Second Nature

by Alice Hoffman

  He just couldn’t shake this feeling of dread; he was like an old woman, waiting for disaster to strike. Watching Adam Lubell goofing around after school, foolishly perched on the handlebars of his bike, Connor grew so disturbed he actually experienced some sort of relief when Adam finally fell and broke his two front teeth. Connor, who could ace all his classes with a minimum of work, now fretted on the days exams were to be handed back. He supposed that if you figured out the probabilities for catastrophe the results would be double any possibility for good fortune. In the fall, when his parents were still in the middle of breaking up, and he became accustomed to hearing them argue, sometimes he couldn’t sleep without the rhythm of their quarrels. His worrying got so out of control he started to read the obituaries in the Island Tribune, just to make certain no one he knew had died in the night.

  And then, in early November, when the trees were leafless and black and the twilight turned purple, he had a strange taste of grief. He’d gone over to the police station to ask his father for an advance on his allowance, for beer of course, though he didn’t plan to mention that, and found he’d taken a wrong turn in the hallway. Only days before, a five-year-old had disappeared while trick-or-treating. Because the little girl still hadn’t been found, several of the detectives had agreed to meet with a psychic from New Jersey, an ordinary-looking woman who wore a navy-blue wool coat and a silk scarf patterned with lilies. Connor happened to look through the glass partition to find the psychic staring right at him, or through him, and he felt himself get all cold, as if he’d stepped inside a freezer. He slipped into the office; it was possible that the detectives were used to his hanging around, and that’s why they didn’t notice him, or perhaps, like Connor, they were completely focused on the psychic. She described the sewer pipe that brought rainwater into the Sound and the usually shy hermit crabs, which had gathered around, drawn to the scent of candy. Connor listened until he couldn’t bear to hear more, and when he left he ran all the way home. The following day, Connor couldn’t bring himself to read the Island Tribune. He didn’t want to know that the little girl had been wearing a witch’s hat or that Milky Ways and candy corn had been scattered through the eelgrass.

  Everything was dangerous, that much was clear to him. Strangely, no one else seemed to realize this, so he kept his worries secret, especially from his parents. When he saw his father they usually went to McDonald’s or to Harper’s, the bar Roy liked, which served great cheeseburgers and tacos.

  “It’s not like this is permanent or anything,” Roy had told him after he’d moved out. He was living in an apartment in a big old house on Third, and he hadn’t yet gotten any furniture, except for a mattress, which he left on the floor.

  “Right,” Connor had said, and he kept his mouth shut. But sitting there, eating Big Macs out of the bag, Connor held no hope for his parents’ reunion. He could already imagine the furniture his father would soon have: a gray-and-white-striped couch, a brass pole lamp, and black-and-white rug.

  And now, tonight, on his own street, with enough beer inside him to make for a wicked hangover in the morning, Connor had that feeling all over again. Something wasn’t right. He ran past Marco Polo, and cut through the hedge of lilacs that separated their front yard from the Carsons’. Everything still looked the same: the slate path around to the side door, the perennial beds filled with tender new shoots, the bike he had left propped against the pear tree. But what he saw could be deceiving; if he blinked, just once, it could all disappear.

  Inside, at the end of the hallway, Robin was already at the Wolf Man’s door. When he cried out, she’d been washing her face. The warm tap water had immediately turned cold. She had been rehearsing exactly what she would say when she phoned Stuart in the morning. There was no other choice. She would simply admit to her brother that she’d acted on impulse. Now, having realized she’d made a mistake, she’d be more than willing to drive the Wolf Man back to Kelvin if Stuart would promise to review his case. But when Robin heard the cry from the guest room, she forgot Stuart completely. She went into the hallway, grateful that Connor had broken his curfew, because even after there was nothing but silence, she was afraid to open the guest room door.

  When she went into the room and found the bed empty, Robin felt as if she had imagined him completely. Such a thing was possible, after all; the roses in the garden would not bloom for another month, yet their fragrance had somehow been left behind from other seasons. The air through the open window was chilly and damp; in only a few weeks the crickets would begin to call, and their song would wake people in the neighborhood and make them toss and turn in their own beds. In the corner, the Wolf Man rose to his feet. Then Robin knew she was not about to call her brother in the morning. It was much too late for rational acts; plain logic had been surrendered hours before.

  “You’re not asleep,” Robin said when she saw him. For some reason she was whispering.

  He was still wearing the black overcoat, and although he wanted to go closer, he forced himself to stay where he was. He didn’t know what he might be capable of; he didn’t want to find out. When she took a step toward him, he realized that he was having trouble breathing. He held his hands up, the way he had when the doctors first came at him.

  “Go out, now,” he said. “Lock the door.”

  In the garden, beside the rose trellis, the white cat came out of the bushes and rubbed against Connor’s legs, then streaked inside as soon as the side door was opened. The refrigerator hummed softly and a grid of moonlight came in through the window above the counter. The cat mewed and jumped up to lap water out of a blue bowl left in the sink. Connor took off his sneakers before he went upstairs; a pulse at the base of his throat was driving him crazy. If he were smart, he’d concentrate on hightailing it into his room to make certain his mother wouldn’t find him in the hall and interrogate him on where he’d been on a school night. He’d throw himself on his bed, and sleep late, and mind his own business.

  Instead, he went on down the hall. That damn pulse was still there, as if he had swallowed a clock and it had lodged in his throat. He knew every corner of this house, every creak the floorboards made, but tonight there were shadows he’d never seen before, and for some reason he felt like a thief, in his very own home. When he saw that the guest room had been bolted shut he stopped and leaned against the wall. On any other night he would have been merely curious, he would have slid the lock open to see what was inside. It was his house, after all, there was nothing to be afraid of. But on this night Connor took a step backward. For the first time in his life he considered that his mother might have a few secrets of her own.

  When Robin unlocked the door and brought him his breakfast, she warned him not to be seen. He was not to go outside or stand by the windows while she was out, and most important of all, he was to make certain to be back in the guest room before her son came home from school. She was nervous about leaving him while she went to pick up groceries for dinner and flats of ivy, and she might not have gone if she hadn’t already committed to an appointment with a new client, about a job she needed if she was to pay this month’s bills. Still, she asked three times if he’d be all right alone and didn’t seem to believe him when he promised that he would be.

  He planned not to leave his room for any reason, but after Robin had gone, he opened the guest room door and studied the hallway. In spite of himself, he was curious about the way men lived. He used the toilet, the way he’d been taught in the hospital, then went downstairs, trailed by the white cat. While he investigated the living room, he remembered that some chairs went back and forth when rocked. Someone had once told him never to put his feet up on the couch. He studied the photographs on the mantel and the framed posters on the wall, but he avoided mirrors and was afraid of the blue light the TV sent out when he turned the set on.

  He had already eaten soup at the table, but he found the kitchen even more disturbing. Everything made noise; even the water seemed to explode when he turned on the
tap. There was food everywhere, but he didn’t dare eat, although the white cat jumped up on the counter, where a bowl of fishy paste had been set out. He thought about leaving and went so far as to open the side door, but the dog in the next yard barked at him, and he didn’t chance stepping outside. Later, he crept up to the attic, where he found a trunk full of tiny clothes and an oak box of chisels and knives the wood-carver had left behind. He took the sharpest of the knives, a small fierce piece with a handle that fit his palm. You never knew what you might need when you were dealing with men, that was the way he saw it, and later he hid the knife up in the guest room closet, deep in the pocket of the black coat.

  The house was not as uncomfortable as he would have imagined. Still, he did not feel right in an easy chair, beneath a bright light, and he found himself drawn to the cellar, where the walls were damp and cool and jars of raspberry jam sat on a metal shelf. He was there, exploring the cellar, when Connor came home unexpectedly, having decided that no one would notice if he cut his last class.

  It was a wet, windy afternoon; on the clothesline in the backyard, the white shirts Robin had hung out early that morning flapped and scared away the starlings. Before he went into the house, Connor stopped and looked up into the guest room window. Nothing. Of course. He’d let himself get spooked for no reason at all last night. He had to stop letting things get to him, inventing the possibility of trouble when there was none. He should be concentrating on enjoying himself, and that’s what he planned to do now, just grab his skate-board and meet his friends in the parking lot behind the market. But as soon as he went down the rickety basement stairs, Connor was no longer interested in finding his skate-board. The Wolf Man didn’t hear Connor until it was too late. Now he averted his face and stared at the floor; his back was flat against the wall.

  “What are you doing here?” Connor said.

  There was a baseball bat under the stairs, and if Connor was quick enough, he might be able to grab it and defend himself. But instead of attacking, the Wolf Man crouched down in the corner and hid his face in his hands.

  “Jesus Christ,” Connor said. “Who are you?”

  They both heard the door upstairs open. The Wolf Man flinched, and as soon as he did, Connor grabbed the bat and held it out. He felt as if his head was going to explode.

  “Mom?” Connor called up the stairs. “Don’t come down here.”

  Robin ran to the cellar door; potatoes and pears fell out of the grocery bag she carried. Connor swung the baseball bat just to let the intruder know he wasn’t dealing with a kid. He expected his mother to scream, but instead she slowly came down the stairs. She was looking at the man against the wall in some strange way, as if Connor weren’t even there.

  “Mom?” Connor said.

  Later, he realized she would never have told him. She would have left him in the dark, a child sent to bed after supper. He was already a man, but his mother refused to accept that. If he hadn’t stumbled into the basement, she would have kept this stranger a secret from him. Connor was furious. Why did she feel she always had to protect him? He slammed out of the house, then walked into town and talked Sal Penny into buying him a fifth of Irish Mist, which he drank at the arboretum beneath one of the last remaining elm trees.

  When he came home it was already growing dark. Homer mewed, greeting him, then wound around his legs while Connor vomited into the kitchen sink. It was a little after seven but felt much later, one of those damp April nights that made it seem as though summer might be years away. When the front doorbell rang, Connor went into the living room, still weaving from whiskey and anger, his face pale, his shirt messed and half unbuttoned. He stopped when he saw that his mother was sitting on the couch, in the dark, just listening to the doorbell. She looked up at him, then looked back at the door.

  Connor sat down beside her on the couch, and together they waited for the bell to stop ringing. At last it did, and Connor went to the window. He lifted the curtain and saw it had only been Mrs. Dixon, armed with one of her petitions for a moratorium on building on the island. He watched Mrs. Dixon cross the lawn to the Carsons’ house next door, scooting as best she could around Marco Polo, who lay belly down in the damp grass, letting forth his great rolling bark without bothering to move. It wasn’t until Connor let the curtain drop that he suddenly understood why his mother had not told him about the locked guest room. If Connor was a man, as he presumed himself to be, this moment had to come, when his mother looked to him not knowing what to do next, and he would be forced to become completely and instantly sober, whether he liked it or not.

  Each day, after Connor left for school, Robin came up to the guest room with armfuls of old children’s books. Later, she brought a tape recorder and a few books that had their own story tapes, so he could try to read along when she wasn’t there. She truly believed that once he could read and write he could decide his own fate; no one could come after him with handcuffs.

  “They wouldn’t dare,” she told him. “Over my dead body,” she whispered as she shifted the pile of storybooks on her lap.

  He knew when he made progress, because each time he did, Robin clapped her hands and smiled. He wanted to please her, maybe too much; he couldn’t get enough of that look she had whenever he did something right. But more important, he felt certain that if he learned to read he could figure out his way back home, and this made him an excellent student. Sometimes whole words jumped out from the page. Cat and dog, my and no, eggs and ham.

  Robin was proud of him, and that was good, but often he frightened himself by how much he knew. When he was given a pad of paper and a pencil one afternoon he realized that he’d already been taught to imagine he was drawing a snake when he wrote the first letter of his name.

  “What are you doing?” Robin asked when he began to write. “What is that?”

  He hadn’t known himself until he had spelled it out completely. Stephen. That’s what he’d been called.

  Robin had been delighted. She’d tossed a book high into the air and called him brilliant and suggested he practice writing every day. He did as she asked; he knew it was in his best interest. But the funny thing was, each time he printed out a word on a piece of lined paper, he felt as though he were losing something, as though the lines on the paper had somehow shifted, dividing him in two.

  With every word he wrote, with each book he read, he remembered more, as if he had to be reminded of the story of his own life. They had been up in the sky, that much he knew, when the flight from San Francisco to New York veered so far from its route that the plane wasn’t sighted until three months after its disappearance. Another month had passed before the search party reached what was left. By then, the remains of the passengers that hadn’t been carried off by foxes and hawks were so decayed even the tracking dogs refused to go close. The search party assumed there were no survivors, but in fact there was one. He was three and a half years old and had just learned how to whistle and spell his name; he could recite all of The Cat in the Hat by heart.

  Stephen planned to be a fireman when he grew up and own a white-and-black spotted dog. He was cheerful and good-natured and tended to see the sunny side of things, but he knew something wasn’t right when the clouds all around him began to move too quickly. As he looked out the window, he found himself believing that the sky was a dish without a lid. It was possible to rise forever, but once the fall began, the bottom was only inches away. It took a long time before he managed to get out from beneath the crush of bodies on top of him. The metal all around hissed and grew hot. Stephen recognized his father’s brown shoe and the pink baby blanket the little girl in the next row had used to play peek-a-boo. “I see you,” she had called to him. When he found his mother, he sat hunched over right beside her, waiting for her eyes to open, almost believing his cries could bring her back to life.

  He was an only child, well loved and well cared for. Every morning, his mother had served him oatmeal with honey. Every night, he’d been tucked into bed at seven
. They lived in an apartment where pigeons roosted on the window ledges; he liked the cooing noises they made, he liked to hear them flap their wings. When he climbed out of what was left of the plane and looked up, he was amazed to see that the sky he had fallen from was filled with light. There was nothing like this in the city, where a grid of metal meshing covered the windows. What was above him was so beautiful and surprising he couldn’t look away. It was as if he’d never before seen stars.

  When the big dog came up behind him she was so quiet he hadn’t known she was there until he turned and saw her face, near his own. She was gray with a silver muzzle and yellow eyes. Stephen’s mother had always warned him to stay away from strange dogs, but without thinking he reached out and touched the dog’s nose. She pulled her head back, startled, then pushed against his chest with her nose. She didn’t have a collar or a leash like the dogs that were walked around his block, but she made a little barking noise. Stephen’s face was still hot and red from crying. It was late September, but cold as a December day in New York; when he breathed out, there were puffs of smoke. Behind him, in the dark, the twisted remains of the plane made a sizzling sound. The big dog stared at the wreckage; she tilted her head, listening.