The Second Mother

by Jenny Milchman

  Nineteen children accounted for.

  She issued an order for everyone to stay in their seats and begin homework, then hurried as fast as she could without appearing panicked to the teacher’s room. Depot lay with half his body wedged under the table, the other half lolling out.

  When Julie walked in, he opened one eye, blinking wearily.

  “It’s okay, Deep,” Julie whispered, her heart still pattering. “Go back to sleep.”

  She returned to the classroom. The children had obeyed her instruction to stay seated, conspicuously and studiously so, in fact. They stared intently at their desks, refusing to meet Julie’s eyes, clearly sitting on some knowledge yet unwilling to sell out their leader.

  “Ms. W,” Macy said, then stopped.

  The sixth-grade boys all sent her daggered looks.

  The students in the lower grades looked worried, but not even their youthful tendencies to tattle overrode the allegiance to Peter that had been so thoroughly instilled.

  Macy’s gaze flicked. Just the slightest twitch of her eyes, her face stayed still and forward, but Julie strode in the direction of the barn doors. As she pulled one open, the widening triangle of space revealed Peter, crouched by the tidal pool they’d explored as a class earlier.

  Something was floating in it.

  “Stay where you are,” Julie commanded the rest of the class. Leaving the door partway ajar, she went outside.

  She skirted the biggest of the boulders, stepping onto the humped backs of smaller rocks and into dips between them. Peter was intently studying whatever lay in the pool. Not even the squawks and screeches of seagulls, the uneven wheeling of their bodies overhead, disturbed him. Carefully, deliberately, Peter lowered his hand into the tide pool and, in one clean motion, scooped out the object that had been resting on its surface.

  A pale-gray bird, a smaller version of the ones aborting dives and shrieking angrily from the sky. Motionless on Peter’s palm, as still as a shell.

  “Peter!” Julie called. “It isn’t safe to touch a dead animal. Come inside and wash your hands—”

  He clearly hadn’t been aware that she was there, but once the momentary shock of her arrival passed, Peter settled into his customary wordless demeanor. He had the hardest edges of any child Julie had ever met, all Lucite corners and razor rims.

  Lifting his hand with the dead bird upon it, Peter sent Julie a look every tween knew how to deliver.

  Dare me? it said.

  Then he folded his fingers and squeezed.

  * * *

  Peter raced across the hunched bodies of boulders as if they were no trickier terrain than a road, elbowing past Julie, who had gone numb and motionless upon seeing the boy’s act of brutality. He ran with the bird still clenched in his fist. He was going to show it to the other students, and the horror of that catapulted Julie into action.

  She also began to run, nowhere near so fleet as Peter, straining an ankle as she leapt between rocks. She caught up to the boy just before the barn doors and seized his hand, the one not cupping the bird, in hers.

  “No,” she told him, pitching her voice low. “Stop.”

  But Peter twisted and wrenched in her hold, finally breaking free. He gave Julie a shove so hard she stumbled, then slid through the space in the partially opened door. Julie squeezed in after him to see Peter squatting beside the stove. Not showing the other children his fiendish display. Just hunched over, staring at the corpse. Did he mean to put it in the stove? Cremate it?

  Julie whirled in the direction of the desks, where the students looked on, unperturbed. They seemed to have zero inclination to question any action taken by their king. And from their angle, they probably couldn’t even see the bird anyway; Peter’s murderous fingers sheltered it from view.

  Then the bird’s wing twitched, and both Julie and Peter let out a shout.

  She didn’t waste any further time considering what might be wrong with Peter. He no longer held a dead bird, but a hurt one, and this Julie knew something about. More than once a bird had been knocked out of a tree whose branch presented too tempting a wrestling partner for Depot, or got trampled accidentally under one of the dog’s paws.

  Ever so gently, slow as honey trickling, Julie helped Peter slide the bird from his hand to hers, and this time, he didn’t fight her.

  She turned and faced the hushed classroom.

  “Okay, children,” Julie said. “Who wants to learn how to rescue a bird?”

  * * *

  School had officially ended, so Julie dismissed everyone, saying she would give extra credit in science to whomever stayed. A few had to leave for the trap house or to help with the day’s haul, Eddie included. A chorus of voices jeered at the boy as he fled.

  “You couldn’t get a bug off the bottom if it crawled into your hand.”

  “Where you off to so fast, your dad’s heap of splinters?”

  “Hell, no, his dad drives a boat for someone else! He don’t have one of his own.”

  “Quiet!” Julie commanded.

  Peter had remained behind, wordless and watching, and Julie aimed the lesson in his direction since the students all hovered around him anyway.

  “Allowing the bird to warm up slowly is key,” she explained. She carefully tilted her hand, showing them the gull. “It’s in shock. Can anyone tell me what shock is?”

  A bouquet of hands shot up, fingers fluttering for attention.

  The seventh-grade boy shouted out, and Julie checked him mildly, calling on one of his friends to make the point, and acknowledging the girl’s answer with a very good. “The first thing we need is a box—there’s probably one in those cabinets beneath the stage. Katy, can you take Tessa and go look?” Julie asked, selecting a fifth grader to accompany the little one, and summoning the seventh-grade boy back when he started to go without being told.

  Both girls ran off, and the other children crowded around Julie, the seventh-grade boy reaching to stroke the bird as Julie guided his hand away.

  Katy and Tessa returned, balancing a carton between them.

  The bird’s body was starting to thrum in her hand like a miniscule engine. They had to get it to eat something, then leave it tucked away to rest.

  “But what do you feed it?” a younger boy called out.

  “Hand, please,” Julie said. “Then I’ll tell you.”

  The boy raised his hand.

  It was lucky she had brought Depot today for the answer to the boy’s question was a mash of dog or cat food. Julie led everybody into the teacher’s room to put together a convalescent meal, and the class completed the final few steps of creating their schoolhouse rehabilitation center.

  Peter hadn’t made a move to help.

  “Hold on,” Julie told him, after she’d let the rest of the class go.

  She needed to ask the boy what had happened with Depot, why he would’ve left her dog at the base of the cliff, but Peter had unraveled at each mention and sight of him today. Julie didn’t want to chance a straight-on confrontation, especially right after Peter’s second near-fatal encounter with an animal.

  The boy faced her, legs in a wide triangle, taking up as much floor space as possible, chin lifted in defiant display, hands jammed to distend his pockets.

  “I have your house as being on the road that runs behind the restaurant. Harbor House. Is that correct?” The road didn’t seem to have a name; addresses were a funny thing on Mercy Island. Descriptions for students’ residences contained notes from the prior teacher like on the second rise after the post office and third up from the high-tide line.

  Peter didn’t answer, although his finely wrought features twitched, which Julie took as affirmation.

  Hurting animals was one of the most severe warning signs of childhood pathology, plus there was the shove he had given Julie.

  First day of school or no
, it was time to go visit Peter’s mother.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Julie stayed at her desk, studying the route to Peter’s house, while mulling over what to do about the bird. It would require assessment during the night, and a few more doses of mash, but Julie didn’t want to risk taking the creature on the walk home through the woods, especially since she had to make a stop first.

  Depot thumped his tail as he lay on the floor beside her.

  “I know,” Julie said. “I am procrastinating. That woman scares me.”

  Truthfully, Peter did too. The vacantness in his expression when he’d squeezed the bird had been so disjointed from his potentially deadly action. And the force with which he had tried to stop her—an adult, his teacher—from intervening wasn’t normal for a child.

  Depot seemed to express agreement, lowering his head and letting his eyes fall shut.

  Julie returned to her mental ruminations: the problem of the bird, what she was going to say to Martha, Ellie’s warning about involving the family. Then again, Ellie hadn’t witnessed Peter committing animal cruelty. Still, it might be best for now just to pay a friendly visit, try to get a sense of the boy’s home life.

  Depot stood up and let out his someone-has-arrived bark, then made his way over to the side entrance. It took a few moments before the anticipated knock came; Depot was always a few seconds ahead.

  The door opened and Callum ducked low to walk inside.

  He looked fresh from a day on the boat: waterproof pants with a thin neoprene shirt tucked in, droplets of water lodged in his hair. He kicked one boot against the other, leaving the slime at the door. “I owe you an apology.”

  Julie stood up behind her desk. “You saved my dog’s life.”

  “Well, maybe that’s why you’ll accept it.”

  Julie stared down at the floor. She felt more trepidation now than the prospect of visiting Martha had triggered. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, while Callum studied her, his face scored with lines.

  “You were…” Julie started before letting her voice trail off.

  Callum waited patiently.

  “…right really,” she said in a whisper. “I mean, maybe not completely, it’s still something I have to wrap my head around. But you weren’t wrong to say it.”

  “Just a little presumptuous,” Callum said.

  Julie surprised herself by laughing. “It was an intense night. Feelings were running high.” She lifted her head to look at him, and the first moments they’d shared in the schoolhouse came back, making her heart pulse a slow beat.

  “Would you like”—it was Callum’s turn to stop and start—“to go to dinner sometime?”

  The flicker in her chest grew more intense. But going out seemed a risky proposition, what with cocktails and after-dinner drinks. “How about I make dinner for you tomorrow night at my house?” she suggested. “As thanks for what you did.”

  Callum glanced down at Depot, even though the dog was only part of what Julie meant.

  “I’d like that,” he said after a moment.

  “Good,” Julie said softly, and he gave her a rough smile before turning to go.

  “Hey, can I ask you one more thing?” Julie said.

  Callum slid his arm up along the doorway, bracing himself in the jamb.

  “Do you know anything about caring for injured birds?”

  * * *

  Back in Wedeskyull, parent-teacher conferences took place at school, requiring a multitude of forms in triplicate, along with a whole bunch of other CYA details. Here on Mercy, things seemed a bit more informal. Julie perused the teacher’s manual, but despite reading all the policies and procedures—which covered discipline in class (spanking with a paddle was permitted), lighting the stove, what to do in case of a storm surge, and a host of other topics—she didn’t find a single protocol for approaching a student’s family.

  Julie slid a stack of papers into her bag, grading she would have to finish later, then clapped her hand against her hip to summon Depot.

  Peter’s new home was located in still another part of the island Julie hadn’t yet gotten to know, tucked away and isolated. This was the interior, the core of Mercy, accessed by going around Harbor House and then toward the rear. The restaurant was quiet outside and in, tables visible through a large plate-glass window mostly unoccupied.

  A lot in back narrowed into something resembling a road, then, a half mile on, a scattering of bungalows appeared, locked up tight for the season. The prior teacher had made a note when Peter moved, mentioning the last property on the stretch, so Julie kept going in search of a dead end, Depot trotting along beside her.

  Once the summer properties had receded into the distance, colorful painted signs began to appear, handmade pennants on rods sticking out of the sandy soil.

  The Rainbow Pavilion lies ahead!

  Keep going for the Rainbow Pavilion!

  You’re almost to the Rainbow Pavilion!

  You’re just steps away from the Rainbow Pavilion!

  And finally Welcome to the Rainbow Pavilion!

  The site of the last sign was a small, grassy yard with a shingled cottage set into a dip in the land. It was a third of the size of the house in which Julie now resided. Brightly colored lanterns had been strung between trees, and garden lighting boasted glass globes in ruby red and topaz yellow, emerald green and sapphire blue.

  The bright, friendly lead-up was not what Julie had expected from the alternately angry and remote Martha Meyers. Maybe she only disliked Julie, while this Emerald City treatment was meant for other visitors. Although the Emerald City hadn’t exactly presented a paragon of welcome, Julie reminded herself, as she and Depot climbed a set of steps slicked with a fresh coat of paint.

  The dog was too big to occupy anything like a discreet corner of the small porch, instead lying down sprawled across most of its surface.

  Julie lifted her hand, but the door swung open before she could knock.

  * * *

  Martha stood in the doorway, towering over Julie, her white cloud of hair adding at least an inch.

  Julie looked up as levelly as she could. “Mrs. Meyers, hello. I’m sorry to show up unexpectedly, but I wanted to talk to you about Peter.”

  Martha’s snowy brows drew down. “I bring Peter to school and walk home with him every day. I stayed outside while he did your extra-credit assignment.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.” Julie offered a weak smile. “Not a fan of the free-range-kid movement? I would’ve thought island kids tended to roam.” But she understood. Peter was pushing away, as tweens do, and his mom was pulling back.

  “It’s a mother’s job to look after her child.” Martha sounded like she was parroting a 1950s parenting manual. “I’m sure most of our children do wander… Just look at the Cowry boy. Attending a gathering where he was clearly unwelcome without his parent’s supervision! But my mother taught me to keep a closer eye.”

  Julie jumped at the opening. “That’s part of what I’ve come to talk about.”

  Martha continued to hold her at bay, outside on the porch.

  Julie leaned sideways, peering around Martha’s stolid form. “Your house is really quite glorious.”

  For just a second, Martha’s features transformed, escaping their firm confines. Her mouth lifted in the first smile Julie had ever seen her make. She looked like a little girl when she said, “Would you like to come inside and see?”

  Julie told Depot to stay, then took a few steps into the house.

  Every room visible from the vestibule had been painted a different color. The purple of the hall so bright, it hurt the eyes. The living room to the right was an equally lurid red, while a powder room exposed by an open door had been rendered a bold blue. The kitchen was kelly green. A rainbow array of plastic tumblers had been positioned over the sin
k, catching the last of the sun’s rays in headache-inducing lasers and streaks. Pottery on tables, throw pillows on a couch, picture frames and vases. Anything that could provide a burst of color did. Magenta, eggplant, teal, and coral, all clashing and jangling with one another, exhausting to the eyes.

  “Wow,” Julie said. “This is… It’s really something.”

  Martha took a look around as well, pleasure lifting her face. “Color is so important, don’t you think? It lends a feel to everything. Please, come see the rest.”

  She turned and led the way up a narrow staircase painted hot pink. The bedroom at the top of the stairs was a yellow so loud it made Julie squint. She took a few steps down the hall, one side fruity orange, the other stoplight red. Only one room had been spared the color treatment. A space at the end of the hallway, its walls and ceiling white, floor carpeted in dull gray, furniture and blinds and bedding a mix of colorless shades.

  Peter appeared, a sudden slash in the open doorway.

  Julie hadn’t been sure the boy was home, although she supposed he’d have to be, given the close watch Martha kept. Peter was so still, self-contained, that his presence could be all but undetectable.

  “Hi, Peter,” she greeted him. “Nice room.”

  It was a clear announcement of preteen differentiation, almost a literal black and white to his mom’s Technicolor display. Julie was glad Martha had allowed him the independence; imagine if she’d forced an eleven-year-old to follow her decorating scheme. Peter must not have fully settled in yet after their move, however—very few items had made it onto the shelves or desk or walls. The room was so pared down, uncluttered, compared to the accessories and knickknacks elsewhere in the home, that it resembled a cell.

  “He wanted something more like the rest of the house,” Martha said from behind. “But how could I do that? All the colors had been taken. There were none left for him.”