CW: brief mentions of domestic abuse, miscarriage, brief flash memories of gun violence, and a gun present.

It must be around 2 or 3 am by now.

My body is sore from balancing up here on the step stool for so long–and from holding everything else all this time. I thought I felt exhausted earlier today –well, yesterday now–but that was nothing compared to this. My body feels like a used rubber band, stretched almost to breaking. Useless and floppy and cracking in places.

I’M SO SORRY JUNE

Fay responds after a long pause. She’s been waiting patiently, not asking any questions or interrupting me as I tell my story—the whole story, that I haven’t told anyone else. 

But I never know how to reply when people say they’re sorry. I know what they mean, and I say it myself, all the time, when I sympathize or empathize, but don’t know what else to say. But still, how do you respond?

“Oh, it’s okay,” is sort of the trained response, at least for me. Avert, avoid, dismiss. Appreciate the thought and move on quickly.

But it’s not okay. It’s not. Nothing is.

I say nothing, and Fay’s already tapping more.

BUT IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT

What?

I don’t know why I’m angry all of a sudden. Why does this feel so much worse than the generic “I’m sorry”? Like she wasn’t listening to anything I said—that she didn’t hear the visceral truth I’ve carried with me for so long. No, worse. Her dismissal makes it feel like my year of carrying this–of complete torture carrying this–was pointless. Like all I’ve done to protect Mom is unnecessary–worthless and silly.

I stand abruptly, knocking over the stepstool and some boxes that spill dry pasta and beans all over the floor, and I’m about to tap out a frustrated argument about how she’s wrong. How she must not have been listening just now.

To tell her again how I answered Mom that day on the swings.

How I was supposed to be at a friend’s house.

How I–

Shorten this gap?

but Fay beats me to it.

IT’S MY FAULT

She’s throbbing with pain behind the door, overflowing with it–like a sudden sob in your chest.

I FAILED YOU BOTH FIRST

AND I WISH I COULD MAKE IT RIGHT

I’m still standing, staring at the pink door, double checking her words in my head, when I register the footsteps pounding on the stairs.

I spin around to see Grandma burst through the door to the pantry, looking fierce and angry, and holding a gun. 

It’s pointed at me.

In flashes, I hear the other gun–the one that killed Mom–going off in my head.

The sound of it dropping with her, to the floor.

I see it, laying on the linoleum, in the pool of blood that’s growing, blooming, where she died.

Mom’s eyes.

The blur of it all, and the deep red of it chasing after, as I run.

Instinctively, in the pantry, through the blur of my own flashbacks, I hold up my hands.

But Grandma’s already looking away from me, her own shaky hands pointing her shotgun here, then there, all around the pantry as she searches the room. 

“Where is Alfred? June, where did he go?” She shouts it, quickly, sharply–but she knows my name. I try to focus, and step toward her carefully, around the scattered food I spilled, trying to stay upright. Grandma checks behind the door, finding only an old broom, and turns back to me, intense.

“Fay warned me–he’s coming. I heard him!” 

I didn’t realize I was crying again, but my vision is blurry and I feel like I can’t breathe. I’m staggering toward Grandma, trying to keep up. Trying to make sense of anything she’s saying, as Mom’s eyes won’t stop staring at me from the floor.

Grandma, I sign.

“Where’s the baby? Where’s Daisy?” She asks.

No one’s here. I sign, It’s okay! But my hands are trembling.

Grandma’s eyes go wide as she looks right past me, at Fay’s door.

“No, no, no, NO!” She runs, pushing past me and dropping the gun, and claws at the door desperately. Her fingernails scrape the pink paint, and it’s like I’m watching something from decades ago happen for the first time–the scratches and scrapes all around the pink door appearing right in front of me.

I’m by her side in a second, hands on her shoulders, trying to get her attention, trying to tell her Mom’s not there.

But she doesn’t notice. She’s panicking, in her own mental hell, while I try to push my way through mine, too.

It’s alright, it’s ok, I sign, but it’s to her back as she flails at the door. It’s alright!

But it’s not alright.

I don’t believe myself for a second.

It doesn’t matter if I convince her Mom’s not there now, behind the pink door. It doesn't matter if I get her to remember–to realize that there’s no fire, and baby Mom isn’t in danger.

Because Mom’s dead anyway.

And it’s my fault, I know it is–whatever Fay says.

And no matter how much I try to console Grandma in the moment, it will always, always feel like a lie. Like I’m a wolf in sheep’s clothing, telling her she’s safe while I try to hide my teeth. But I don’t want to be this. 

And it breaks my heart, seeing Grandma so helpless. 

Mom’s not in there! I sign, but Grandma doesn’t see me.

“He could kill them! He’s almost killed Fay before!” She cries. 

I try again, to speak. To shout. To make any kind of noise.

But nothing comes out.

It feels like I almost choke myself trying, but it’s no use.

I faintly register the flickering light around the door while I try to work my way around Grandma, for her to see my face–still streaming with tears–to try to console us both.

LET ME IN, JUNE

I CAN HELP YOU TALK

I barely understand Fay’s words in morse code right now, let alone what they mean. Grandma’s desperate, horror-stricken face fills my whole being, and her panic feeds mine.

JUNE

Fay practically yells it, bangs it against the door like a fist, and Grandma hears it this time, too.

We both freeze, staring at the scratched pink surface. I take in Grandma’s face as understanding dawns on it. 

“Fay!” She gasps, and her hand comes up to her mouth. Her fingers are bloody from her desperate attempts to open the door, but she doesn't notice. I can’t tell, in this moment, if she realizes Fay is here, now, as a ghost, or if she still thinks Fay is alive, and trapped behind the door in the fire. 

But her face crumples, and so does she, collapsing on the floor among the stray pasta.

Fay keeps tapping above us as I get down on my knees and hold Grandma, crying with her. 

“We need… to get her out,” Grandma sobs, “Get… her supplies …and run. Before the baby comes…”

I want to tell Grandma there’s no need for that. That it’s too late for Fay, too. But I don’t know how–how to communicate it, how to word it, how to break it to her. Will telling her her best friend is dead–having her hear that news again– actually help? But Grandma’s words fade away to whimpers as she cries into my shoulder, and I cry into her hair, in this awkward position between bags and boxes.

All I can hear and feel right now is the sound and the ache of all our pain, scrunched here in the middle of the mess I made. 

I didn’t want this to become a routine.

When we’ve both quieted down, we manage to get upstairs, and I wash Grandma’s poor hands in her sink, where she stood putting on makeup for the Halloween party just weeks ago. I remember her silver dress, and the jaunty red lipstick, and the way she raised her hands in the air, roller coaster style, to pronounce my witchy lipstick, “PERFECT!”

Now she hunches over the same sink, somehow looking both ancient and like a very small child, as I dry and bandage her hands. Occasionally she whimpers again–about getting Fay out, or getting supplies, but mostly she’s quiet, and exhausted.  

We huddle together down the hallway, and into Grandma’s bed, and I sit there beside her, stroking her hair, until she falls asleep. I try to hear the crickets in my mind, outside the window in my own memory of a time before this, when Mom was the one stroking my hair.  Grandma’s silver locks spread out on her pillow, but she looks like that small child still, bundled here in a bed much too big, full of empty space. 

I think of all the extra space in Grandma’s life, where Grandpa used to be. Where Mom used to be. Where Fay used to be. I fill it as best I can, but I know I’m not big enough. 

Not strong enough. 

Not good enough.

I can’t hide my wolf’s teeth.

I hold her hand to comfort her, but I need the comfort, too. 

Finally she drifts off, and I sit for a long time, watching her. Willing her to be her old self again, when she wakes up. 

My bones are tired. My muscles are useless. I lay down beside Grandma and try to keep watch as long as I can, but I know there’s a limit. Everything is heavy, and I feel like I’m falling.

As my eyes close, I think I do really hear the crickets.

Or is it just tapping?

Fay’s tapping, repeated over and over as we cried, downstairs in the pantry, still echoing in my head.

And somewhere, deep in my brain, half asleep, I’m still translating:

ALFRED’S GONE, IMOGEN

REMEMBER?

WE KILLED HIM.

I wake with a start, and a gasp.

It takes me a minute to remember where I am, facing a different window, with a cloudy early morning sky, and there’s no tree here–just ivy peeking over the edges, behind the lacy curtains.

The walls are a soft green, and the quilt wrapped around me is old, and well-loved.

Grandma’s room.

I hold my head in my hands for a minute as last night catches up in my memory. I ache all over.

Looking at the sky outside, I wonder what time it is, and try to guess by the shade of gray. I think we should have been up for a bit already, to open The Cozy Spoon on time. Can we call in sick today, to work and school? Would that even make sense in Grandma’s mind? How much does she remember about last night?

I turn to look at her, hoping she’s still asleep, that she can get more rest, and my heart starts beating fast.

Her side of the bed is empty.

I leap up and the cold of the floor stabs at my bare feet as I run–down the hallway, down the stairs, into the kitchen.

She’s not there. 

The tea kettle is cold. 

No breakfast dishes. 

The coffee maker hasn’t been used–it’s still waiting with her usual filter and pre-scooped grounds in it, ready for today.

I blink at it, and I can barely think. I run upstairs again, to her bathroom, but it’s empty. 

I sit on the side of the tub and try not to let myself collapse into total panic. I breathe for a minute as more of last night’s nightmare returns to me.

Her hands, scraping at the door. Crying with her.

And before that?

The gun.

Slowly, in an absolute terror that might look like calm from the outside, I go down the stairs again. I avoid the creaky spots–sound feels dangerous right now–and stand, frozen, in front of the pantry door.

I don’t want to think about what I could find there. So I make myself open it, fast.

Food and packaging is everywhere. Stepstool overturned. The pink door is horribly scratched up–all as we left it early this morning.

The pantry is empty–no Grandma.

I scan the floor.

But also no gun.

The questions pile up as I stand perfectly still, staring into the pantry.

How long has she been gone?

Why did she take the gun?

Why didn’t she wake me?

Does she remember any of last night?

What does she think is happening right now?

And the quieter, scarier, simpler question:

Is she safe?

But I can’t allow myself to think about all the things that can have gone wrong by now. 

Stay practical, June.

What now?

It must be close to opening time by now at the diner. Hank will be arriving sometime in the next… what? Half hour? Forty five minutes? And if I’m not at school soon after that…

Homes that aren’t real homes. 

For both of us.

Where would she have gone?

If she’s wandered anywhere in town, it’ll be over any moment. Someone will see her, and who knows what could happen, and I won’t be there to help, to calm her, to explain anything.

I have to find her fast.

I spring into action, rushing upstairs to throw on some clothes–any clothes–and grab my backpack, dumping my school books out of it and leaving them in a haphazard trail behind me as I run back to Grandma’s room. Fay’s letters are still inside, but I leave them, searching for some clothes for Grandma –oh, god, is she still wearing her nightgown in this cold? I don’t know– and make sure to grab one of her warmest sweaters, and the first aid kit from the bathroom. For a second, I survey the contents of my bag. 

Is this enough?

Is this helpful? 

How do I even know what I need??

At the last moment I decide to spend three seconds swinging back through my room to get the tin, and push it into my pants pocket as I run down the stairs again.

I’m off out the door, still pulling on my boots and tripping over my unzipped coat, which is trailing a scarf out the pocket.

As I hurry down the dark street, I’m so thankful it’s still early–most people aren't out and about yet. I scan all the yards as I go, just in case. The fight or flight response is helping me for once, and I’m sorting through possible places Grandma would go in my head quickly. First up is definitely the diner.

There are only a few golden lights glowing through the windows as I get to the top of our street. Mrs. Gardner is up, as usual, making coffee in her robe and slippers. I sneak by her window, ducking down as I go past.  I have to pause behind bushes or fences a few times to avoid being seen by early risers and dog walkers still in their pajamas–how do I explain being out and about right now without Grandma?–but before long I’m at the diner door.

It’s locked.

And dark.

And I don’t have a key.

Dang it, June, you should’ve looked for her keys before you left!

But she’s not here. At least I know that–at least it’s something.

But it’s not much. She could be anywhere now. 

The drop in my stomach makes me realize how much I was banking on her being at the diner, deep down. But there’s no time to notice my fear escalating, no time to think about anything except where to look next. Where else does she even go?

The post office, sometimes. The coffee shop, rarely.  I should look to be safe.

I creep as quickly as possible across the street and all around the main square. A few people are arriving at their shops to prepare to open for the day, but no Grandma. 

School?

I run all the way there, but it’s early enough no one’s there yet–including Grandma.

Where could she have gone? I can’t think of any other places she usually goes, and if she’s not somewhere familiar…

She could be anywhere.

With a gun.

Alone.

Or–possibly worse–with people. What if they’ve found her, called the police? An ambulance? What if they think she’s crazy? 

I circle back to the diner unconsciously, drifting toward a place of safety from a different lifetime as I rack my brain for what to do next.

My panic rises, and the exhaustion from everything we’ve been through in the last few days catches up to me like an avalanche.

I collapse in the bushes at the side of the diner door, leaning against the wall, knees pulled to my chest, head in my hands. The ground is freezing, and I realize I haven’t zipped up my coat this whole time. 

It’s all just too much. It’s been such a long few days, and I’m worn so thin.

I don’t know what to do anymore.

Where are you, Grandma?

Where are you?

I can almost hear the sirens in my head already, chasing down the crazy old lady with a gun. The questions. The confusion. The instructions of officials, getting her in some car to go somewhere, to effectively lock her up.

Grandma crying, insisting she wants her baby, or that Fay is still in the house. That they need to get Fay away from Alfred.

I look up, suddenly realizing:

I’ve been thinking about this all wrong. 

Everyone else might look at Grandma and see her losing her mind, her memory. Speaking nonsense. I thought that once, too.

But she’s not.

I know that now–that at least many of the things she’s said when her eyes kind of glaze over and she feels far away, are based in her past.

All of Grandma’s major episodes (excluding the little lapses in memory like forgetting she’d asked Phoebe about pie already and her growing hair pencil collection) have been about Fay, and Daisy, and Alfred, and the door, and the fire.

Fay–her real best friend, who died in a fire next door and now haunts my pantry–although who would believe that part?

The fire itself–everyone knows that happened. Then there’s the scratches on the pantry door.  And Fay being in an asylum–there must be records of that, too.

At least some of all these things happened. At least some are proveable. It’s not all nonsense. And it’s guiding Grandma right now.

I don’t have all the pieces yet–there’s so much I don’t understand–but the jigsaw puzzle of this secret I didn’t even know existed is coming together in my mind. 

In a rush, I grab the letters out of my backpack and open them again, tracing the familiar words with my eyes, and seeing them in a whole new light–as clues to where Grandma is now.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know. I should have seen it in him earlier.”

This must all be about Alfred. Alfred was Fay’s husband, right? And he must have been abusive–it’s the only thing that really makes sense–and Fay must have tried to tell someone. Grandma said she was put into the asylum for awhile for a lie–or what people thought was a lie, but that Grandma knew wasn’t. Was Alfred the one saying she was lying? He certainly didn’t confess, if that’s what put her there. And Grandma wrote Fay letters when she was in the asylum–letters she’s been repeating, in a way, mixed with bits of what’s happening now.  

I keep reading.

“Hang on, Fay… …When you get back, we’ll make a plan, okay? We’ll get you out, and you can go see the world and write about it, like you wanted… …I promise we’ll get you safe.”

I don’t think Grandma wasn’t talking, here, about getting Fay out of the asylum. She must have been talking about getting her away from Alfred once she was released–that Grandma was going to help her get out of here. 

I wonder for a moment, if things could have been different for Mom, if she  had had anyone like Grandma to help her. And what happened so that things didn’t work out differently for Fay, in the end. But I shove both thoughts away. There’s no time.

Back to Grandma. 

I think back to last night–to what she thought was happening then.  

Grandma’s  frantic, armed search for Alfred. 

“I’m worried about June. I won’t let him take her like you and Daisy and the baby. I want to do better this time.”

Grandma said Alfred had almost killed Fay before, and she came to the pantry to protect me from him.  What had happened, last time? When she tried to protect Fay (and Daisy, and “the baby”) before?

Fay’s tapped words ring in my head, like from a dream last night:

WE KILLED HIM.

Everything freezes in my little Nancy Drew moment, and I feel goosebumps make their icy walk down my spine.

Did they actually kill Alfred?

It was Fay who said so.

Is that proveable?

If it is, it’s no wonder Grandma never talked about any of this before–not until her poor brain couldn’t hold it all anymore.

I remember Grandma, that night on my bed, crying:

“His cigarette caught... I couldn’t… I tried… We didn’t mean to.”  

Was that about Alfred, too? That they didn’t mean to kill him?

And did his cigarette start the fire? I don’t know if that even matters.

There are too many questions. I need to stay focused on what might help me find Grandma. I have a theory, now, and I search the letters for it.

“I’ve started to collect supplies, for the trip. They’re in our safe place.”

That’s it. That’s what I was looking for–although I was hoping she’d given more details.

If last night was all about protecting me, and Memory Fay, from Alfred, maybe Grandma’s following the same path she did before, even if it’s a bit scrambled with events now (like me being alive). Maybe she’s trying to get Fay (or me? Or Mom? Or “the baby”? Or all of us) out of here–away from Alfred.

She’s not losing her mind–she’s reliving a truth.

I don’t know the whole story, but I’m sure of that.

And I can’t let someone else–the police? Mrs. Stanford? – find her, and completely misunderstand her, and cart her away.  

As clear as anything, I hear Grandma in my head, saying “I’ve got your back, kid,” that day after the Team Meeting, when I decided I didn’t want to see Dad. Bumping me with her elbow, and smiling at me, backing up my choice. 

“And I believe you,” she’d said. It hadn’t made sense to me at the time, but now I wonder if that was for Fay first. Fay, who was so disbelieved, she was sent to a mental institution. Who was so trapped, she needed to escape with hidden supplies and a secret location. Grandma was so determined to “do better this time,” and had begged my Mom not to leave with my Dad. Who had vehemently defended me and my decision to not let Dad back into my life. Who had made sure she had a way to defend me, and listened to every sound for the threat of an abusive man creeping into the house in the middle of the night. 

I’m starting to understand the intensity with which she told me she had my back.

And I had promised, in my head minutes later, when I took the first letter and kept it, that I’d have her back, too.

There’s more to this than just an old lady losing her memory, and Grandma is still there, under all of it.  

And I know where she’s going.

Or at least I’m pretty sure. 

But I know someone who will know–who’s maybe even been there herself.

I cut through the cemetery, to save time.

As a rule, I avoid the cemetery. Despite liking cemeteries in general, and how calm and peaceful they can feel, this one holds too much fear and shame and guilt for me–

Mom is buried here.

So is Grandpa, and most other people from town who lived their whole lives here–who also walked this path to school, and ate in the diner, and shopped at the same supermarket for years and years. Despite my panic, I find myself wondering what each of their usual diner meals were, if they had one, and what it would say about them. There’s so little you can fit on a gravestone, and favorite food obviously isn’t top priority, but I think of all the people who come and go in the Cozy Spoon–and will be coming and going from the diner this morning in a short while, served by a probably very concerned Hank–and the parts of themselves they reveal with what they order, and the bits of their stories they leave behind on their plates as they go. The parts not spelled out on their headstones. So many lives have passed through this cemetery, and through the diner, all in this small world.

I’m not sure if Mom would have wanted this or not–to be back in the place she tried so hard to get away from. But I like to think so. 

I have to think so.

I imagine her feeling comforted, at last, by being back near Grandma, and Grandpa, and feeling some kind of relief that the love is still there, despite everything that happened. That here is a place to be safe. To feel safe. That no matter what she did or didn’t accomplish in life, no matter how she felt, there would always be chocolate chip cookies in the jar for her here. And pencils in Grandma’s ponytail for her to write with when suddenly struck by inspiration. And a lock of hair in a tin saved just for her by someone who still loved her very, very much.

I wish it could have happened this way in real life. I know it's just imaginary, and it will never happen. But it helps calm my heart.

Still, I avoid looking toward where I know her headstone is–where I feel it, burning, on my periphery. 

The sun is rising, but if anything it feels like it’s getting colder.

I walk quickly, then start to run on the curvy path, and the sound of my own boots hitting the cracking pavement masks the footsteps coming my way. I try to duck to the side once I see her, but she’s already there, looking right at me–

Gemma is standing in the path in front of me. 

I forgot this is the route she takes to school.

“June?” She asks, confused, and a little sheepish. “I…I was coming early to stop by the diner today, to talk to you. And before you say anything I’m still mad about the other day, but I don’t like arguing with you and–wait…”

Her brow furrows, “…where are you going?”

She takes in my backpack and my outfit, and I suddenly realize my sweater is on inside out. 

Gemma’s eyebrows drift higher and higher.

In panic mode, I sift through options quickly.

I pull out my phone, my brain already formulating some flimsy excuse about going back home for something I forgot…

…and I stop.

I look back up at Gemma, standing there, waiting for me to say something.

She could have been gone already, and refused to hear anything from me at all, and I would utterly deserve it. And she was coming to talk to me at the diner before school. I should have been the one coming to her.

I think of how I’ve let Gemma down. How I failed her as a friend. 

How Grandma was there for Fay–hands bloodied, door-scratching, possibly abuser-killing There For Her.

How Grandma and I have been here–as best two broken souls can be–for each other. Making chocolate chip pancakes and washing blood off hands and holding each other when we cry so hard it feels as though our whole insides, our whole souls, our whole selves, will be ripped apart.

How I wasn’t there for Mom. 

Or Gemma.

People need people.

Don’t we?

And I owe Gemma honesty. She could collect a fortune’s worth of interest on the honesty I owe her.

Maybe this is the stupidest decision I’ve made in a whole series of horrible decisions in my life. But I’m doing it now before I can overthink it.

I type as fast as I can, and Gemma waits.

“You told me to just tell you things, and you can help, and we can actually be there for eachother. I’m really sorry, I didn’t tell you a lot of things, and I wasn’t there for you. I was a bad friend. I was so scared of being close to anyone, and what would happen if people found out, and it’s happening now anyway.”

She looks more confused, but she’s still listening. My fingers are flying, but it doesn't feel remotely fast enough.

“Grandma’s been losing her memory, and I was afraid they’d send us both away, and this morning she went missing. I have to find her before someone else does. They’ll think she’s crazy. She’s not crazy, Gemma. She’s telling some truth, I just don’t know what it is, and I think it has something to do with where she's gone.”

“Okay…” Gemma says, nodding slowly. I can’t tell if she thinks I’m crazy, now, too, so I pour it all out at once:

“She’s been remembering things from her past, about her and her best friend Fay, who did everything together–even have babies at the same time, and I know this sounds crazy, but Fay’s ghost showed up in our pantry where it connects to her house next door and I’ve been talking to her in morse code, and it’s all connected. I think Grandma’s reliving something that happened in her past, but I have to ask Fay.”

This is so hard to say succinctly and it comes out in a jumbled mess that I can only hope Gemma can possibly make some sense of.

Her mouth is open in surprise. Usually it’s her who is talking a mile a minute to explain something. I just wish my app would talk faster—and less monotone.

“Fay died in the fire next door, and there’s something about Mom as a baby being saved from the fire, and another baby boy that Grandma thinks is hers, and Fay’s husband Alfred was abusive and almost killed her and Grandma thought he broke in last night and she was trying to protect me from him and Fay said they killed him, but I think it was an accident or self defense but I don’t know, and I have to talk to Fay so I can find Grandma before someone else does.”

Gemma’s still processing it all, and I pause, but she doesn’t interject.

“Oh. And she has a gun.”

Might as well get it all out there now.

Gemma’s eyes get wider, but she still doesn’t say anything.

“Because she thinks he’s still here–Alfred.”

I wait. Was this too much? Gemma’s staring in surprise, still, and for a second, I feel like I broke her. But she doesn’t babble or mess about trying to make me back up and explain Fay’s ghost, or the gun, or Grandma possibly being a murderer, or anything. 

“This Alfred?” Gemma points a few steps back the way she came, to a group of gravestones just off the path, nestled under a sugar maple tree. 

I lean around her to look.

If I didn’t know any better–if I thought the stones were animate, living creatures–I’d say one of the big ones is leaning away from the other, and the little one feels too far away from the others to be included, but all the last names match:

PETERSEN.

And there he is. 

ALFRED J. PETERSEN

“A Godly man, universally missed”

Wow.

The other large stone next to his is Fay’s.

FAY A. PETERSEN

“Lost too soon”

Really? That’s it? I barely know Fay, really, but I know there’s so much more you could fit–even on only a foot’s worth of granite. And especially if Alfred, of all people, gets something so grand as his inscription. 

That checks out, though. I know people like that: Perfect and respected on the outside, with a carefully manicured reputation that doesn’t reach down to their heart. Or at least not always.

I nod at Gemma. Yes. That Alfred.

She stares at his gravestone for a moment, and I’m wondering if she thinks I’m crazy. If she’s questioning whether such an obviously beloved person would be capable of the abuse I’ve accused him of, and of Grandma’s approach with a gun.

Her expression morphs into one of disgust.

“What a jerk!” She kicks a pinecone in his direction, and I can’t help but smile.

I’m beginning to really see, maybe for the first time, how special of a human being Gemma is.

The pinecone bounces off Alfred’s stone and rolls toward the little one next to it that reads:

ALFRED, JUNIOR. SON OF ALFRED J. AND FAY A.

“Born asleep in Christ”

So this was Fay’s baby. He must have been stillborn. Poor Fay. It seems like everything in her life was destroyed or taken away from her. 

Oh!

I reach into my pocket and pull out the letters and hand them to Gemma before typing again.

“These are what I was reading in the bathroom. Grandma wrote them to Fay recently, but I think she remembers writing to Fay when Fay was sent to a mental hospital because people thought she was lying about Alfred’s abuse. She was planning Fay’s escape when she got home, and that’s where I think she is now–going to get the supplies she stashed for Fay, to get her out.”

Gemma’s already opening and reading the letters, but I can hear the time ticking in my head. I hope she won’t hate me for this, but–

“I’m sorry Gemma I have to go RIGHT NOW, to find Grandma before they notice we’re missing. I’ll tell you more later.”

I’m about to take off running, and I assume Gemma will go about her day until I can come back and offer some sort of explanation—and maybe a final goodbye before I move away to live with some strangers—but without even blinking, she turns with me up the path, eyes on the page held in front of her, nodding emphatically.

“Yep, got it! I’m coming!” She pushes up her glasses and turns to the next letter.

And she follows me–albeit a little slower while she reads–through the cemetery and down the rest of the street, back past Mrs. Gardner’s back garden. We slip in through the back door to Grandma’s house, which squeaks loudly and makes me jump, just as I think the sky looks the same gray as it does when Grandma always asks, “Ready old gal?”

I picture the diner, sitting dark and empty this morning, waiting for someone to ask her. Wondering where we are.

I picture Hank arriving, not knowing how to wake her up in the right way, confused and concerned about Grandma and I missing. Will he call someone right away? Or will he assume we’re sick? But Grandma would have called him to let him know if that were true.

I’ll be missed at school before long, too.

Gemma bumps into me, her eyes still glued to the last letter, as I open the pantry door.

We’ll both be missed at school soon.

We have to do all this quickly, but I need to make sure I’m right–precisely because there’s no time. I know this is unsustainable–that I can’t keep Grandma’s memory a secret forever–probably not even for another hour. That someone, or everyone, already knows. 

And even if they didn’t already know (by some insane miracle), I already do.

I know that I can’t take care of her.

Not properly.

Not after these last few days. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried in the first place, to keep it secret. 

I can’t stop the separation from happening. I can’t stop the Homes.

But I can find her first.

Before others make assumptions about her.

Before they think she’s just losing her mind.

Before (please, God, no) something really bad happens to her. 

I run straight into the pantry, not bothering to take my backpack off or sit down or even say “hello.” 

Fay! I practically yell it as I tap it to her at lightning speed. Gemma stands next to me, flipping back through the letters, brow furrowed. I don’t wait for a response from Fay before I start my next message, but I feel her flicker into the room, behind the door.

Grandma’s gone. Have to find her. I think she thinks she’s going to help you escape. Are the supplies you stashed by the waterfall in the woods?

Fay feels worried, but clear.

GET A BOX YOU CAN CARRY WITH YOU

What? What does this have to do with anything? In my head, I’m screaming for Fay to just answer the question–this is not the time for her to be confused, too.

“Wait… your Grandma thought her baby was a boy?” Gemma’s squinting at the letters, but I can’t answer her now. Fay’s still tapping.

PUT IT BY THE DOOR

Why? Just tell me the place! I plead with Fay.

THIS IS MY FAULT

I NEED TO COME WITH YOU

What?

How? I ask. This is taking too long.

THROUGH THE DOOR

LIKE DAISY

“That’s your Mom’s name, right? Daisy? She came through this door?”  Gemma must be finished reading the letters and is translating, too, “Why was Daisy over there?” She asks, but no one responds.

But is it the waterfall? I feel like we’re all talking over each other, and no one will answer what feels like the absolute most important question: where did Grandma go?

YES! GET A BOX FOR ME!

“And Alfred took Daisy?” Gemma’s back to focusing on the letter, rustling the pages frantically, and it feels so loud. Everything feels so loud right now.

I hesitate. Do we have time for this? Grandma’s out there with a gun, and thinks an abusive man is on the loose. And how does Fay fit in a box? Does it matter what size?

How do people in movies always automatically know what to do in situations like this?

Does it matter how bi– I start to tap out, but Fay’s way ahead of me.

ANY BOX

NOW!

Flustered, I look around, but all the upended containers in the pantry are big and awkward to carry that far, or don’t close anymore.

Then I remember the tin in my pocket. 

“Why would Alfred take Daisy?” Gemma asks the pantry at large. Unfortunately the canned tomatoes don’t respond.

I pull out the tin and hold it in my palm.

“Moxie! That’s Fay’s favorite!” Gemma shouts, and points at it, triumphantly.

I open it, and the familiar scent of licorice and lavender floods my senses.

YES

Fay taps–in response to Gemma? The tin? There’s no time to try to understand.  Gemma’s beside me gasping and jumping up and down like she’s just solved a case.

“They swapped babies!” Gemma yells, and holds the letters in the air.

I can’t help it, and stop what I’m doing.

What?! I turn and ask it with my facial expression.

“I…I don’t know why yet,” she says, looking slightly crestfallen, and then perking up and talking faster as she continues, “but they must have swapped babies somehow, right? Daisy and Alfred, Jr. Your Grandma says her baby was a boy, and Fay’s favorite flowers were daisies–that can’t be a coincidence–and Alfred took Daisy for some reason so she had to come through the door again once the fire started and–”

We both jump as there’s a loud knock at the front door–an angry, official knock that we can hear all the way in the pantry.

Mrs. Stanford. 

I picture her standing there on that wonderful, safe, ivy-covered front porch, stiff and disappointed, with a frowning police officer, and the end of life as I know it clinging to their squared shoulders.

Gemma and I look at eachother.

She motions with a finger for me to be quiet, puts a hand on my shoulder, and whispers, “I got this.” 

And before I can argue, she’s shoved the letters at me, hitched up her backpack, and disappears out the pantry door.

HURRY

Fay taps urgently.

I hear Gemma’s footsteps slowly approaching the front. 

I place the tin, lid open, on the shelf in front of the pink door.

I don’t know if that’s right, but I hope so.

Gemma trips on the way there, and falls in the entryway with the stone tiles, where they can see her through the windows, and I hear her making a big deal out of having scraped her knee. 

She’s good at this stalling thing.

I feel Fay’s emotions swell as I tap out, Ready, and place my hand under the lid, prepared to close it.

CLOSE YOUR EYES

I remember Fay’s warning, about how life can leave marks on your soul. I wonder if mine is impossible to look at, yet, too–a wolffish, guilt-ridden Medusa of souls.

I close my eyes obediently, and there’s a flash of soft light that I can see even through my eyelids. I wait a second, then close the tin carefully.

READY

Fay’s tapping voice feels metallic from inside the tin. I put it in my pocket.

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Stanford!” Gemma says, too loudly, from the front door.

I tiptoe back through the pantry, out by the foot of the stairs, and reach for the handle of the screen door. I remember the way its hinges squeaked when we came in, and I cringe.

“Oh, yep. Imogen’s sick–poor thing. She’s resting, so I won’t disturb her.” Gemma speaks slowly, but confidently, and my heart’s about to burst with gratitude toward her–with love for the friend I never deserved who now stands on my front porch defending me.

I slowly, slowly ease open the back door as Gemma explains how a fictional version of me went to the drug store to get some medicine and Kleenex for Grandma, before we both planned to head to school, and then quickly changes the subject.

“You know I’m actually really interested in pursuing social work, like you, and I really need to know more about it so I can plan for my future, you know? Like what college did you go to, Mrs. Stanford?” Gemma’s peppy voice trails off as I slip through the door, and close it slowly, softly, behind me.

Staying low, I creep through the backyard to cut through to the street behind. The sky is still gray, and cloudy, and is starting to spit snowflakes that drift in the icy air and catch the red and blue lights from the squad car parked in the driveway as I make my escape.

With a ghost in a tin in my pocket, I head for the mountain.

Among the trees, there is time.

Time for it all to catch up with me–with us.  With Fay, the tinned ghost, and I.

My feet are racing down the trail, and I run as much as I can, but it’s a long way up the mountain, threading through the trees that reach their desperate arms toward the sky. I feel desperate, too, for a glimpse of Grandma, as I pass them.

I realize much too late that I left my whistle hanging from its hook by the front door at home. I can’t even try to let her know I’m here–to call out for her.

With every step, my brain feeds me horrors: 

What I could find around every bend in the trail, every tree.

That I might be too late.

That I might find nothing at all.

That all of this is my fault.

And that somehow, it also feels inevitable. Like it’s already happened–like I’m watching it repeat itself on stage in some twisted theater you can’t escape.

And Fay keeps tapping. My feet beat a rhythm on the frozen ground, and her metallic taps intertwine with them, desperate to explain.

I’M SO SORRY, JUNE

WE SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU

ALL I WANT IS TO MAKE THIS RIGHT

BUT I KNOW I CAN’T

Running.

Running.

I don’t respond to her–I don’t even know why. It’s like suddenly Dark June is out, and all I’m feeling is my own fault, and anger, mixed with the fear and the dread.

But why anger? At Fay? I don’t know. I don’t think so. It feels like it’s rising from a place that’s deeper than I am, somehow. A jagged hole opens up inside me, and I feel swallowed as I stumble over roots buried in the leaves and keep going, chest burning.

I THOUGHT IT WAS THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP DAISY SAFE

Finally, I bite. Still running, I reach for the tin in my pocket and tap back.

What are you talking about? I ask.

But somehow I know the answer–not the details. But I feel it, getting heavier and heavier as I climb. I slip and fall again and again, but it’s not the freezing mud clinging to my pants that weighs me down.

Something else follows me.

It’s been following me a long time, hasn’t it?

I grip the tin in my fist as I keep running and wait for the response. My eyes never stop searching the woods for Grandma, but it’s just brown trees and leaves the color of death and icy snowflakes, falling faster every minute. It’ll start accumulating soon.

WHEN IMOGEN’S BABY DIED

WE TOLD ALFRED HE WAS MINE

My breath is already ragged–but it leaves my body entirely as her words hit me. I lean against a tree and gasp for it.

Gemma was right.

You and Grandma swapped babies? I tap as I start to run again–breathless, still, but there’s no time. 

YES

OLIVE HELPED US MAKE THE SWITCH AFTER THEY WERE BORN

Olive? I ask, my fingers already starting to feel numb. How long have I been running? Where is the fork in the trail? Shouldn’t we be there by now?

OLIVE PERLMAN, ALFRED’S SISTER

SHE WAS A NURSE IN THE MATERNITY HOME

SHE BELIEVED US

I don’t understand, I tap. Why did you do it?

We reach the fork in the trail, and I go right, toward the waterfall. The mountain rises steeply ahead of me as Fay tells me her story.

I TRIED TO RUN BEFORE DAISY CAME

WE ONLY MADE IT TO THE CAVE WHEN MY LABOR STARTED

I TRIED TO KEEP GOING

BUT ALFRED CAUGHT UP

I push harder, and my lungs burn. It’s moving faster than me, this chasing thing. It moves quickly with Alfred, thirty-odd years ago, hunting down two pregnant women on this trail, who thought–hoped–they could outrun it, too.

But I know some of this story.

I know they didn’t make it.

I can almost hear it now, behind me, as I claw my way up this mountain.

HE LOST CONTROL. WENT AFTER IMOGEN.

EVEN THEN I THOUGHT HE WOULD DO BETTER–THAT HE COULD BE DIFFERENT

I see my Dad’s face, in the photo in Fay’s tin. He smiles, and smells of cedarwood.

And sunshine in a park.

And blood.

YOU KNOW WHAT THAT’S LIKE

I don’t answer. But I do.

She knows I do.

The ground is getting rockier, and the snow is falling faster. I start using my hands to steady my climb, and the cold stabs at my bare skin as Fay sobs from the tin:

IT WAS TOO MUCH.

WE HAD TO GO BACK, TO THE MATERNITY HOME.

IMOGEN LOST HER BABY, AND I…

I DIDN’T THINK I COULD LEAVE AGAIN

NOT WITH HIM WATCHING

HE WOULD PUNISH HER

My frozen fingers are already bleeding, but I keep going. This feels bigger than even finding Grandma, now—though I don’t stop searching, not for a second, through the snowfall and my pounding heart and the gnawing fear of what follows me.

Grandma’s running from this, too, isn’t she, and trying to protect us all–

Herself. Me. Fay. Daisy. 

And her baby boy.

The fear is part of what’s chasing us. But you can’t outrun this, can you? Not any more than you can outrun your eye color.

I FELT CURSED

LIKE THE BAD THINGS WOULD NEVER STOP

NO MATTER WHERE I RAN

Fay felt it, too, didn’t she? This tireless, invisible, chasing shadow I feel trailing behind me, steeped in Alfred’s inscription and Fay’s aching guilt from beyond and Grandma’s panic, scraping at the door, and Mom’s desperate eyes that day on the swings and Dad looking at his own strange hands after hitting her the first time.

I DIDN’T THINK I COULD GET OUT

EVEN IF I WAS PHYSICALLY OUT

BUT I HAD TO TRY TO SAVE DAISY

I’m at the steepest climb, the last big push to the top. I can hear the waterfall roaring as my lungs gasp in the icy air and I force myself to keep moving 

up, 

up, 

up.

OLIVE WAS KIND

SHE DIDN’T MEAN TO TELL HIM

BUT SHE DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO KEEP SECRETS

NOT LIKE WE DID.

Secrets. The shadow is laced with them. Fueled by them. Somehow, I know I’ve felt it before– it breathes them in deep as I whisper them, late at night, between nightmares. 

Don’t tell anyone, it whispers back. It’s safer this way.

What secrets was Mom hiding, that day in the kitchen? What did she whisper, that she couldn’t carry anymore–that came from deeper, and further back, than she knew?

The shadow’s too strong–much stronger than me–and it’s catching up.

ALFRED FOUND OUT AND TOOK DAISY BACK

IT WAS TOO LATE TO RUN

WE HAD TO FIGHT HIM OFF

We’re getting close to the top of the waterfall now–it’s almost deafening. I stumble on with the sound of it filling my head. 

WE DIDN’T MEAN TO KILL HIM

BUT HE WOULDN’T STOP

AND THAT’S WHEN THE FIRE STARTED

The trail turns left around a huge boulder that looks dropped here by giants, and

I see her.

Grandma–in her nightgown, boots on, hair loose, coat half-off and trailing in the mud, her hands and nose red.

AND IMOGEN WAS PUNISHED AGAIN ANYWAY

Grandma–fiercer than I’ve ever seen her, standing tall, shot gun at her shoulder, pointed toward the waterfall.

AND SO WAS DAISY

“That's far enough!” Grandma yells, desperate and aching, like the nights when she’s remembering, and it echoes in the trees.

AND YOU, TOO, JUNE.

Fay sobs it from the tin into the snow as I turn to follow Grandma’s intense gaze, toward the dropoff.

And there he is.

My not-real grandmother holds my father at gunpoint on a frozen mountain.

“Stay away from Daisy!” Grandma screams it against the world, against the shadow, against the secrets and all she’s had to carry—but the gun’s only pointed at Dad.

Does she know that? 

Or is it pointed at Alfred, too, in her mind?

At all of it–everything that’s brought us here in so much pain?

I’M SO SORRY, JUNE

Time slows down, as I watch Dad raise his hands and back a step toward the falling water.

And I realize I’ve been running for a long, long time. 

Longer than this trail. 

Longer than this year. 

I don’t even know if I’ve ever not run.

I don’t know if it’s even my desperate race for survival that I’m running.

Is it even Grandma’s? Fay’s? Her parents’?

How far back does this race go?

But I’ve been running it my whole life.

Running away from… something.

And now.

Now it has caught up with me. 

It opens its great maw.

I feel it grow and expand and encircle us all–the mother with the gun, the ghost in a tin, the abusive husband, and the silent child.

In this frozen moment, I see Mom’s blood on the floor again, in my mind.

Feel the tin digging into my hand as I ran away from her dead body.

Knowing she would never get up.

Never stroke my hair again.

Never call me “chick.”

This shadow is where the anger comes from–and the fear, and the shame. I’m not the first it has come to, and it gathers momentum as it climbs over us–over me.

Into me.

Here on the mountain, in the snow, Grandma takes a step forward.

We’re drowning in the shadow–in the whirling pain of it. Can they feel it, too?

It’s filling my every pore–I’m flooded with fear, and shame, and guilt, for us all.

In my head, in a swirl of memories that don’t belong to me, I feel the pang at footsteps approaching–a guilty sort of dread as I hide, knowing they’re coming for me. 

I feel Fay’s panic, and the pains of the baby coming as Alfred climbs into view. Confusion at what he once was, and isn’t anymore.

Grandma’s sobs are mine, as they carry a lifeless baby away too soon. The weight of her silent grief almost brings me to my knees.

I’m swallowed by Mom’s hopelessness as she looks at the pistol in her hands. By the shame of what she leaves behind. Of what she couldn’t carry anymore.

And I am

eaten 

alive 

by my own guilt on a swing.

“What do you think, chick,” My Mom asks, in a whisper, bathed in the golden light of that late summer evening, her eyes dark and sunken as she waits for my answer, “would you like to try living on our own? Just you and me? Away from Dad?”

By the waterfall, Dad’s face in the snow seems young, and terrified. I see him as a little boy, cowering in the corner from the shadow of someone bigger, and stronger than him. 

“This needs to be over.” Grandma’s eyes burn from the depths of this darkness that’s swallowed us all. Then, voice breaking pitifully, she cries,

“Why isn’t it over?”

The icy water flows behind Dad in slow motion as I remember my answer to Mom that day.

“No,” I say it from the swing, casually. Indifferently–like I didn’t even consider it–kicking at the grass. “I want to stay with Dad.”

I feel the sobs in my own throat as the shadow chokes me with the guilt of what I’ve done.

Keep it in, it whispers. No one wants to hear this. No one wants to know.

Dad’s face is still now, almost resigned.

He deserves many things, but not this.

Doesn’t he?

Shouldn’t you protect her?

Protect their memories of her?

Keep it in.

This is yours to carry.

It all is.

It always will be.

LET ME OUT, JUNE. 

I barely register Fay’s taps from inside the tin in my hand.

Grandma squints down the barrel and I see her arm muscles tense.

But it didn’t die with Alfred. It wouldn’t die with Dad.

The shadow has chased me, chased us, and made us run our whole lives—Dad, too.

But no more.

I turn to face it, head on. 

I run toward them, arms up, tensed to yell, to scream, to shout with every bit of anything I have left. 

For Fay. And Grandma. And Mom. And Me.

I feel Fay tapping, pushing, rattling the tin in my hand. I let it go, and it flies open into the snow.

I see her blurry shape, for just a moment, full of all the anguish that aches around us.

I breathe in deep, and fill my lungs with the smell of licorice and lavender.

I open my mouth in a silent scream, and suddenly it’s not silent anymore. 

I open my mouth, and Fay and I sing a duet of shame and blood and pain and truth on the mountain.

Her voice pours out of me as I throw myself in front of Dad—in front of the gun:

“STOP!

He didn’t do it–not this time. It wasn't him.

It’s my fault!

It’s my fault she died.”

---

---

Graphic Novel Development:

NEIL’S CHARACTER DESIGN

I don’t have too many solid sketches for Neil (that’s June’s dad)yet. I feel pretty confidant about that one labeled “young dad” on the far right—sometimes as I’m doing character design it feels like I’ve stumbled on an old photograph of one of my characters, right out of a moment in the story, and this was one of them—straight out of the trail in the woods around the time he and Daisy left together. The rest are rough, but a start.

I really haven’t had as much time as I’d like to flesh out all the characters yet, and that’s actually okay, because part of this whole exercise is to dip my toe in a bit to see if this feels right—if developing this story into a graphic novel is something I’d like to pursue further.

So far that answer is definitely yes, so I’m going to keep taking the next step, and then the next, as long as it still feels like the right thing. That means I have a lot more time and about a million more sketches to figure it all out in!

WITH A GHOST IN A TIN IN MY POCKET, I HEAD FOR THE MOUNTAIN

While it’s giving me lots of excitement for the long term future of this project, telling this story is really emotionally exhausting.

A lot of my own experience went into it, and every week as I sit down to record the audio voiceover for each chapter before diving into the graphic novel development work, I give it everything I have. (If you listen to this chapter, you'll hear me almost crying multiple times, and… …that’s not the first time.) It’s a good system—it helps me really get into the moment of the story, and how June is feeling in it, before turning that into visuals—but I realized this week, as everything comes to a head in the story, that I’m feeling about as exhausted as June currently is.

I’m sticking with the more-than-a-thumbnail-sketch-but-still-pretty-rough spreads, but even so, it took me a lot longer than it has been taking for me to somehow pull these two spreads together. I didn’t quite make it into the flashbacks I was thinking I’d get to this week, but I showed up! I did work! (Insert me giving two sagging but happy thumbs up.)

Also, I think I should note: I’m more committed than ever to telling this story.

It’s been incredible to see what unfolds as I allow space for it to breathe visually, and I really think there’s something here—both in the story itself, and in how I’m discovering a workflow.

Also also, if you have a second to comment and let me know you’re here, please do (remember, even a pancake emoji works)! I believe in the power of this story—even if only for myself—but it helps to know if it’s resonating at all with you, too.

We’re on the home stretch now! One more chapter to go.

If you’re enjoying Things Not Said so far, leave me a comment— even if it’s just a 🥞 emoji!

I know the pressure to formulate a comment can be stressful, but a simple digital stack of pancakes is all it takes to let me know you’re out there—and it all helps on this long journey to bring this story to life!

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