The Second Mother

by Jenny Milchman

  She gained the top of the stairs and took a look around, wishing Depot would waken. He’d be up like a shot if anything were to happen—would be barking already if someone were here—but despite that knowledge, Julie couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone was right nearby, in a corner or just over her shoulder, taking advantage of the outage to lurk unseen.

  Or could he have caused the outage?

  Somebody might’ve entered through the basement and accessed the breakers. Maybe he was still down there. If so, depending on which circuit he’d flipped, the lights up here might work. But when Julie flicked the switch, it made a gunshot-loud click in the silence of the hallway, but emitted no illumination.

  She kept a flashlight in her bedside table. Once she found it, she would go check the rest of the house, including the basement. Then, after making sure she was alone, she could get started on the task Peter had assigned her, the roles of teacher and student mysteriously reversed.

  She moved as quickly as possible into her room and found the flashlight. It was a powerful one, almost as good as if the lights had been turned on, allowing her to make short work of her search. Nobody in any of the rooms. Depot still asleep on the floor. They were alone.

  Julie sank down on the couch, aimed the beam of her flashlight, and opened the ledger.

  * * *

  For a while, skimming through the listings, Julie was able to convince herself that there was no more in here than a demonstration of the extent of the Hempsteads’ oversight and wealth. Huge sums had been amassed according to this book, were still being accumulated, although the amount had dropped in concert with the island’s population.

  But as she leafed farther into the ledger, Julie finally came to content that wasn’t merely dry and numeric. Jottings and notes and annotations. This part of the book read a little like a journal, although with no obvious personal meaning. Obscure remarks had been penned beside brief accounts of a lunch, a meeting, a social call. Visitors dropping by, outings on a boat, trap house get-togethers. After a few more pages, the lists began to adopt a pared-down quality, extraneous details stripped away, leaving only cryptic notations:

  Bouchard, Shaw and Mary

  Gang drops in Tenant’s Harbor. (Undercuts co-op rate. Cease.)

  Croft, Robert and Violet

  Second son killed two while driving drunk. (Hold in reserve.)

  Pelletier, Amanda and “King”

  Rival gang, familial divide. (Offer rights.)

  Campbell, Ellen and Lexie

  Artists. Adopting overseas. (Consider donating rental.)

  Pratt, Cameron and Alyssa

  Seasonal, seek to reside. Four children. (Winterize property as “gift.”)

  Sawyer, Max and Anne

  No grounds for eviction. (Turn off water periodically, up rent semiannually.)

  Reynolds, Thomas, son of Daniel

  Boat in disrepair. (Sell Laura B. at cost.)

  Cyr, Gray and Cornelia

  Third miscarriage, searching for answers. (Offer to dig new well.)

  Roy, Atticus and Mary

  Joint history of depression. (Have Barstow refill prescription at will.)

  Arnold, Scott and Liv

  Unclear ethnic background. No children. (Fertility a question, discourage.)

  Julie read the opaque lines a second time, then a third, listening for Depot’s snores in the distant darkness while she continued to puzzle over the entries. These carefully recorded assessments and directives concerned tender truths to which no outsider should have any claim, nor any business overseeing. Favors granted, necessities withheld. Issues of fertility, ethnicity, mental health poked and prodded at, to be used how? For business, the running of what the grandmother had deemed an empire? Or as leverage, to establish indebtedness, even blackmail?

  Julie stood up creakily, stretched in the penetrating dark. Tried the lights, leaving every switch flipped so that the house would be bathed in an electric glow once the power came back. She paused at the wall of windows, staring into blackness so complete, there seemed to be no delineation, no border, between herself and the night. At last, she made her halting return to the couch to focus again on the need at hand.

  On and on Julie read, leaves covered with knife slashes of words and difficult-to-interpret instructions, clearly meant for the writer’s eyes only. Hints and reminders about a body of knowledge, or a populace, too great to store in memory.

  So much incomprehensible material that Julie began turning more than one page at a time, soon missing a few, and finally skipping whole sheaves. Until a name she recognized flashed by. Julie had gone past the page, had to flip back, and for a moment feared she had lost the one she’d spotted in the tightly penned morass and would have to start over again at the beginning. She ran her finger down the list of entries on the last several pages until she came to the one that had snagged her attention.

  Cowry, Mike

  Parents of mother threatened custody suit. (Payment made on his behalf.)

  It was the bottommost entry on the page. Julie turned the next leaf over slowly. This one contained names of people she’d met at the party, families of students, and also—

  Hutchins, Andrew

  In need of wife. (Ask Maddie Pew back to island.)

  Scherer, Paul

  $1,100.00/month or sister’s care facility will discharge. (Up hourly.)

  Manning, Chloe

  Free residence. (Some concerns. Stipend for trial year before salary.)

  Then, jumping out at Julie from the ladder of lines—

  Newcomb, Elisabeth (“Ellie”)

  Discount in perpetuity. (Gift for services rendered.)

  And finally, the last and most recent entry, the ink in which it was written bright, the paper beneath it scarcely touched or turned or handled—

  Mason, Julie née Weathers

  Daughter lost in infancy. Free residence. (Increase in salary.)

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The bank of windows against the rear wall of the house suddenly felt like a series of eyes through which the grandmother could see. Even without light. Suddenly the power outage seemed a factor in Julie’s favor; at least she was basically invisible in here.

  Still, a thousand pinpricks pierced her skin, and she thumped the floor beside her so that Depot would rouse and come running. When he did, Julie reached up, ringing her dog’s neck with her arms. “Jesus, Deep,” she muttered. “Who is this woman?”

  The dog let out a worried bark.

  And what effect was she having on her grandson?

  Ellie was in this book. Why? Ellie had said she didn’t know much about the Hempsteads, although clearly their background was known to her, as it must be to most of the islanders. What kind of discount could the grandmother be referring to, what gift and which services?

  Julie needed to be sharp and on point to figure it all out, and right now she felt anything but, small and exposed and shaking. For a moment she rued letting that vodka spill out, then realized that if she hadn’t sobered up already, she wouldn’t have stood a chance at protecting herself, let alone Peter, from whatever kind of threat this might be.

  No alcohol. But she had something that would at least help her sleep, allow her to wake up with some clarity in the morning.

  Shining the flashlight for direction, Julie went to check the lock on the front door. Then, recalling the sight of the bolt turning from the outside, she walked back to find a dining room chair. Clamping the flashlight between her chin and her neck, Julie positioned the chair beneath the doorknob. It would offer an extra layer of privacy, a delaying tactic if a member of the Hempstead clan did try to make use of the darkness to come in.

  With Depot at her heels, Julie trudged upstairs and located the amber vial she’d packed when she left Wedeskyull, aiming the flashlight beam in the depths of her su
itcase.

  No need for power during the night, and so long as this had the intended effect, she could awaken to daylight. Julie bit one of the pills Dr. Trask had prescribed in half and swallowed it dry. Before the cocooning effects of the meds could hit, she tucked herself and Depot into bed.

  * * *

  The electricity came back on just before dawn, flooding the house with caustic light.

  Despite the muzzle of the medication in her system, Julie forced herself out of bed. It was Saturday, the day the grandmother collected rent. Peter needed to return the ledger, which meant that Julie had to get it back to him. She wanted it out of her house anyway. Its contents seemed no less sinister with the return of normalcy and power. The log was a dark, sullen presence, squatting on the downstairs couch like an overlarge toad. How many lives had been meddled with thanks to that book, the people living them not even aware that they were being moved around like pieces in a game? Dependent on the grandmother for their homes, their jobs, their livelihoods.

  Just as Julie was now.

  She looked down at the final entry in the ledger once more.

  Free residence. (Increase in salary.)

  Her house in Wedeskyull was rented, and Julie had officially terminated the family leave she’d taken from school. Her marriage was ending. If things didn’t work out for her here on Mercy, where would she go, what would she do?

  But it wasn’t only about her own lack of options. Julie wanted to help Peter. She wanted to teach Peter, and the other children too. Guide them to figure out the people they were meant to become, the lives they were supposed to live.

  First step—keep Peter in his grandmother’s good graces, as well as herself if possible.

  The easiest way to locate that hideout would be to go through the copse of trees behind the mansion. But Julie didn’t want to appear anywhere near the grandmother’s dwelling, especially not with the ledger in hand. She would have to retrace the trip she’d made from Ellie’s cottage, a tricky task given how she’d gotten turned around in the woods, stumbling upon the downed tree only by accident.

  Julie wedged the ledger into a day pack, its edges hard and unforgiving against her back. She was torn between going alone and taking Depot, but the dog was still sleeping, and Julie decided that she needed to be unobtrusive more than she needed protection.

  The island was wrapped in a velvet hush of early morning mist as she entered the woods, whatever had caused last night’s outage having retreated to an undetectable perimeter. The day pack rode uncomfortably between her shoulders, a reminder of the content she carried. Julie came to the tangle of trees that had barred her yesterday, then broke through a macramé of twigs. No fallen tree lay behind it. She stopped, breathing hard and debating which way to go. Julie took a few steps to the right, then the left. She knew better than to look for the mansion—it had been completely hidden from view until Peter revealed it. But none of this landscape looked familiar.

  Julie scoured the ground for signs of disruption. When the tree fell, it had taken a mountain of earth along with it. But the dirt here appeared to be untouched.

  Depot would’ve found it. Smelled Peter’s lingering scent, shown her the way. Julie was just considering going back for her dog—except that too much time had passed already, the daytime sun risen in the sky—when she saw a few leaves spinning through the air. It was too early for leaves to be falling unless they were dead, no longer clinging to their branches. Julie walked toward the downward drift and came to Peter’s hideout.

  It rose up from the ground, trunk slimy with condensation.

  Julie stood on tiptoes, patting around for a flat spot where she could leave the ledger, which glared at her like a black, rectangular eye.

  From the mansion side of the woods, she heard footsteps, too heavy and deliberate for a young boy. Julie instantly dropped the ledger. She took a fleet second to make sure it was balanced, would stay put in a place dry enough not to damage the cover or leave traces of damp on its pages, before turning and running back the way she had come.

  * * *

  Callum stood leaning against the porch as Julie came walking out of the woods, a plastic cooler at his feet. Julie broke into a jog, crossing the expanse of sand and scrub in front of her house, while Callum lifted his hand in a wave. He looked better than anyone wearing suspenders and oilcloth waders had a right to.

  “I thought I could show you better than I could tell you,” he called.

  “Show me what?” Julie asked, a smile lifting the corners of her mouth. Last night’s confrontation with the grandmother’s strange might and prowess, the power outage, even this morning’s errand, all began melting away.

  “Everything you’ve been asking about. Come on. We’re going fishing.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Julie went inside and found Depot’s portable bowls, then ran upstairs to change into warmer clothes. She grabbed her new slicker, taking a moment to smooth some healing gloss over her still sore lips—it would also help balance out the unflattering raincoat—while Callum stayed on the first floor, tussling with Depot who had clobbered him upon greeting.

  The three of them headed through town toward the dock. The remnants of mist had cleared from the air, giving way to a light-filled, cloudless sky, the kind of day that whether in the mountains or on an island, defied the death throes of summer.

  Julie got herself into Callum’s dinghy, while Callum helped with Depot, cradling the dog’s hind quarters as Julie snapped her fingers to encourage the dog. The little skiff lowered, accepting Depot’s weight, but quickly rose back up again to the calm surface of the sea. Callum climbed in and started to row out to his boat.

  It was called the Mary Martin, scrolling letters painted across its rear. Or was it the stern? Julie realized how little she knew of this man’s world, the world she’d come to live in. The Mary Martin was smaller than Julie would’ve expected—a lobster boat, not a ferry or pleasure craft, she reminded herself—but freshly painted and immaculately kept.

  Depot ran in excited circles around the tight space, eventually settling down beside a tank with a spout that spit and spurted froth. Callum walked to the front of the boat and started the engine, a mild rumble underfoot. One arm draped comfortably across the wheel, he turned to Julie and said, “Want to get a few bugs off the bottom?”

  They motored out to sea, the surface a sheet of blue denim, then Callum took the boat in a curve, sending up a glassy curl of water. Depot had fallen asleep in a patch of sunlight, soothed by the vibration of the engine. A whole poppy field of brightly striped buoys dipped beneath the surface as the boat chugged by.

  “Lobsters like to tuck in around ledges,” Callum said, gesturing overboard to something Julie couldn’t see. “Right here’s one of the best.”

  “How do you know it’s there?” Julie asked, mystified. “Do you use equipment?”

  “Well, there are depth finders,” Callum replied, rolling the chrome wheel with one hand. “But the more experience a fisherman has, the less he relies on technology.”

  He lowered a pole over the side and hooked a rope beneath a yellow-and-red-striped buoy. “This is called a gaffer,” he said, tugging a handle beside the wheel.

  A winch started turning, then a trap broke the surface, raining seawater into the boat. Cold droplets struck Julie. Callum opened the trap, tossing out clumps of sea muck and flipping lobsters over to expose their bellies. He used a tool to cut a notch in the tail of one before throwing it overboard, measured another with a quick spread of fingers, and dumped two in a bucket, each move made with the swiftness and precision of a machinist.

  “Wow,” Julie said when he was done attending to the contents of the trap.

  He looked at her.

  “How…” She broke off, feeling stupid. “How’d you learn to do all that?”

  Callum leaned back against the wheel. “I came to th
is island when I was a lad of just thirteen. My mam had emigrated to the States and kept moving us farther and farther north. This was the first place that reminded her of home.”

  A lilt in his voice had grown apparent. “Ireland?”

  Callum gave a nod, staring out to sea. “My da was killed in the Troubles, and my mam had a brother in New York. But she died here on Mercy, only a few years later.”

  Was this what Julie had recognized in Callum that day on the ferry, the shaky, untethered quality of being an orphan? It didn’t matter how old you were when you lost your parents. Nothing rooted you to the ground the same way once they were gone.

  Callum braced his hands against the side of the boat, his body moving with the rise and fall of the water. “My boat is named for them both. The Mary Martin.”

  “That’s lovely,” Julie murmured. “You’re an only child?” Callum didn’t respond, lost to memory, so she went on. “Did you start fishing here on Mercy?”

  “I have what the locals call a nose for fish,” Callum said after a moment. “A couple of the fishermen took a liking to me—Walt Meyers and Frank, whose daughter I dated. Frank made me sternman and later sold me my first boat. I joined a gang on Mercy. It was where my mam brought us. I didn’t want to leave.”

  Ellie had used the term, and the grandmother too. “Do you have to join a gang?”

  Callum lifted the lid of a box built into the boat, releasing a fish market stink and revealing a slippery, silvery mass. He slid a couple of small bodies into a mesh sleeve, baiting the trap he had emptied, then dropped it overboard.

  Crossing to the wheel, he pulled back on the throttle.

  “It’s everything, the gang you’re part of,” he said over the grumble of the engine. “It’s what gives you the right to drop traps in certain places. And where those places are can spell the difference between living and dying, starvation and wealth.”

  Maybe the grandmother hadn’t been so melodramatic after all.