Second Child

by John Saul

  But he’d let her go once, a long time ago, when she was almost too small to remember.

  What if he decided he didn’t want her again?

  What would she do?

  Melissa watched the plane touch down and taxi toward the terminal. Unconsciously, her fingers went to the sleeve of the white sweater tied around her neck and began kneading nervously at the knitted material.

  “For heaven’s sake, Melissa,” Phyllis said sharply. “Don’t fidget. And can’t you leave that poor sweater alone? It was perfectly clean when we left the house this morning, and now look at it.”

  Instantly, Melissa’s hands dropped away from the sleeve. She shoved them in the pockets of her shorts, then changed her mind. “What if she doesn’t like me?” she asked.

  Phyllis’s lips tightened as she gazed down at her daughter. “Well, I don’t suppose there’s any reason why she shouldn’t,” she replied. “If you’d just make an effort, everyone would like you. But if you won’t try, you can’t expect to have a lot of friends.”

  Melissa bit her lip, wishing she hadn’t asked the question in the first place. Nervously, she reached up to run her fingers through her hair, then stopped herself as her mother’s oft-spoken words rose up in her mind. “How can you expect to have nice hair if you treat it like that?”

  And then, finally, the plane was at the jet way, and a moment later she saw her father coming toward her, his leather garment bag slung over his shoulder. She darted forward, throwing her arms around him as he let the bag slide to the floor, and a second later she felt his lips press against her cheeks.

  “Miss me?” she heard him ask, and she nodded vigorously. Then he gently freed himself from her hug and turned toward the girl who now stood next to him. “This is your sister, sweetheart.”

  Melissa’s breath caught in her throat as she looked at Teri for the first time. It seemed to her that Teri was even more beautiful than her picture. Her eyes were a deep blue, and her hair, combed back from her face, looked like she’d just washed it. She was wearing a white blouse and a pair of khaki shorts very much like the ones Melissa herself had on, but on Teri the clothes seemed to hang just like they did on the models in the magazines. “?-Hi,” Melissa stammered uncertainly, feeling even gawkier than usual in front of her half sister.

  “The least you can do is kiss your sister, Melissa,” Phyllis said, prodding her forward. Melissa felt herself flush, and took a step toward Teri, but then Teri, apparently sensing her self-consciousness, grinned at her.

  “Maybe you’d better not,” she said. “I feel all grungy.”

  “Well, you certainly don’t look grungy,” Phyllis declared, stepping past Melissa to put her arms around Teri. “Do you remember me at all? I used to take care of you when you were just a baby.” She hugged Teri close and her voice dropped. “We’re all so terribly sorry about what’s happened,” she went on. “How dreadfully awful for you.”

  Teri gave her stepmother a hug but said nothing. There was an awkward moment, broken finally by Charles.

  “Why don’t we get out of here?” he asked, picking up the garment bag with one hand. “Where’s the car?”

  “In the lot,” Phyllis replied. “Why don’t you and Melissa bring it around while I help Teri find her baggage.”

  “I—I don’t have any,” Teri said softly. “I only have a few things Father bought me. The rest …” Her voice trailed off, and instantly Phyllis put a sympathetic arm around her.

  “Now, don’t worry about a thing. We have lots of wonderful shops in Secret Cove, and tomorrow we’ll start working on putting your wardrobe back together again.”

  Melissa fell in next to her father, slipping her hand into his, but she found herself glancing back at Teri every few seconds.

  Finally her father winked down at her. “What do you think?”

  Melissa shrugged. “She—She’s so beautiful,” she whispered.

  Charles squeezed her hand. “Not as beautiful as you, baby,” he told her, then pulled her close.

  Melissa, pressed close against her father’s solid strength, felt some of the tension of the last few days with her mother begin to drain away. Her father was back, and for a while, at least, she was safe. And now, with Teri here, maybe her mother wouldn’t be as hard on her anymore. Maybe Teri would offer the same kind of protection her father did.

  Teri stared out the back window of the Mercedes as they turned off the main highway and dropped down toward Secret Cove, searching the road for anything that looked in the least bit familiar. As they wound through the little village, with its perfectly kept shops, all of them either built during the last century or carefully constructed to look as though they’d been, she saw nothing that stirred any sort of memory at all. But what she saw was fascinating.

  Unlike the streets of the San Fernando Valley, which ran on for miles through a borderless morass of fast-food outlets and 7-Eleven stores, the main road into Secret Cove emerged from a patch of forest, then twisted through what looked to Teri almost like some kind of park. Every shop had flower boxes at its windows and gardens in front, and many of them had apparently once been private homes, their yards perfectly tended behind black wrought-iron fences.

  “It’s beautiful,” Teri breathed, finally looking over at Melissa. “Has it always been this way?”

  Melissa nodded. “Nobody lives in the village anymore. All the houses where the year-round people live are on the west side. But there’s all kinds of rules about what they can do in the village. There’s a historical society that makes sure no one changes anything.” She giggled softly. “Cora—that’s our housekeeper—says they’re trying to turn the whole town into a museum, but Tag says it doesn’t matter, since most of the people who live here are fossils anyway.”

  Teri cocked her head. “Who’s Tag?”

  “Cora’s grandson. He lives with her. His folks ran off and just dumped him with her. Can you imagine?”

  Teri shook her head. “What’s he like?” she asked. “Is he cute?”

  Phyllis’s voice cut into the conversation from the front seat. “He’s a very ordinary boy,” she said. “He does some work around the place, and I suppose when he grows up he’ll marry one of the local girls.”

  “No, he’s not,” Melissa put in. “He’s going to go to college and be an architect.”

  Phyllis turned and shot her daughter a dark look. “Is he?” she said. “And how does he expect to pay for all of that?”

  Melissa shrugged. “I—I guess he’ll work, or get a scholarship or something. And everybody doesn’t go to Harvard or Yale or one of those places.”

  “The people who count do,” Phyllis replied. “What about you, Teri? Have you thought about college yet?”

  Teri shook her head. “I was going to go to Cal State, I guess. But now …” Her voice trailed off again as everyone in the car realized that any plans she might have made had burned to ashes only a few days ago.

  “Well, there’s plenty of time to think about it,” Phyllis said quickly. “We can have such fun, looking at schools for you. Eleanor Stevens is taking Ellen to Vassar over Labor Day weekend, just to look around. Perhaps we should tag along.”

  Charles cast a sidelong glance at his wife. “Come on, Phyllis—give her a break. She’s got two more years of high school.”

  “Well, you can’t start planning too early,” Phyllis replied. “The really good schools are so difficult to get into, and it doesn’t hurt to begin making connections now.”

  Teri turned to Melissa. “Where do you go to school?”

  “Prissy Preston,” Melissa replied, then grinned at the puzzled look on her half sister’s face. “Actually, it’s the Priscilla Preston Academy for Young Ladies,” she explained. “I hate it, but Mom says I have to go there because it’s where everyone goes. It’s really old, and kind of creepy, and they’re real strict. That’s why all the kids call it Prissy Preston—because all the teachers are really stuffy.”

  “It’s an excellent school, Meli
ssa, and you should be grateful you’re there.”

  Melissa rolled her eyes, and Teri grinned at her, and suddenly Melissa decided that everything was going to be all right after all. Then the car turned through the gates of Maplecrest and began winding down the long drive that led from Cove Road to the house. Teri’s eyes once again fixed on the landscape beyond the car’s windows.

  They emerged from the woods, and Teri gasped.

  And finally something clicked in her mind.

  She wasn’t certain if it was the size of the house, or its shape, or only the vastness of the lawn in front of it. But there was something about it she remembered.

  It loomed ahead of them, an enormous shingled structure, a wide veranda fronting it, with French doors opening onto the veranda from most of the first-floor rooms. There was a large front door in the center of the house, and as she looked at it, Teri suddenly remembered what was inside those doors.

  An enormous foyer—or at least what had seemed to her like an enormous foyer when she was tiny—with a staircase that went straight up toward the back of the house, then split off in both directions to a huge landing on the second floor. And then …

  And then there was nothing, for the staircase was all she remembered.

  Charles pulled the car to a stop on the gravel drive that circled around in front of the house, and Teri almost hesitantly left the car to stand staring up at Maplecrest.

  “It’s so big,” she breathed, her words barely audible. “I never realized. It—It’s a mansion!”

  “Well, it’s comfortable,” Phyllis told her, using the slightly deprecating tone she always used when showing the house to strangers for the first time. “But it’s hardly a mansion. Absolutely no one can afford those anymore. They’ve all been turned into institutes, or religious centers.”

  The door opened, and Cora, a fresh apron tied around her waist, bustled out. Brushing past the housekeeper with barely a nod, Phyllis marched briskly inside while Tag, who had followed his grandmother, waited on the front porch.

  Cora hurried down the steps.

  “Teri? Is it really you? Oh, my goodness, just look at you!” She wrapped her arms around the girl, pulling her to her ample bosom, then held her away at arm’s length. “Look at you—all grown up, and the spitting image of your mother!” Then, as she heard her own words, her smile faded away. “Oh, dear,” she murmured. “It’s all so terrible, and here I am, acting like you’ve just come to visit.” Her eyes flooded with tears and she dabbed at them with a corner of her apron. “I just—well, I just don’t know what to say, and you must think I’m a terrible old fool. You probably don’t even remember me, do you?”

  Teri shook her head. “I—I don’t really remember much of anything. It’s been so long. But it all seems sort of familiar, somehow.”

  “But your mother must have shown you pictures of the place,” Charles suggested.

  Teri nodded. “But it’s different. It’s almost like I’ve dreamed about it.”

  “Well, of course you have,” Cora told her. “After all, you were born here, weren’t you? There’s some things you never forget. Now, come and meet my grandson.” She turned. “Tag? Come down and meet Teri.”

  Tag slowly came down the steps and offered Teri his hand. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hello,” Teri replied, smiling at Tag as she took his hand. There was a loud barking, and she turned to see a big Labrador lumbering across the lawn, his tail wagging furiously.

  “Come on, Blackie!” she heard Melissa shout. “Come on, boy!”

  The big dog raced up to Melissa and rose up on his hind legs, planting his forepaws on Melissa’s chest and lapping eagerly at her face. Laughing, Melissa scratched the dog’s ears, then pushed him off. “This is Teri,” she said, turning to her half sister. “Can you shake hands, Blackie?”

  But instead of raising up a paw and holding it out toward Teri, Blackie shrank back against Melissa’s legs. A low growl rumbled up from his throat. “Blackie!” Melissa exclaimed. “Is that any way to treat a new friend?” She grinned eagerly at Teri. “Come on, Teri. Let him sniff your hand. He’s scared.”

  Teri hesitantly took a step forward and reluctantly held out her hand for the big dog to sniff.

  But Blackie bolted away, charging back across the lawn to disappear over the crest of the low rise that separated the grassy expanse from the beach beyond. “Blackie!” Melissa called after him. “Blackie, you come back here!”

  “It’s all right,” Teri told her. “Let him go.”

  Melissa glanced once more toward the beach and shrugged. “Come on,” she said. “Let me show you your room.”

  She led Teri into the house, and as soon as Teri stepped into the foyer, she stopped.

  It was exactly as she’d expected. The room was paneled in wood, all of it painted white, and there were French doors on either side of the broad staircase, leading to the terrace at the back of the house. Above the stairs, set into the high ceiling more than two floors above, was a domed skylight, its stained glass sending a rainbow of colors cascading down the stairs to splash across the white marble floor.

  “I remember this,” she whispered. “I remember the stairs from when I was a baby. They looked so big.” She giggled. “They are big, aren’t they?”

  Melissa nodded. “I used to like to slide down the banister. Cora always used to say I’d kill myself, and Mama said it wasn’t ladylike, but I did it anyway. Want to try?”

  Teri gazed up at the polished walnut balustrade that curved down from the floor above and shook her head. “I think Cora’s right. I’d probably fall off and break my neck.”

  “No you wouldn’t,” Melissa protested. “It’s fun. We’ll try it tomorrow.”

  They climbed up the stairs, turning to the right, where the flight split in two, and finally came to the big second-floor landing. A mezzanine encircled the staircase, with broad halls leading to the wings of the house.

  “You get your choice of rooms,” Melissa told Teri. “One of them’s supposed to be a guest room, but Mama says you can have it if you want it. It’s over this way.”

  She led Teri toward the eastern corner of the house and opened a door to reveal a large and airy room with windows in three of its walls. From two of the windows the cove and the ocean beyond were spread out in a broad panorama, while the third window looked out over the terrace cradled between the two rear wings of the house. “My room’s the one straight across the terrace,” Melissa told her. “It’s not as big as this one, and this one has its own bathroom.”

  “Where’s the other room?” Teri asked.

  Melissa’s smile faded slightly. “It’s not as big as this one,” she said. “And the view isn’t as good.”

  “Well, can’t we go look at it?”

  Melissa led the way to the other side of the house, then paused outside the door to the room her mother had first chosen for Teri. “It—Well, it’s hardly even a room at all,” Melissa said. She pushed the door open and let Teri go in first.

  The little room had been cleaned—Melissa herself had helped Cora scrub every surface until it sparkled, and they’d found some better furniture in the attic. The little chest of drawers had been replaced with an ornately carved highboy that Tag had discovered in a far corner of the attic, and they’d found an antique bedstead that Cora remembered from decades earlier. The rocker still stood where it had been, but the cushions on its seat and back had been covered with fresh chintz in a bright flowered pattern.

  “I bet we could put wallpaper up if you decide you like this room,” Melissa said.

  Caught by the plaintive note in her half sister’s voice, Teri turned and cocked her head slightly. “What’s special about this room?” she asked. “I mean, it’s not nearly as big as the other one, or as nice, either.”

  “I know,” Melissa sighed. “And if it were me, I’d probably take the other room in a minute. But look.” She crossed the room and opened the door to the small bathroom that separated the nurse’s room
from the bedroom beyond. “If you go through the other door, you can get into my room without ever going out into the hall. So if you take the little room, we can sneak back and forth without Mom and Dad ever knowing.”

  Teri glanced around the bathroom. Though it wasn’t big by comparison to the rooms in Maplecrest, it was still larger than the bathroom she had shared with her parents in California. And the room Melissa had just apologized for was still larger than her room at home.

  No, she silently corrected herself. This is my home now.

  She moved toward the second door of the bathroom, the one that led to Melissa’s own room, and suddenly she had another of those strange flashes of recognition.

  “Go on in,” she heard Melissa say.

  Slowly, she pushed the door open.

  As soon as she stepped into the room, she knew.

  This had been hers.

  All of it felt familiar, despite the fact she hadn’t been in it since she was less than three years old.

  Even the smell of it seemed to bring back old feelings, feelings of warmth, security, and of arms cradling her, and images of faces smiling down at her.

  Yes, this had been her room; this had been where she lived when she was a baby.

  She hesitated, her emotions churning.

  The other room—the room on the other side of the house—was much larger, much brighter than the little room next to Melissa’s.

  But that was the side of the house where guests stayed.

  Guests, who would come for a few days, or maybe a couple of weeks, and then leave.

  But Teri wasn’t leaving. This was her home again, and she didn’t want to feel like a guest.

  And, of course, there was Melissa.

  Melissa, the half sister she’d had for so many years but had never known, was watching her now, anxiously waiting to see what she was going to do.

  She smiled. “I think you’re right,” she said. “I think I’ll take the little room. The other one’s too big, and I’d always be looking over here across the terrace, wondering what you’re doing and wishing I could talk to you. If I’m over here with you, it’ll be a lot more fun.”