A wave of hatred for my mother suddenly rushes through me. I hate her for her infidelity and for keeping secrets that June is now being forced to face all on her own, secrets that I’m having to reconcile with even in death. It’s possible, I guess, to love and hate your mother at the same time. It takes a lot out of you, though, and my fading comes on fast.

JUNE

I wake slowly. The sun shines white behind my closed eyelids, and I realize it’s morning. I’ve slept right through the night. It must have been the weed and red wine. I’ll have to remember that magical combination.

My mind travels directly to Ezra and our kiss. It felt explosive and gentle, familiar and new all at the same time. Mostly, though, it felt safe. Not a feeling I normally have when kissing men. Not even Leo. When I kissed him, I felt as though I were on the edge of a cliff and might fall over it and lose myself completely. And with the men of my affairs, each kiss felt dangerous. I was risking everything to do it; I knew it; I’d set it up that way.

I didn’t have those affairs to be loved and cared for. I got that at home from Leo for the most part. I had those affairs to scare myself, to prove that I was still alive, not the ghost of some previous self. I used those men to define me outside my role as wife and mother.

I told them to pull my hair, to grab me, push me where they wanted me to be, to go harder, deeper. The more pain I felt, the more real I felt. I came home with bruises, sometimes even cuts. When Leo asked what happened, I brushed them off as trivial accidents, spills while out running or getting to the bathroom in the dark at night.

Each lie Leo swallowed felt like an accomplishment. I was winning at a game he didn’t even know he was playing, outsmarting my intelligent husband. I know now that I wasn’t outsmarting anyone. He wasn’t stupid, he was trusting, and that thought still breaks my heart.

The secrets I kept from May still break my heart too. I was practically living a double life, and my sister didn’t know anything about it. There were so many times I almost dumped it all at her feet but then stopped at the last moment. I didn’t want to make her an accomplice.

Throwing on some clothes, I go downstairs and make coffee and an actual breakfast, two eggs and toast. It’s as though Ezra’s dinner opened the gates of hunger in me and I can finally eat.