The Second Mother

by Jenny Milchman

  She arched in her chair, and both she and Julie sent the sleeping dog fond looks.

  “So you’re not upset?” Julie asked.

  Ellie turned back to face her. “About you and Callum?”

  Julie nodded. “I thought that might’ve been what you meant by a wake-up call.”

  “Oh.” Ellie let out a laugh that sounded forced. “That wasn’t it. No, look, I’m thrilled if you and Callum are hitting it off. He’s always been the distant type, kind of held himself at bay, even back when we were kids. I don’t know if anybody’s ever really gotten close to him. If they did, it sure wasn’t me. But I never even tried. Just no spark there.”

  “Chemistry’s a weird thing,” Julie said, relieved beyond measure.

  But Ellie’s response was a frown. “What do you think is up with Peter?”

  Julie sighed. “I don’t know. His mother keeps a tight hold on him—I mean, where I come from, kids his age have a lot more freedom—but at the same time, she’s strangely distant. I was actually hoping you might be able to shed some light on the situation.”

  Ellie frowned again. “I know about a lot of things on this island, but the Hempsteads aren’t one of them. Beyond the obvious, of course, the no degrees of separation between each islander and someone in that family.”

  Julie peered at her. “I wouldn’t exactly call your color wheel analysis obvious.”

  “Oh, I beg to differ,” Ellie said wryly. “That shade of red definitely qualifies as obvious. Not to mention the orange, green, yellow…”

  Julie laughed.

  “I would’ve said Peter was doing pretty okay, considering he just lost his dad,” Ellie offered. “Not to mention all the transitions he’s been through. New family constellation, new house, new teacher even. Maybe give him a little while to adjust?”

  Julie looked at her, and Ellie extended both hands, palms up. “I mean, hey, I don’t want to overstep, it’s not like I know a lot about kids. But I do know what it’s like to come to a new place, especially one as small and insular as this. Maybe charging right in, trying to figure everything out, isn’t the best approach—for you or Peter.”

  Julie continued to look at her, nodding slowly. “I think you might be right.”

  Ellie shifted on the chair, crossing and recrossing her legs. “Man, the nights are long when there’s no wine involved.”

  Julie offered a feeble laugh. “I hear ya, sis. But hey, speaking of no drinking, you’d probably be the single best person I could find to help me with this.”

  Ellie stood up, stretching her arms and inclining her head in Julie’s direction.

  Julie asked, “What do I feed a highliner at the end of a long day at sea?”

  * * *

  Julie fell asleep that night, grateful for the arrow-straight slash she’d been able to make across a new square on the calendar, and also feeling good about the decision Ellie had prompted. Not what to cook Callum for dinner, but how to proceed with Peter.

  It was the right thing, the fair thing to do. Take her intense focus off the boy for a while, allow it to circulate among the rest of the kids. They were also in need of attention, some more than others, such as Eddie, or the seventh grader, who had such trouble containing himself and almost certainly needed medication and an IEP to get his behavior under control in the classroom. Just because Peter was a Hempstead didn’t mean he should command all of her resources. If Julie were being honest, it would also be a relief to distance herself a bit from the child’s strange behaviors and the charge of his barely suppressed emotions.

  The best teacherly decisions worked in a multitude of directions, serving a whole classroom of children, and those who instructed them as well. Peter’s mother seemed intent on depriving her son of space, and by giving the boy some room to wander, Julie might be able to fend off escalating incidents of his behavior. Perhaps they would all be better off.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  As Julie approached the library the next morning, her phone purred in her bag.

  It was like a summons from another age; except for her fleeting visits to Facebook and quick email checks, Julie felt as if the ferry had passed through a time warp and she’d been living in a different century.

  She fished out her phone, glancing down to scan the notification, then turned to Depot, who stood patiently by her side on the road. “Guess who?”

  Depot’s tongue lolled and his tail began to wag.

  “Yeah, you would say that,” Julie told him.

  David had texted her. Without any greeting, pleasantries, or sign-off. He hadn’t even asked after Depot. Six words made up the total of his communiqué.

  We need to start divorce proceedings.

  David’s texts always read like an email, or even a letter.

  Julie swallowed. In some ways her husband’s callousness and indifference felt freeing. Single, are you? she thought. Then so am I.

  She texted back:

  ill get you the name of a lawyer asap

  She reviewed her missed calls and voicemail—Tim had checked in again—then powered down her phone. Maybe everyone in the last century had been better off.

  Inside the school, she found the bird tucked into a swaddle of fabric and looking a little more lively, its black eyes bright. Depot gave a bark of greeting, and the bird twitched in response. Beside the box stood a birdcage fashioned from part of a lobster trap, along with a note from Callum.

  Had to get on my boat, but Gully made it through the night okay. I made this cage, think he’ll be ready for it soon. We still on for supper?

  The text from David slipped from her mind like sand down a hill.

  Julie gestured for Depot to accompany her into the teacher’s room, where she made up a serving of mash that the kids could feed the bird once school started. She smiled hugely down at her dog, who butted up against her leg, almost knocking Julie over before letting out a few joyful barks.

  * * *

  The students were thrilled by the bird’s progress, hovering around it to take peeks, big ones pulling little back with reminders not to get too close, before crowding in closer themselves. Julie kept a watchful eye on Peter, using her body as a barricade between him and the bird, then reminded herself that today she would be paying all the students equal mind. The boy’s aggression seemed tamped down at present anyway; maybe her new approach was working already. Julie explained to the class that once the bird was ready to stand, it would be transferred to the cage, then returned to the wild as soon as it displayed a range of motion and the ability to flap its wings.

  “Till then, I think we should name it,” Julie said.

  “How do we know if it’s a boy or a girl?” the seventh-grade boy called out.

  “Hand, please,” Julie instructed. “Let’s look that up,” she suggested, and all the kids trooped over to her desk as Julie Googled the question. “The answer is we don’t,” she said, opening a link. “Not with a seagull.” She studied the screen. “A trained ornithologist would have to rely on seeing the bird in a group, or DNA testing. Now with sexually dimorphic birds—”

  Titters, which Julie acknowledged.

  “—such as cardinals or ducks, there are easily observable factors like plumage. Let’s all try and think of another animal where gender can be determined like that.”

  Katy raised her hand. “Um, a lion? The mane?”

  “Very good. But since this little girl or guy”—she gestured to the increasingly peppy bird—“doesn’t have one, how about we decide on a gender-neutral name?”

  Callum’s designation turned out to be popular.

  Julie had the kids get seated, then took attendance—mildly dismayed to mark Eddie Cowry absent—before setting everyone to reading, language arts, or literary arts, depending on their grade, while she walked around, answering questions and checking work. Math came next, followed by g
lobal studies, and a walk with Depot that included a multigrade science period focused on marine life. Just before lunch, they moved Gully to his new home, then talked about putting on a play. Julie held the discussion in the loft, older students helping younger up the ladder, before grouping themselves in a ring.

  “The reason to do a play extends beyond fun,” Julie told them. “You’ll get to know each other in new ways, practicing and performing together, and you’ll get to know yourselves better too. Has anybody ever been in a play before?”

  Not a single hand went up.

  “Well, in that case I think what we should do is learn the whole thing from soup to nuts. Script-writing, lighting, costume and set design, acting, singing, dancing. Each of you will be exposed to it all, and you can find which aspect suits you best.”

  She was met with an array of blank faces, although one thing she’d said—Julie wasn’t sure which—had made the jaded Macy perk up.

  “In other words,” Julie elaborated, “we write our own original skit, assign parts, and ultimately perform it.”

  Nods, nascent signals of comprehension.

  Then one of the sixth-grade boys said, “Hey, let’s do Star Wars.”

  “Or something with a superhero!” said another.

  “Spidey!” suggested a third.

  For once, the sixth graders hadn’t looked to their prince for approbation. Julie didn’t want to do anything to quell their enthusiasm so she let the fist bumps, bro hugs, and exclamations of dude play out. Then a chorus of other voices began to join in.

  “Can’t we do something less fighty?” asked Tessa.

  “Yeah, like Hamilton!” A roar from the seventh-grade boy turned into a hunched-over race around the loft till Julie hauled him back into position in the circle. He really needed an Individualized Education Plan, although this small a student body would impact the usefulness of such an intervention. There was a limit to how far curricula could depart in a grade of four kids.

  “Or Disney!” Pushback from a third-grade girl.

  “Frozen!” A kindergartner’s offering, her face wreathed by a smile.

  Julie knew it was time to step in. “I have a better idea.”

  “Better than Spider-Man?” This said with a tone of such disbelief, Julie might as well have suggested that some activity had it over breathing.

  She hid a smile. “Well, in that case, the special effects would do us in.”

  Lowered gazes of acceptance.

  Julie looked around the circle. “The script for a play is called the book, and it’s made available to schools a fair ways after release. Plus it costs money.”

  The faces fell, expressions of disappointment all around, which Julie knew she couldn’t have, especially not right at the start of this process.

  “But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something equally cool,” she said hurriedly. “Writing our own play gives us total control. We can make it about anything you want.” She emphasized the words, knowing the importance that dominion carried with children.

  “But…what do we write about?” someone asked.

  “Well, that’s the fun part,” Julie replied. “Anything. Or”—figuring that creative writing curricula were scant in one-room schoolhouses; she certainly hadn’t come across anything formal or written out—“we can base it on something. Like, since some of you love Disney”—a smile for the little ones—“we could use a fairy tale. Only tweak it”—her voice beginning to take off—“to make it unique to you guys. Mercy Island, a life growing up by the sea. Something that not one other person, living in any other place in the world, could say.”

  Her fervor had ignited something, and all of the children in each of the grades began looking to their friends, smiles building.

  Julie gave a satisfied nod. “So here’s your lunchtime assignment. Think of a fairy tale—maybe one a movie was based on—or find one in a book at the library or go there and go online, those of you who have devices. And bring your ideas back for the second half of the day.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Julie didn’t know what kind of democratic voodoo had been applied, but when the children clambered back up to the loft after lunch, an idea was proposed that seemed to have the creative fires sizzling without one note of opposition or dissent expressed, and not so much as a single snatched peek to their leader for approval either. Rapunzel.

  The seventh graders had assigned themselves the role of spokespeople for this discussion, although the boy did most of the talking, loose and erratic. “We’ve watched Tangled, like a lot, it’s really good even if it’s for little kids, I love that lizard, once I had a pet lizard, and we figure we can change it around, the story, not the lizard, we don’t even need one, or any lanterns, just make it that the character’s locked away, except on an island.”

  One of the seventh-grade girls finally got a word in. “Yeah, ’cause on an island you’re kind of trapped anyway. It can be a theme.”

  “Like a symbol,” added her friend. “My mom reads aloud every night—”

  “They don’t have any TV or internet,” interjected the seventh-grade boy.

  “—and she talks a lot about symbols.”

  Julie was struck anew by the blend of innocence these island children retained, as if they inhabited a world that didn’t turn at the same rate as everybody else’s, combined with admirable levels of sophistication. She looked around at the group of students. “Hey, I like this.”

  “And we’ll have songs, right? We’ll sing?” said the boy. “Macy writes music.”

  “She does?” Julie responded.

  Macy opened her mouth and launched into a few bars, her vibrato filling the narrow space of the loft, so soaring and powerful, it seemed to push back the walls, make the solid stone buckle. Her last note wound out, an alto ripple, like the surge of the sea itself. When silence reigned once again, Julie stared at the girl.

  Macy looked down. “I mean, we’ll come up with different tunes and words. I was just showing you that I can…that I like to sing.”

  “You sure can,” Julie said.

  Still looking down, Macy concealed a fierce grin.

  It must’ve been Julie’s mention of music that got the girl interested at the start of the lesson. She studied the upturned faces of the class, who all gazed back at her.

  “You know what, guys?” Julie said. “I think we have our show.”

  A resounding hiss of yeses and cheers.

  As per her plan, Julie had been deliberately giving Peter some breathing room, not according him any special priority over the rest of the class. But as the chorus turned into shouted suggestions, Julie saw the boy edging over to the side of the loft where a circular window had been cut. Peter faced the glass, staring at a blank swath of clouded-over sky.

  The seventh-grade boy demanded, “Who’s gonna play Rapunzel, though? We don’t have any pretty blonds in here,” he added, giving one of his classmates a punch.

  His friends tried to fend him off, squealing, while the other kids pushed sideways, backward, away from the scuffling quartet. It wasn’t the safest situation given the smallish, high-up space; everyone wriggling and shouting, giddy with ideas. Only Peter held his ground by the window, motionless when a dozen squirming bodies came near. Kids batted his legs with their shoes, hit his waist with flailing arms. The older boys struck with bruising force, but Peter didn’t so much as flinch. It was as if he were made out of stone.

  “Hey, hey, hold it, quiet down,” Julie said, raising her voice. “That’s enough!”

  As the kids reluctantly settled back into place, she took a look around at the brunette batch of girls who happened to constitute the female portion of Mercy Island’s youth.

  It was true. Not a fair lock among them.

  “Well, there’s always washout dye,” Julie said. “Or a wig.”

  Peter final
ly turned away from the window, lifting his head.

  His long-haired, flaxen head.

  “I’ll be Rapunzel,” he said.

  If anyone else had suggested it, recrimination in the form of laughter or gibes would’ve been swift and furious. Or maybe it wouldn’t have been, with this Gen Z crew. Maybe it wasn’t just Peter’s bearing and position that allowed him to pull off such a proposal, but a generational sea change, a true and great shift.

  “Like the character is gender fluid?” one of the girls inquired.

  “Or trans?” said Macy.

  Peter regarded them without responding. The younger students didn’t say anything, although even they appeared rapt, awaiting the boy’s next contribution.

  “It could be a gender normative boy,” a fifth-grade girl informed her bestie with a tinge of superiority in her voice.

  “Yeah, just one who has super-long hair.” This from the seventh-grade boy. “Like that YouTuber with the snakes. I love that guy. I had a snake once. He was dope. Hey, look, my arm’s a snake!”

  He extended it, wriggling, and Julie stilled his hand.

  “Just flip-flop the roles,” another boy interjected with a desultory shrug.

  A boom of yeahs ensued, which Julie seconded.

  School was almost over. She decided to allow herself one last quick peek at Peter, and turned her head to catch the boy’s eye.

  Instantly, Julie wished that she hadn’t. Wished that she’d stuck to her original approach, allowing Peter the gift of a little less adult encroachment and oversight, including just that fleeting check at the end of the day. Because then she wouldn’t have seen the look on his face.

  It was a difficult expression to pinpoint.

  The closest Julie could come was one the men back in Wedeskyull wore whenever a deer walked into their blind, at the moment that they determined their prey had been effectively and irreversibly trapped.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  How could a perfectly innocent school play, one inspired by a fairy tale for God’s sake, enable Peter to do something malevolent? Yet malevolence had been exactly what she’d seen on his face. Julie felt herself licking her lips, a compulsive scrubbing she’d become aware of lately, as she considered the possibility that she’d unleashed something that was going to end badly in ways she couldn’t even predict.