The Second Mother

by Jenny Milchman

  Maybe the grandmother had stopped by to chastise her. If so, she wasn’t still here; no way could such an intimidating presence be missed.

  Julie went to finish her lunch. She had just downed the final gulp of iced tea when she heard a door slam shut and jumped to her feet.

  “Hello?” she shouted, this time with annoyance.

  A voice called out in return. “What’s this I hear about some lights?”

  * * *

  Julie walked to the threshold of the teacher’s room and came face-to-face with the man she’d met on the ferry. The hallway was cramped, and the new arrival stood close enough that Julie could see a shadow of fuzz on his jaw, smell the scent of seawater on him. His black hair glistened as if he’d just come off a boat again.

  “Lights?” Julie said. Then she added, “Were you here a few minutes ago? Did you leave and come back?” Lovely. A xenophobe and an interrogator.

  “Somebody else must’ve stopped by,” the man replied. “I just arrived.”

  Julie gave a nod, though she couldn’t imagine why whoever it was would’ve left without a greeting.

  “I’m Callum McCarthy.” The man’s tone was friendly enough, though the lines carved into his face looked as hard as fissures in rock.

  Julie’s own face felt stiff and unruly, her mouth unable to form a smile. “Julie Weathers. We met once actually. Not met-met, you know, it was just for a second. On the ferry.” She was stumbling over her words like a schoolgirl. Oh God, did this man throw her because she found him attractive? Julie hadn’t felt such a thing in so long, its prospect was all but unrecognizable.

  “I remember,” Callum said. “You have your sea legs yet?”

  “Getting a little steadier,” Julie said, instantly replaying her reply in her head and hearing their whole exchange as one giant innuendo. She sensed her face turn red and looked away.

  Callum brought his palms together. He had good hands, knuckles like knots of wood. “Well, let me help with what else needs doing.”

  Now that really did sound like an innuendo. Julie blushed again before recalling that Ellie had promised to find someone to address the light situation up in the loft. Julie supposed she’d made a good choice, given how ancient and weather-beaten the rest of the options were supposed to be. She led the way down the hall to where the loft opened up beside the bank of filing cabinets.

  Callum scaled the ladder, muscles rounding as he mounted it. “What would you like to see here?” he called down.

  You. Climbing that ladder again. Julie clapped a hand over her mouth, half-afraid she’d spoken out loud. She was aghast at herself, but also, if she was being honest, a tad delighted. David hadn’t incited this much feeling in her since the first days of their relationship; possibly—assuming honesty was still on the table—not even then. He’d slipped out of her life as easily as a stitch from a thread. Which was awful and astounding and exhilarating all at once.

  Callum leaned down. In the dimness there was a heavy cast to his expression, a weight, and Julie realized it was this more than anything that spoke to her.

  “Lighting for the loft space?” he asked from above. “Or spotlights, say, for the stage?”

  Julie felt a catch in her throat. “Oh.” Her rummaged thoughts and feelings aside, what if she could do a play? Back in Wedeskyull she’d had to content herself with temporary pallets in the gymnasium whenever a show was put on, and there hadn’t been a budget for any sort of production at all over the past three years. “Could you do both? Spotlights would be wonderful.”

  Callum took a walk around, hunched low beneath the slope of the ceiling. “No reason why not.” A final assessing glance, then he backed down the ladder, skipping rungs.

  The space was tight at the bottom, and Julie tried to get out of the way, but she and Callum wound up facing each other. They stood close enough to confirm the look of torment on the man’s face, or more precisely, in the depths of his eyes. Julie had the most implausible urge to try to ease it. How? She didn’t even know this man. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what had gone wrong in his life.

  She shrank back against the wall so that he could get by, and felt dampness on his clothes, sufficient to cool her. “Thank you so much for—” she said, just as Callum made a lame crack, something about expanding this narrow hall while he was renovating, and their voices wound up in a tangle together.

  Callum ducked his head, acknowledging the misspeak, then twisted to maneuver past Julie. At the moment that their bodies crossed, one of them—or was it both?—shifted, moving by mere inches, but enough that their faces grazed, maybe even their mouths.

  And Julie stood there, watching her chest pump hard with her breaths, trying to figure out what had just happened, while Callum, his expression fiercer than ever, left the schoolhouse.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  After a second drinkless night, and another morning spent reaping the benefits—maybe this would be easy, one part of her thought; maybe you’re having a sobriety honeymoon, thought another—Julie spent the next day going over the lesson plans she’d used back in Wedeskyull. Her eyes went bleary, staring at computer files, and she sliced two paper cuts in her skin, riffling through worksheets she’d had sent on ahead.

  When her mind frayed from the sheer volume of her task—nine grades in a single classroom; what had she been thinking?—Julie found her thoughts wandering to two things, one pleasant, the other terrifying. Callum first. The intimate if inadvertent contact between them had cast into sharp relief how long it had been since Julie had wanted to be close to anyone. It was a sudden but not unwelcome change.

  Then her mind shifted to the more pressing matter—what it was going to be like to be surrounded by children again.

  Taking the walk along the cliff with Peter had constituted the most responsibility she’d had for a young person since her daughter had died. Soon twenty charges would be in her care, and the weight of it felt immense, like the whole sea upon her. Yet at the same time—dazzling. A chance to do things right.

  After lunch and a walk with Depot, Julie returned to organizing her curricula. The next step would be reconciling it with what the last teacher had left, a challenging task, especially because the requirements differed somewhat by state. Julie had found the teacher’s work to be thorough when she’d looked it over at the schoolhouse yesterday. She wondered why the woman had chosen to leave. The quality of life on a small island? Or the demands of the job, multigrade teaching, which Julie had just been ruing herself?

  She wandered into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of lemonade, focusing on the intensity of the sweetness, the way she could taste things in a whole new way now. Still, the thought of the empty evening that lay ahead was daunting. Alcohol had the ability to haze out time, strip away many of the features and facets of everyday life in all their uncertain ambiguity and collective messiness. Julie wasn’t sure if she could weather the entire lot of them, every single one, unshielded.

  Back in the hall, she called for Depot to go on his third walk.

  When the two of them got outside, Julie’s spirits lifted, seeing a small figure come up from the cliff. Ellie ran around the side of the house, lifting her hand in a wave. She wore linen slacks and a buttercup-colored shirt, a matching headband holding her short hair back. She looked like an advertisement for the yachting life.

  “The Hempsteads are throwing a party in your honor,” she told Julie. “A combined end-of-summer, back-to-school, and welcome-to-the-island kind of thing.”

  “Oh, they are not,” Julie responded.

  Ellie frowned.

  Julie clutched her by the arm. “I haven’t even gotten a chance to tell you yet, where have you been?” Before Ellie could answer, Julie went on. “I’ve been buried in work myself. But Peter came back—just appeared in my bedroom, it was the scariest thing—and I had to bring him to his grandparents. Because I
didn’t know where his own house was. Anyway, they hate me,” she concluded. “The grandmother anyhow. She probably wouldn’t invite me as one of the guests, let alone host a whole get-together on my behalf.”

  Ellie had gone silent, taking in Julie’s news.

  “But on a brighter note, I’m getting the lights done,” Julie went on. “Thank you very much for that.”

  Ellie stared at her. “You have completely lost me. Peter came over again… Did you say he was in your bedroom? His grandmother hates you, and thank me for what?”

  Julie heaved a breath. “I’ll catch you up. Want something to drink?”

  She instantly regretted the suggestion, but Ellie didn’t appear to have brought any wine this time, so Julie poured them both glasses of lemonade, suppressing the thought of how much more refreshing it would taste with a splash of scotch. They took their glasses back out on the lawn so Julie could watch for Depot. She spread a blanket across the scrubby ground, and gave Ellie the full update, ending with her encounter with Callum.

  Ellie shook her head. “That’s just par for the course for Mrs. Hempstead, she doesn’t like surprises. And I didn’t have a thing to do with the handiwork, FYI. I think you must have a fairy godmother on this island.”

  Julie realized that Ellie would’ve had no idea when Julie would be at the schoolhouse in order to arrange the timing of Callum’s visit. She hadn’t even been home when Julie passed by. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Because Callum and I did sort of, um”—she broke off, giving Ellie a quick look before going on in a rush—“kiss, in good fairy-tale form.”

  “What?” Ellie squealed. “Wait a minute, go back! You kissed?”

  Julie instantly regretted her pronouncement. “Well, not really. It was more that we were standing kind of close, you know how tight it is below the loft, and then our faces turned, and so we just brushed—”

  Ellie had dropped her empty glass and was rolling around on the ground. “I can’t believe it. Less than a week on-island, and you’re already making out with our men.”

  “One man!” Julie cried. “And we definitely did not make out.” Suddenly, she was stricken by a vision of herself, as if she were floating above, watching as she sat on a blanket with a friend, laughing and sipping straight-people drinks and gossiping about guys. And no voice was even chiding her. Is that okay, Lilypad?

  “So, this party?” she asked. “It’s really happening?”

  “Sure is,” Ellie replied. “A little last-minute, but the Hempsteads know everyone will come when they beck or call.” A pause to deliver a wry grin. “Go in and change. It starts in half an hour.”

  When Julie got back outside, wearing a sundress she hoped would suit whatever the island dress code decreed, she whistled for Depot. Ellie dashed in for a bathroom break while Julie picked up the blanket from the ground and began folding it, just as Depot emerged from the woods. His snout was smeared with something black; Julie wiped it away with a corner of the blanket.

  “You get into something, Deep?” she said. “I hope you don’t get sick.”

  Ellie came back out while Julie was still rubbing at Depot’s face. The dog started wrenching in her hold, a battle Julie knew she’d never win.

  “Fine,” she said, letting go. “But you’re still all gooey.”

  Depot backed away, pawing at the ground and rubbing his snout in the dirt. He looked up, whined, and padded off farther.

  “Don’t blame me, I tried to help,” Julie told him.

  “No greeting?” Ellie said. She grinned at Julie as she spoke to the dog. “I get it, don’t worry. I come second out of your mama’s new best friends now that there’s Peter.”

  Best friend, Julie heard, with a small charge of pleasure as she smiled back at Ellie. “He does seem attached to him already. Peter, I mean, to Depot.” She hesitated. “You said you’re friendly with Martha. Do you know if Peter’s had issues in the past?”

  “Well, his dad died, just last spring,” Ellie said.

  “Right,” Julie said. That could certainly account for a lot.

  “But no, overall Peter’s a pretty impressive kid. He has a lot going for him.” Ellie shrugged. “A boy and his dog, I guess. Even when it’s not his own.”

  “I guess.” Julie crossed the yard to where Depot hovered at a distance. She leaned down, depositing a kiss on his head. “Time for you to go inside, and us to go party.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It didn’t occur to Julie until she and Ellie were walking, following the long, grassy lane that lay to the left of the cliffs. If she’d already grown impatient with her unspiked refresher at home, how the hell was she supposed to make it through a whole party?

  These islanders probably even favored Julie’s drink of choice, at least some of them. It was the preferred nectar in tough climates, bracing and able to beat back the cold. This entire night was going to be awash in scotch.

  Before getting to work that morning, rolling over in bed, Julie had spied a calendar pinned to the wall. Beachy shots, coastal living; she’d never noticed it before. The calendar was old, dates a year in the past, but that didn’t matter. Julie had flipped to the correct month, and secured the page with a thumbtack. Then, almost idly, not wanting to jinx anything yet, she’d drawn a slash across two of the squares.

  How Julie wanted that row to continue! She could already envision the dissection of a third box with a clean, neat line, how it would feel to wield a pen against her opponent of days.

  She stopped walking. “Oh shoot. I can’t go. I don’t have a gift.”

  Ellie tugged her on. “You’re the guest of honor. You don’t need to bring a gift. Besides, I didn’t bring one either.”

  “You’re a local, it’s probably no longer expected,” Julie protested. “But I’m trying to correct an impression here.”

  Ellie bit out a laugh, still pulling her forward. “No one could give anything to the Hempsteads. They have everything. And what they don’t have, they just take.”

  “They don’t sound like the nicest neighbors,” Julie said, reluctantly allowing herself to be drawn ahead.

  “Let’s just say you’re probably not the only person to have been threatened on the Hempsteads’ lawn,” Ellie told her. “But not tonight. Tonight is going to be fun.”

  The sounds of celebration filled the air as the mansion came into view. Music played—from the occasional off note and stutter, it seemed to be live; a second later, Julie spotted the band—and voices could be heard soaring upward, words and laughter dispersing like embers through the early evening sky. People began to turn and point at the horizon. The sun was setting dramatically over the sea, gilding the clouds with gold. After an untold number of such spectacles, nobody seemed inured to the sight.

  Julie murmured aloud, and Ellie smiled at her. “Even more incredible than back at your new place, right?”

  Julie nodded. “How come?”

  Ellie gave a shrug. “My father always talked about topography, how the cliffs are lower here. Crumblier too. This part of the island—it’s like the sea wants it back.”

  Julie felt a slight shiver as night came on. She stared out at the slow, churning mass of water. “That puts the beauty in perspective.”

  Ellie hesitated. “We’re lucky here on Mercy. Did you know there are entire fishing communities whose livelihood is going to be wiped out, probably within our lifetime? Crabbing on Tangiers in the Chesapeake Bay, for example. Or Ocracoke on the Outer Banks. A hurricane almost did that one in. Whole islands lost, swallowed by encroaching seas.”

  Julie shook her head. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “My father used to say ‘Go south to fish, but go north to get rich.’”

  “He was a highliner,” Julie guessed.

  “The highliniest.” Ellie squeezed her arm. “Hey, that guy standing over there is our constable, Paul
Scherer. He’s also the superintendent, so kinda your boss. Let me introduce you, then I’ll go find Mrs. Hempstead, try and soften your next encounter.”

  “If you can pull that off, I guess you’re my fairy godmother,” Julie said as Ellie steered the two of them toward a short, stout man with a bristly mustache.

  “And what can I bring you to drink?” Ellie asked. “If I don’t get my hands on whatever red they’re pouring, I won’t make it through the night.”

  Julie laughed feebly. “I’m okay for now, thanks.” She smiled at the man Ellie had just led her up to. “Mr. Scherer,” she said. “It’s so nice to meet you. I hear you know a lot about the school.”

  * * *

  Ellie didn’t come back right away, but there were dozens of guests in attendance who came over, eager to greet the new teacher, and spared Julie any awkward moments alone. Everyone appeared to have dressed for the occasion, slacks and shirts on the men, sundresses for the women, although the aroma of sea and salt and fish hadn’t been entirely scrubbed away. Perhaps it never could be.

  Laura Hutchins stopped by to say hello and goodbye; it was her last night on the island. There didn’t seem to be any kids at this party, so Julie didn’t get to meet her students-to-be, but parents and other more distant relations, the islanders a mesh of family connections, still meant that she practically had people standing in line.

  At last the crush began to wane, and Julie was left, mouth dry from all the talking she’d done, a table with a server pouring drinks behind it all too visible in her line of sight. Julie headed over, threading her way between people she’d spoken to, nodding and smiling to acknowledge recent remarks.

  “Yes,” she said to an elderly woman she had just met. She stifled a cough, in need of a coating on her throat, as if salt from the sea had rid the air of moisture. “It is even lovelier when the sun goes down.”