The Second Mother

by Jenny Milchman

  Callum dove beneath the patch of water where the dog had gone under. He didn’t resurface, both he and Depot vanished from view. After a moment, Depot’s big head appeared above water, the level top of his back visible too. It was impossible because no part of the dog appeared to be moving, certainly not fast, yet it looked as if something was causing Depot to skim along the surface of the sea.

  Then he was at the dock, propelled upward and onto the boards. Depot collapsed on the wooden slats, his whole body heaving. Callum’s head shot out of the sea, plumes of water cascading off him as he gasped for breath. Planting both hands on the edge of the dock, Callum hoisted himself up and sat for a second, raking in breaths.

  He had swum underwater the whole way, holding Depot clear of the sea.

  Callum got to his feet, calling out to Julie, “You okay?”

  She didn’t answer. The sea dragged at her limbs like a cape. The water felt almost warm now, or perhaps she had gone numb. It didn’t matter. Julie couldn’t swim any longer, could barely tread water, as she took in the blank swath of gray above and below. She heard Ellie’s far-off, lilting voice. Top and bottom match.

  All the grayness was a screen on which to watch the events of that terrible day. The sea clenched her in its unyielding grip while Julie squeezed rubber stroller handles, fistfuls of water that were impossible to keep hold of.

  There was a splash, and a second later Callum was beside her. “Swim!” he said. “When the tide starts going out, it’ll be impossible to get on the dock!”

  Julie’s legs dangled lifelessly beneath her. Her arms barely stirred in the water.

  “Swim!” Callum commanded. “Your dog’s waiting! Swim, for Christ’s sake!”

  He looped an arm around her neck from behind, trying a lifeguard save, but Julie resisted, wanting nothing more than to reach the depths she’d been seeking. The sea was like sodden cloths, a wrap or a shroud, pulling her down.

  “Swim, goddamn you!” Callum shouted right in her ear. “You’re needed on land!”

  It wasn’t his anger that did it. She had no idea how Callum knew what to say, but his words snapped Julie free, unlocked her limbs, and she started to swim.

  * * *

  She hauled herself upward, trying to grab hold of the slippery dock as the sea tried just as forcefully to take her back. Julie sucked air into her lungs while digging her nails into softened bits of wood. Depot was on his feet, pawing at the board she reached for. At last, Julie heaved herself onto terra sort-of firma, and Depot shook himself hugely, a waterfall of droplets upon her that felt like tiny icicles.

  Callum pulled himself out of the water behind her, then led the way across the boards of the dock, which were slick with seaweed and moisture. It was amazing to walk again, feel something semi-stable beneath her feet. Actually, the dock was solid enough—a bit rotten perhaps, but it was Julie’s own body that deprived her of stability. She was shaking so hard, her knees knocked together, and she could hardly stand upright.

  Callum came and took her hand, which jangled in his grip.

  “Hurry,” he said, giving her an assessing glance. “We need to get you warm.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Callum ran with Julie down the length of a dirt path that lay perpendicular to the mansion. Depot galloped alongside, compelled by a deep, instinctual knowledge that they needed to get in from the cold. At last Callum pushed through a tangle of branches, part of a copse of trees that concealed a small cabin.

  The front door was locked, if nominally—the mechanism looked easy enough to pick—but Callum slid up a window instead, hoisting himself over the sill, before coming around and opening the door from inside. Depot raced in. By the time Julie entered, Callum had yanked a woolen blanket off a couch and was holding it out.

  “Get out of those wet clothes,” he instructed, “and wrap this around you.”

  This time, Julie couldn’t project even a hint of innuendo into their interaction; she recognized the danger, and the thrum of urgency in Callum’s voice reflected it. Anyone who lived in the Adirondacks was at least on nodding acquaintance with hypothermia, a risk even at the height of summer, if wetness was involved.

  Callum crouched before a fireplace, examining a crisscrossed thatch of logs, while Julie stripped off her clothing. She mummified herself in plaid wool as Callum got up and headed for the door.

  “I have to go out for some kindling. Wait here.”

  Julie’s body was quaking inside the blanket, her skin ghostly and blue. “You…you…you must be pretty cold yourself. Maybe there…there are some clothes you can change into…”

  “No time,” Callum said, and strode out of the cabin.

  The cabin was seasonal, no central heat, plus the water and electric had been turned off, so neither the sink nor the stove worked. But in the galley kitchen, Julie located a pot and a can opener and some chicken soup. Holding one hand on top of the other to steady it, she managed to dump the contents of the can into the pot. They could heat it over the fire. She found a can of beef barley next and fed it to Depot straight out of the tin.

  Callum returned with an armload of sticks and twigs.

  Once the fire started to crackle, Julie nestled the pot between the logs. It was bubbling by the time Callum got back from upstairs, dressed in dry clothes that were a size too small. Julie spooned a serving into a bowl for him, and he nodded his thanks.

  Julie laid her clothes out to dry in front of the fire, then sat down, hands extended toward the flames. Depot trod over and dropped in a mountainous heap.

  “Better?” Callum asked.

  “Yes. Thank you.” The words were stupidly inadequate. Julie had no idea how to thank Callum for what he had done tonight.

  For a while, there was just the clack of spoons against bowls. The fire gained momentum, and Callum put another log on, sending up a spatter of sparks. They had denuded the neat stack on the hearth. Welcome heat spread out into the room.

  “Whose cabin is this?” Julie asked.

  “It belongs to a painter friend of mine,” Callum replied. “Renowned for his summer landscapes, he only comes to the island during the high season. This place has been in his family practically since Mercy was settled.” Callum let out something between a rasp and a laugh. “What the Hempsteads would give to have gotten their hands on it, back then or ever. But Andy’s famous, their money means nothing to him.”

  “Why would the Hempsteads want it so badly?”

  Callum gestured outside. “This parcel sits adjacent to their land. Splits off a wedge. It’s the reason the house they fixed up for their daughter is so far from the old manse. Maryanne would’ve preferred to be closer neighbors.”

  “She’s controlling,” Julie said, leaning toward the heat.

  “Only in the sense that her family’s in charge of almost everything around here.”

  Julie wasn’t sure whether he was joking or had given her a straight answer.

  Callum glanced at her sideways as he spooned up the last of his soup. “You froze out there earlier. Seemed like you couldn’t swim. Or wouldn’t.”

  Julie knew she owed him an answer, at the least an explanation for why she couldn’t give him one. He’d saved her dog’s life, and possibly her own. But talking about Hedley—even just thinking about her sometimes—was still the hardest thing for Julie to do. Clasping her icy hands into a knot, Julie sucked in a breath, surprised at what came out next.

  The truth.

  * * *

  The Everything Store had become a second home to Julie as she made the passage into motherhood: a source for the needed paraphernalia of the stage; a way to accomplish all the tasks that had become so difficult to fit into even a good day; and a distraction from all of the above.

  That warm July day hadn’t been one of the good ones.

  Hedley was in a rotten mood, ill with her customar
y cold, or perhaps it was allergies, a possibility the pedi had just started to investigate since who caught colds in summertime? Hedley wasn’t even in day care.

  There weren’t aisles as such in The Everything Store, more like nooks for table displays, and crannies filled with shelves. Julie pushed the stroller into every one of them, examining fun things like room atomizers and throw pillows stuffed with pine, while placing necessities into the basket below the space where Hedley dozed.

  The best thing The Everything Store offered was a tasting counter—especially since Julie’s days often contained not a moment to eat lunch—but it was always too crowded with shoppers to wheel up a stroller. Julie would tuck the pricey one they’d bought Hedley—thick, shock-absorbent wheels for the forested trails Julie took with the baby and Depot—next to a stand of souvenirs or rack of Wedeskyull wear, then dash back for a sample of locally made jam on homemade crackers or house-smoked sausage.

  That day they had coffee as well.

  They’d had coffee.

  Someone had sliced a blackberry pie—baked with berries currently growing thick on the roadsides—into sliver-sized samples, and next to the stack of boxed pies available for purchase, rows of Dixie cups gave off an intoxicating scent.

  It was her first real sustenance of the day. Julie had savored the brew, blowing on it, taking small, discreet sips. Standing a few feet apart from the counter to make room for other customers, the stroller tucked away. How long had she stood there, enjoying that rarest of treats for a new mother, a pause? Not just seconds. Minutes. Maybe as many as three.

  When she got back to the stroller, she had looked for Hedley right away to check on her; she remembered doing that.

  And for a blissful little while, she still had no idea what had happened.

  * * *

  Flames cast flickering shadows across Callum’s face. When he spoke, his voice sounded heavy with sorrow. “Someone took her? Did someone take your child?”

  Julie had finally stopped shivering, but her voice still shook when she replied. “No. That isn’t what happened.”

  Callum used a poker to stoke the fire, sending up a hot rush of air.

  “It was more horrible than that in a way,” Julie told him. “Because then there would’ve at least been an explanation, something comprehensible. Evil, but comprehensible. Also, then I could picture Hedley out there somewhere, safe.” Julie’s voice cracked before splitting. “Given or sold to parents who desperately wanted a baby.”

  “What then?” Callum asked.

  Julie stared into the flames till the orbs of her eyes felt heated, deadly. “She was just gone. Not gone like you said. But gone.”

  Callum gave a slow nod.

  “At first I thought she had finally fallen into a nice deep sleep.” The softest silence in the world lived in the circumference of a baby’s yawn. “After Hedley’s rough night—everybody’s rough night—I was happy for a moment. Can you believe that?”

  Callum lifted helpless shoulders.

  “But something made me take another look. Instead of just thanking God for small favors and not doing anything to disturb her.” Julie finally blinked, blessed relief she didn’t deserve. “She was just so still. Too still. And her skin—it had lost all the redness from her cold. It was this sort of palest blue, like milk. She was beautiful really.”

  “I bet she was,” Callum said softly.

  His gaze carried a message that Julie couldn’t stand to see, not then anyway, and which Callum visibly tried to suppress, but failed, settling in the end for simply averting his eyes.

  “I was a mother for just a second,” Julie told him brokenly. “Hedley was so young when she died. And I don’t know if you know how it is the first year when you’re so tired and overwhelmed and bleary all the time, everything in a fog. I blinked and it was over.”

  Callum turned his head back toward her.

  “The police came. They know me in my town; they’re family. But I don’t remember much after that.” Julie paused. “I could’ve saved Hedley. If I had been beside her. I would’ve seen, or heard, or felt when she started to cough or struggle for breath. Teachers in my district have to attend first aid training. I had the skills to revive her.”

  “Did the police tell you that?” Callum asked. “It was her cold?”

  “No,” Julie said after a moment. “The police and the medics and the doctor who performed the autopsy thought Hedley being stuffed up was just a coincidence. According to the death certificate, it was SIDS or some variant. But SIDS is just a meaningless term for we-don’t-know-what-the-hell-happened. I know, though. I know I could’ve prevented it if I had been where I should have.”

  Callum hesitated, then said, “Easier that way, I suppose.”

  It took a second for his words to penetrate, so lost was Julie to memory. “What?”

  Callum reached out, but she recoiled, and his face contorted. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to hurt you, but it sounds like you’ve been carrying around a load of guilt you don’t deserve. You said yourself—all the experts disagree with you. And so you’ve got to be asking, If I blame myself, then what am I spared? Maybe the knowledge that life can be a random crapshoot and tragedies happen that no one deserves. You ask me, that’s a whole lot harder to swallow than some fantasy of control.”

  Julie rounded on him, and Callum faced her just as fiercely.

  “I’m only trying to help—”

  “You should’ve quit with the swim and the fire.” Julie got up from the floor on legs that threatened to give out and snatched up her still-damp clothes. She went into a bedroom to get dressed, leaving the blanket in a heap on the carpet.

  On her way back out, she ducked into the kitchen to grab the bottle she’d spotted when she found the soup. Vodka, which she hated, but it would do in a pinch, and this constituted one helluva pinch.

  “Come on, Deep,” Julie said, voice trembling as badly as it had with the cold.

  Depot yawned and staggered to his feet, looking at her with reproach. Julie concealed the bottle by her side as she grasped Depot’s collar in one shaking fist.

  Callum had staunched the fire as best as could be done so precipitously, logs spread at a distance from each other, ash shoveled over their remains.

  He gathered his own wet clothes into a pile in his arms. “At least let me show you the way back—”

  Keeping her back turned to him, Julie pulled the door open, nudging Depot outside with one knee. “You don’t know the way,” she said, and left.

  Part III

  Mercy Me

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The woods were a jumble, Julie’s feet stumbling and her eyes unseeing, as if she’d already dipped into the pilfered bottle. A yawning opening in the trees let out on a sandy inlet that in a different mood, on a different day, or in a different life would’ve staggered with its beauty. To Julie now though, the sea was merely a guide, pointing the way back home. She cracked open the bottle as she dragged Depot along.

  The first taste of vodka was caustic on her lips, like acid; she’d always hated this stuff. But the second deep pull from the bottle went down easier, a beautiful burn on her brain, searing away the echo of Callum’s words.

  Not only Callum’s.

  That same thing had been said to her before. But her frantic and increasingly buzzed mind couldn’t compute the other source of the message just then.

  Everything had happened so fast tonight. She’d almost lost her dog—then nearly drowned herself—before telling a man she’d just met about a day she never spoke of and could hardly stand to recall.

  Julie took another slug from the bottle.

  Alcohol had always provided a slowing-down mechanism for her, even before her consumption increased with marriage to David and ultimately Hedley’s death. Without scotch, the world tended to rub Julie raw, all sharp points and serrated
edges. She hit them, tore against them, acted sometimes, made hasty decisions just to get away.

  She and Depot finally reached the house, Julie taking steady sips while she slopped a meal into Depot’s bowl. The dog descended on his serving as Julie raised the bottle in a silent toast, both of them refueling themselves after their ordeal.

  Tim.

  He had been the one to say something similar about guilt and grieving.

  Julie made her way over to her laptop on the dining room table. On Facebook she saw that her recent update had drawn a few Likes, although not one from David, and also that her husband had changed his relationship status to single. Julie ignored the lash of that, or muffled it rather, with another gulp from the bottle, navigating away from the site before she could post something revenge-stupid for David to see.

  I met a new man who saved me from drowning, then drove me to drink!

  Julie looked down at the neck of the bottle she clenched in her hand.

  Callum drove her to drink. David used to pour her drinks. But it was Julie lifting the bottle and opening her mouth, wasn’t it?

  After a moment, she set the vodka down with a solid thunk, glass against wood.

  In Tim’s last email he’d quipped that she had obviously found the one place on earth with worse cell signal than Wedeskyull, then added:

  I saw the pictures you posted. That island looks like a really nice place. I hope you remember what I said. You deserve a new life out there.

  Julie did remember now, despite the clear liquid sloshing around in her gut. How blame caused there to be two deaths for every one.

  And Uncle Vern—who knew something about being to blame—had said the same thing.

  You suffered a tragedy nobody could’ve done anything about.

  The only thing Callum had done differently was to finally puncture Julie’s ability to block out the words. And not even alcohol could enable her to keep doing that forever.