8. June
JUNE
I stare out at what might be the horizon, if it wasn’t so dark and the sea wasn’t also pitch black. Unsure why I don’t want to go home yet, the soft hope encapsulated within the walls of Birdies just felt a bit too much when Ashton’s lack of presence feels like a gaping wound in my side.
He’s only been gone a few hours.
“June?”
His voice soothes the ache. Then, a slight pause on his end of the line.
“Are you okay?”
I really consider the question. “He just… looks so much like my Dad.”
Which isn’t Trent’s fault, I know that. He’s just a kid who should never have been thrown into this mess. Sophie was, if nothing else, right about that.
At least things seem… manageable with Sophie now, after the party. Even with Eddie and Meredith running interference all evening, sneaking a teenager into a bar was, admittedly, a stroke of genius in getting Trent to warm up to us.
“I’m sorry I had to leave the party early, I wish I were there with you right now.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know,” there’s a shuffle down the line. “You sound so sad, I feel like there’s this unscratchable itch under my skin.”
My smile is weak. “Have you tried Benadryl?”
“I love you, you know that?”
“You’ll be back soon, right?”
In the silence that follows, a tear falls down my cheek. Pathetic.
“June…”
I sigh. “Ash?”
“They need me in Paris.”
“Paris?”
“Just a week,” he hurries to explain, though my heart is sinking. “I was actually wondering if you wanted to fly out? Join me for a bit?”
“I–” would love to. I’ve never been to Europe. That sounds romantic. We could have a real honeymoon. “I’m not sure that I can right now. With Trent and Mom and everything, it’s all just…”
“Bad timing?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s okay.”
I sniff. He hears it.
“It’s going to be okay.”
October 2025
Judge Carter’s gavel snaps me upright in my chair, which is my own fault, really, for being awake since dawn. The sleep I did get was turbulent at best after another of Mark’s seemingly endless late-night strategy visits.
The man has been convinced that today is the day he’ll manage to get them to drop charges. He’s practically vibrating in his seat next to me, twitching high on the adrenaline of it all.
He loves this, the stakes, the posturing, the sound of his own voice. But after almost three months of hotel living, of going over the same points over and over and over (of clinging to any information I can get about Ashton’s pre-trials), I can’t force myself to be optimistic.
Likely, this will all go to trial with the prosecution painting the Parkers as a united front. Unlikely, Mark has something up his sleeve that will change that, despite the efforts he’s gone to discredit the evidence against me so far.
It’s meant a lot of sitting on the sidelines, a lot of no, June, the optics of you attending Ashton’s pre-trials are bad—perhaps the only thing Meredith and Mark have both agreed on this entire time.
“We need you to be seen as an individual, separate from his influence, so his defense can’t drag you down with him.” (Mark).
“I know you want answers, but you have a no-contact order. There’s no way you can speak to him.” (Meredith).
Which sucks because some nights I lie in my fancy hotel room and struggle to even remember his voice. Let alone all the reasons I fell in love with him (so quickly, too quickly. What were you thinking?)
“Pretrial hearing in the matter of United States versus June Parker,” the clerk announces.
Mark rises smoothly despite his excitement. He doesn’t even look at me as he stands, which I’ve come to learn means he’s ready to tear into someone.
“Your Honor,” he begins, voice crisp, “the government’s case against Ms. Parker collapses the moment we examine the so-called evidence they’ve placed at its foundation.
What we have here are three pillars: one pastiche completed and sold without my client’s knowledge that it was being presented as an original; a series of manufactured emails tying her to her husband’s requests; and financial paperwork that bears her forged signature.
Strip away the electronic correspondence, and the government is left holding smoke. ”
I squeeze my hands under the table, nails carving crescents into my palms.
The prosecutor rises, who, in fairness, looks about as tired as I feel.
We’ve all been going over this for weeks.
“Your Honor, the defense is attempting to minimize. Though we have received compelling evidence to suggest the signature was forged, the fact remains that these are not mere studies or ‘pastiche.’ They are indistinguishable from protected works.”
Judge Carter adjusts her glasses, glancing toward Mark. “Counsel, do you have anything further before we proceed?”
Mark rises with that infuriating calm of his. “Yes, Your Honor. The defense calls Professor Daniel Aldrich.”
My stomach lurches. Aldrich. From NYU. I haven’t seen him since critique days when I was the student forever pushing too far with my so-called ‘pastiche experiments.’ Personally, I think he just has a vendetta against hot pink.
Mark’s idea to get him in was a mortifying one, but nonetheless a good idea.
A tall, slightly stooped man takes the stand, his salt-and-pepper hair more salt than I remember.
He doesn’t meet my eyes. Somehow that’s worse.
“Professor,” Mark begins smoothly, “could you tell the court your occupation?”
“I’m a professor of fine arts at New York University. I’ve been teaching painting, theory, and art history for over thirty years.”
“And do you know the defendant?”
“Yes. Ms. Holloway— ah… Parker, was my student. She studied under me for two years.”
A flush creeps up my neck. God, the things he could say about me.
Mark leans on the rail, deceptively casual. “Professor Aldrich, how would you describe Ms. Parker’s work during her studies?”
He clears his throat. “She was… notorious, I suppose, for her imitations. But she had a particular talent for pastiche, recreating the style of masters while inserting her own flourishes. She treated it as both exercise and expression.”
A ripple of quiet laughter passes through the courtroom at the word notorious. Even though this is the nicest thing he’s ever said about my work, I want to disappear into the floor.
Mark’s mouth flickers with amusement. “So you’re saying this wasn’t criminal mimicry. It was…?”
“An academic practice,” Aldrich says firmly. “Artists have always learned this way. The difference between forgery and pastiche is intent. June was never deceptive. If anything, she flaunted her references.”
The prosecutor pounces. “Professor, isn’t it fair to say the defendant demonstrated considerable skill at copying others’ works?”
Aldrich’s eyes harden. “It’s fair to say she demonstrated considerable skill, period. But her intent was never fraud. It was homage, satire, exploration. Context matters.”
Mark seizes the pause. “Thank you, Professor. No further questions.”
I grip the table, suddenly aware of Meredith’s hand on my shoulder. She leans close, whispering, “That helped.”
I nod, but my chest feels tight.
As Aldrich steps down, he glances my way at last—just a flicker. His expression is soft, almost paternal. Full of mortifying pity, just as I expected.
Even if Mark manages the seemingly impossible, how will I ever be able to show my face in public again?
The prosecution’s jaw is now working overtime. “Let it be known that the emails still demonstrate knowledge and intent.”
Emails. The emails. Perhaps the most surreal thing about all of this.
I’ve read them, the government’s packet, handed over weeks ago, with my name and address in the headers, polite correspondence about payments and deadlines and specifics I never sent.
Mark’s been trying to get them discredited for weeks now without much progress.
Seeing my own words forged was like finding a doppelg?nger trying on my skin.
Mark straightens, already pivoting to the next blow. “Your Honor, with the court’s indulgence, I have one final point of evidence…”
He slides a binder onto the table with that dramatic little flick of his wrist. I’ve not seen it before. I glance back at Meredith who just shakes her head, equally confused.
“The forensic analysis is clear: the emails originated from an IP address in Paris. All of them. While my client was verifiably painting and residing in Nantucket. She could no more have sent those emails than she could have been in two places at once.”
Paris.
The word slams into me, hollowing my chest. I grip the edge of the defense table, hard enough to hurt, because of course.
Of course it was Paris.
I hadn’t told anyone. Not Meredith, not Mark. Not because I wanted to protect him — though maybe I did — but I hadn’t thought… didn’t think… thought they probably knew when he handed himself in… but…
I stare at the wood grain in the table.
Had Ashton sent them? Had he borrowed my name, my address, like it was nothing? Or had someone else used him too? My mind feels like it’s unravelling at the edges.
Behind me, Meredith shifts. I can almost hear the quickened hitch of her breath. She believes Mark’s argument is a gift, the final blow, an actual shot. I know she does. And she’s right.
But for me, it feels like a knife has just been plunged into my stomach.
Judge Carter leans forward, fingers steepled. “You’re telling me the government’s star evidence places the defendant in Paris at the same time as she was confirmed to be in Nantucket?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Mark says. “We have affidavits from neighbors, timestamps from her phone and laptop, and security footage from the gallery in Nantucket and the Holloway Lobster Shack. All contemporaneous with the supposedly incriminating emails.”
The prosecutor bristles. “Spoofing IP addresses is not uncommon. The defendant could have routed her correspondence?—”
Mark pounces. “Or someone could have routed it in hers. That’s the point. And yet the government never verified the origin beyond the headers. That omission alone would embarrass a first-year associate. The FBI has built its case on digital sand.”
The judge tilts her head. “Agent Reyes?”
An FBI agent in a stiff gray suit stands, testifies awkwardly about chain of custody, about seized devices, about their assumption that the headers told the truth. The longer he talks, the clearer it becomes: they didn’t dig deeper.
Mark smells blood in the water. He goes in, merciless, hammering the agent with precise questions until the man is flustered, his answers clipped.
I watch, detached, like it’s happening on a stage. My life reduced to IP addresses, metadata, the kind of technical scraps that mean nothing to me except that they might be the thing that finally lets me go home.
Paris. Paris. Paris. Paris.
Denial is a funny thing. I loved (love) Ashton.
There might always be a part of me that wishes… that hopes… that begs on hands and knees and tears, that bleeds for it not to be true.
But every unravelling, every scrap of evidence, is just further for me to fall.
Down, down, down.
Paris, Paris, Paris.
He framed me. He betrayed me.
He didn’t love me.
How much longer can I deny it?
Judge Carter sighs, tapping her pen against the bench. “I am troubled by the inconsistencies in the government’s evidence. Without these emails, the case rests on circumstantial inferences and unfinished paintings. I am inclined to grant the defense’s motion to suppress.”
Paris.
Mark says something else, the prosecution counters. I sit there unable to process anything, unable to look away.
Freedom.
The gavel cracks again. “The motion to suppress is granted. In light of the falsified evidence, the court finds that the government cannot proceed. All charges are hereby dismissed.”
I sink back in my chair, dizzy, Meredith’s hand tightening on my shoulder.
Relief hovers just outside my reach. All I feel is exhaustion.
The words “charges dismissed” echo in my ears, but they don’t land. They bounce around inside my skull like they belong to someone else.
Distantly, I’m aware of Meredith whispering: “It’s over, it’s over, you’re free,” as though saying it twice will make it true.
Mark, of course, doesn’t whisper. He leans back in his chair, looking like he just won the Super Bowl.
“Told you,” his smugness practically drips off him. “Piece of cake. Never in doubt.”
I want to hit him. I want to thank him. I want to vomit.
Instead, I nod robotically.
“Free” is good. “Free” is great, even. But “Free” doesn’t answer the question clawing at my insides: Did Ashton do this? “Free” doesn’t explain Paris.
The courthouse blurs into a haze of marble and polished wood as Meredith steers me through reporters and cameras, her arm like a protective cage around me.
Flashes pop. Microphones thrust. I hear my name, my maiden name, my married name, my criminal name, until they all blur into static.
And then it’s over. A taxi. A plane. A ferry. The world peels away piece by piece until I am home.
Nantucket.
It feels like a dream. It feels… nothing has changed. The same seagulls swooping overhead, the same boats vying for space on the harbor. The town is quieter, now in the throes of the off-season, more familiar to me than bustling summers at this point.
None of it’s been utterly ruined the way my heart feels. Nothing is cracked and shattered and held together by painfully thin strings of hope.
Dissociation alone gets me back to the house, Meredith long since parted ways to detour to Boston.
There’s nothing in there, of course. No Sophie, no Trent. Just silence and the kind of dust that only settles when life stops happening.
I drop my bag at the door and walk straight into the center of the living room, desperate for some kind of relief, some kind of mental acknowledgement of this remarkable milestone.
Home again, home, after over three months.
No more convictions hanging over my head.
No more ankle monitor. Freedom, in Nantucket.
Back where I belong, where I’ve always belonged.
My body gives up the act first.
My knees fold, and I sink to the hardwood, palms flat against the grain. And I cry.
It rattles my bones. I choke on my own breath.
Three months of wondering, waiting, hoping.
And now it spills out all at once, flooding the empty house.
Free. Innocent. Cleared.
But still completely lost.