Chapter 6 - June’s Girl
Talia Voss spent the afternoon at her aunt’s house, listening to Ruth talk about loyalty as if it were a household appliance that could be switched off when it became inconvenient.
Ruth sat at the kitchen table with a legal pad, a cup of tea, and the expression she wore during transit-board meetings when someone had asked a question she did not intend to answer.
“You deleted the public video,” Ruth said.
“I edited it.”
“That is a nicer word for the same thing.”
“I kept the original.”
“Where?”
Talia took off her yellow raincoat and hung it on the back of a chair. “You know better than to ask me that.”
Ruth’s mouth narrowed. “I know you think secrecy makes you powerful.”
“It makes me harder to use.”
“You are seventeen.”
“That has never stopped anyone from using me.”
The house was warm, but Talia kept her silver rings on. She twisted the smallest one around her finger until the skin reddened.
Ruth looked away first.
“Did Elias say anything to you?”
“He looked at the camera.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“He said I was June’s girl.”
Ruth’s hand went still beside the tea.
For years, Talia had watched adults react to June’s name. Some became quiet. Some became busy. Ruth usually became practical. This was different. The silence seemed to move through her like a draft beneath a door.
“What did he mean?” Talia asked.
“You know what he meant.”
“I know what you told me.”
“Then believe what I told you.”
“That my mother died before I was born?”
Ruth’s eyes lifted.
Talia had not meant to say it aloud. She had carried the sentence for eight years, since finding the envelope behind the loose tile in the upstairs bathroom. The envelope had contained a photograph of June Rook holding a baby, and a note with no signature: She deserves the truth when it can no longer harm her.
Ruth had taken the photograph and burned the note.
She had not known Talia had seen it first.
“June was not your mother,” Ruth said.
“Then why did she have a picture of me?”
“It was not you.”
“The baby had my birthmark.”
Ruth stood too quickly, knocking her spoon onto the floor. “You don’t understand the circumstances.”
“Then explain them.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From my own name?”
“From hers.”
Talia left before Ruth could say anything else. She walked three blocks to the old pedestrian tunnel beneath the elevated tracks. Freight trains passed above, shaking rust from the beams. She sat on the concrete ledge and called the number written on Elias’s receipt.
He answered after one ring.
“You should not call me from your phone,” he said.
“You knew my mother.”
“Yes.”
“Was her name June?”
“Yes.”
“Was she my mother?”
The pause was not long, but it was complete.
“Yes.”
Talia closed her eyes.
The tunnel filled with the low thunder of an approaching train. She pressed the phone closer to her ear.
“You’re sure?”
“I was there when she gave you to Ruth.”
“Gave me?”
“That is not the word I should have used.”
“What word should you have used?”
“Asked Ruth to raise you.”
“Why?”
“Because June believed the people watching her would use you against her.”
“Who was watching her?”
“Calder Meridian.”
The train entered the tunnel. Talia heard only metal and wind. She held the phone in her lap until the noise passed.
“You knew all these years.”
“I knew you existed. June asked me never to contact you unless she died.”
“She died six years ago.”
“I failed her.”
The admission unsettled Talia more than denial would have.
“What happened?”
“She was driving home.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No. It isn’t.”
“Did you love her?”
Elias breathed in slowly. “Yes.”
The word did not sound romantic. It sounded like an old injury that had finally stopped pretending to be healed.
“Were you my father?”
“No.”
Talia looked at her hands. The rings had belonged to June. Ruth had told her they came from an estate sale.
“She gave me these.”
“She wore them when we met.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I bought them for her.”
Talia felt something inside her shift—not collapse, exactly, but lose its balance.
“Why did you recognize me?”
“Your eyes. And the way you hold your left shoulder when you are afraid.”
She almost laughed. “That’s not proof.”
“No. The name is.”
“What name?”
“June called you Anna when you were a baby.”
Talia stopped breathing for a moment. Anna was the name on her birth certificate, changed to Talia when Ruth adopted her.
“Why did you say nothing?”
“June believed silence was the only inheritance she could give you.”
“She was wrong.”
“Often.”
Talia took the memory card from the hidden pocket in her boot. “The original video shows Sloane taking something from you.”
“The archive key.”
“I can give you the recording.”
“Why didn’t you before?”
“Because I wanted to know if you were going to lie.”
“About what?”
“About June.”
He did not answer.
Talia said, “I cut the public clip because Sloane was visible in the missing seconds. If the video showed him, the people who sent him would know I had the original. I thought I was protecting myself.”
“And now?”
“Now I think I was protecting him.”
“Those are sometimes the same thing.”
She heard footsteps at the mouth of the tunnel.
“Elias.”
“What?”
“Someone is here.”
“Go toward the station entrance. Do not run.”
She stood. A man in a dark cap waited beyond the concrete pillars. He did not approach. He only watched her put the phone away.
Talia walked toward the stairs with her shoulders loose and her face blank. At the top, she turned once.
May you like
The man had disappeared.
In her palm, the memory card felt warm.
