The Unmaking of June Farrow

June runs from the house. The man—who tells her his name is Eamon Stone—knows her, though she doesn’t know him yet. He finds her quickly, exhorting her to come back to the house before she’s seen. A police deputy sees them, and Eamon attempts to smooth things over. He says June has just come back from visiting her mother, who is doing better. Eamon tells June they met five years ago and are married but that she disappeared a year earlier. June is relieved when Eamon takes her to the flower farm and they meet Esther Farrow, her great-great-grandmother. June sees a young girl but cannot “bring herself to ask who she [is]” (108)—she is certain she doesn’t want to know. When June asks Esther about Susanna, she learns that it is 1951, and Susanna is dead.

June stays in the farmhouse after Eamon and the girl depart. In the morning, June asks Esther what is happening to her. Esther explains that the door appears to all Farrow women. They all eventually go through it, and time begins to fray when they do. Esther also tells June that the first time she traveled through time was from 2024 to 1946, rather than 2023 to 1951. The target year is determined by the locket watch. Finally, June learns that she can only make three crossings through time and has already made two in this body.

June’s grandmother, Margaret, alive, comes down the stairs. She is a young woman and embraces June. Esther warns June that she shouldn’t let Margaret get too attached—June broke both Eamon’s and Margaret’s hearts when she left before. Esther won’t tell June the particulars of why she returned to the future.

Esther takes June back to Eamon’s farmhouse. Eamon is angry with June but tells her she can stay until the door reappears. He reveals that Annie is his child with the version of June that came back five years earlier but that this version of June isn’t really the girl’s mother. When June suggests that she must have had a reason for leaving, he tells her, “[T]here’s no reason good enough. Not for what we’ve been through” (131). He leaves the house. June has a memory of swimming with Mason in the Adeline river, which she is sure has never happened.

In the morning, Eamon works in the fields, and Margaret brings Annie over. Margaret stays to watch the child. She tells June that they are cautious because when she left before, Annie had been home alone. June can’t believe she would have done that but feels sick at the thought that it could be true.

June experiences a vivid memory in another timeline, of meeting Eamon when his horse escaped. She eats an awkward dinner with Eamon and Annie and then searches the bedroom for clues. She finds newspaper articles about Nathaniel’s and Susanna’s deaths and a list of dates: 1912, 1946, 1950, and 1951.

June decides she must remember why she left. She tries to trigger memories by going about old routines with muscle memory. A police officer, Caleb, arrives to “have that little talk [he’s] been waiting so long for” with June, leaving after a tense conversation with Eamon (161). Eamon tells June that Caleb has been interviewing everyone about Nathaniel’s murder, which happened just before she left. She gets the sense he’s hiding something.

As Margaret watches, June works in the garden again. She wonders why she left, and Annie sits quietly beside her. When Eamon returns, he announces that June will go with Esther into town the following day to be seen and keep people from becoming more suspicious.