The mood in the room had shifted. Bobby pushed back his chair and stood up.
Melinda followed his lead. “I appreciate your coming out here to try and help Peter. The island can be a lonely place to live.”
But this house seemed lonely too. A couple deprived of family support—mother, father, sister, a brother-in-law until recently, not to mention their nephew. Peter had been robbed as well. He could’ve benefited, especially in the wake of his father’s death, from having an aunt and uncle who truly seemed to care about him.
Julie rose from her own chair. “Peter has friends,” she told them. Sort of. “And I think he’s really coming into his own with this play we’re doing. You both should come see the performance when it goes up. I think it’ll be a holiday production.”
“Oh.” Melinda’s voice caught. “I would love that.”
But in her eyes Julie read the fact that it would never happen.
There was an awkward pause, a moment of unfilled silence. Julie realized she didn’t have much else to say. Melinda had pressed her hands to her face, and her husband was consoling her.
“Mind if I use your bathroom before I go?” Julie asked.
Scotch was easier on the bladder than all the coffee and tea she’d been imbibing, and this would also allow Melinda and Bobby a minute alone to ease the pain stirred up by discussing the familial rift. Julie looked around for where the bathroom might be. Not finding one on the first floor, she started upstairs. Suddenly, Bobby came running up behind her, taking the steps two at a time. But the door to the room at the top of the stairs stood open and Julie had already seen.
The walls were covered with photo after photo of Peter.
How exposed Julie had often felt behind the bank of windows in her house. These pictures she was seeing would’ve been taken with a telephoto lens, assuming a clear line of sight, say from a boat anchored not far offshore. Peter grew up in stages in the array, vantage point always roughly the same, shots of the dining room through glass, or outside on the lane, or in the part of the scrubby yard that could be seen from sea. At first a baby in somebody’s arms, then a toddler, supervised by Martha or the grandmother or the Captain. Soon Peter began to play without somebody hovering right at hand, and the pictures chronicled this evolution, the final one capturing the boy’s long-legged flight out of the frame.
This must explain Martha’s move to a cloistered house, tucked away in the interior of the island. She had learned that Peter was being photographed.
By a doting aunt and uncle? Such loving attention, not to mention this kind of display, seemed to bespeak a closer relationship than that. Julie’s thoughts shot to her own album of Hedley’s first year, the tabletop photos she and David had arranged all over their house, including the one framed in pink china.
Melinda had chosen to marry a man who knew nothing of the life Peter had been born to. Or hadn’t been born to.
Gooseflesh crept along Julie’s skin, the result of a chill from the less well-insulated second floor, and a slow, dawning horror at what the grandmother had done.
She turned around slowly at the top of the stairs.
Bobby and Melinda both stood there.
“He’s your son,” said Julie.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
“I took those pictures,” Bobby told her. “I may not know how to sink a lobster trap, but once it came clear we had to stay in Maine, I figured I should learn to drive a boat.”
“We were going to move to Vermont to be near Bobby’s family,” Melinda explained. “Ironically, my mother got me to stay close to home, even though once she did what she did, she wouldn’t have cared if I moved to China.”
“Come on down,” Bobby said gruffly. “We’ll tell you the rest.”
This time they sat in the living room, Melinda on the couch with her feet curled beneath her, Bobby beside his wife, and Julie in an armchair across from them.
Melinda began talking first. “My older sister was already married. To a man my mother had worked hard and long to lure away from home so they could live on Mercy. And they were having trouble conceiving.”
Martha and Walter Meyers. The perfect highliner couple.
Except for their inability to produce an heir.
“I was lucky,” Melinda continued. “Or unlucky, depending on how you look at it. I got pregnant right away. Before Bobby and I were even married.”
“Although not before we’d decided to wed,” Bobby put in.
The two traded looks that recalled the giddy, lovestruck twentysomethings, or possibly teenagers, they must have been.
Melinda blushed a schoolgirl pink as she turned back to Julie. “That kind of thing wouldn’t matter these days, or even twelve years ago, if it had happened elsewhere, but it’s still a big deal on Mercy. The island is in a time warp. My father wanted to kill Bobby—literally. My mother settled for banishing me. While solving my sister’s fertility problems and the family’s need for a next-generation lobsterman, all in one fell swoop.”
Julie was still trying to take the full measure of the deception. “You and Bobby wanted to keep Peter? It wasn’t that you thought you were too young or not ready yet?”
Melinda faced her with fervent eyes. “Oh, how we wanted to keep him. I don’t know if you can imagine—I hope you can’t—what it was like to let him go.”
Bobby crushed a cushion in his fist, brows drawn down with fury.
Melinda leaned over and touched her lips to her husband’s cheek, withdrawing the throw pillow from his hands. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, looking at Julie. “You think that I’m weak. You think I failed to fight for my child.”
“We both did,” Bobby interjected. “We were kids, and we were scared, and we were stupid. Mrs. Hempstead manipulated us into signing away our parental rights when we hardly even knew what that meant. Mellie had a real tough time in childbirth, and I was half out of my mind with worry even after we knew that she’d make it.”
But Melinda spoke over him bleakly. “And you know what? You’re right. I’ve always been weak when it comes to my mother. I’ve never had any idea how to fight her. I don’t even know if such a thing is possible.”
“Couldn’t Peter have learned the business from his uncle?” Julie asked. A relative to show you the ropes, Callum had said. “Then you and Bobby could’ve stayed and Walter—”
Melinda cut Julie off, and for a second, a touch of her mother’s imperiousness rose to the fore. “My mother didn’t want me there once I met Bobby. She would never have given my brother-in-law a nephew to train up.” A quiver in her voice grew audible. “I don’t know if you quite understand the place you’ve come to live in. It’s taken Bobby years to get it. As our son, Peter would’ve been…” Melinda’s face crinkled with shame. “There used to be a term for it, a disgusting one. No one uses it anymore, or shouldn’t. A half-dub.”
Julie spoke on impulse, wanting only to help rid this woman of her guilt and humiliation and pain. “Peter’s not happy at home. I mean with Martha.”
Melinda looked up so quickly, her neck jerked. “My sister was always forced to live such a rote, colorless life. Every step of it planned out for her from birth. Don’t leave Mercy except to board for high school. Marry a highliner. Become a lobsterman’s wife. Deliver an heir, possibly a spare; life on the sea is a dangerous business.” She shook her head, another hard, brutal twist. “Martha didn’t want any of it. She had all these dreams—she wanted to be an artist. I actually thought she was kind of good, growing up. And there I was, with the life she dreamt of. Bobby and I met in a traveling production of Les Miz. I got true love, and to act to boot. My mother wouldn’t have it. Wouldn’t let Martha live as she liked, nor me either.”
“Peter senses there’s another place for him,” Julie told her. “That he doesn’t belong on Mercy.” They’ll never let me go, she heard the boy say.
Melinda got off the couch and knelt in front of Julie, hands laced together. “Don’t say that,” she said, though her words were belied by the posture of prayer. “Please don’t say that. You’ll never get Peter off that island.”
“Don’t you think we tried?” Bobby asked, coming over to help his wife to her feet.
“One time—” Melinda’s voice cracked. “One time I convinced my father to fake a bout of appendicitis. Peter was a toddler. I had my father feed him a ton of candy so the cramps would be convincing. My father was just loading Peter into his boat when my mother pointed out to sea. She’d paid for a surgeon to come, a surgeon, not just a doctor, from the mainland, in the middle of the night. A good one too—it wasn’t like she took chances with Peter’s health.”
“There were other attempts like that,” Bobby said dully. “Some stupider, some smarter. It didn’t matter. Mrs. Hempstead won’t be fooled or bested.”
“Do you understand what we’re saying?” asked Melinda. “If my mother could’ve gotten the baby out without me being there, or made it so I died in childbirth, I think she would’ve. I came close, and the last thing I remember seeing before they knocked me out was my mother handing Bobby a piece of paper to sign.”
Bobby’s glower deepened as he studied Julie. “There’s something else.”
Melinda looked at him, alarmed. “No, hon, you don’t have to—”
But her husband spoke over her; it was the first time he hadn’t been solicitous and gentle with his wife. “My little brother did something back when we were young and he had come to visit me,” he said. “It was bad, but it was an accident, kids getting up to no good.” He gave a harsh scrub to his face with one hand. “I had met Mellie so I was settling down some, but my brother could still act a little wild. Anyway, he managed not to get caught, but a very powerful family here on the mainland was involved. My brother might’ve spent the rest of his life in prison. Which maybe would’ve been right, Lord if I know, I’ve lost a lot of sleepless nights over it. Years really. Only, the thing is, he was my brother. And he shaped up afterward like you wouldn’t believe. He stayed in Vermont and he’s a pastor now.”
Julie frowned, then smiled, then offered a nod. There was too much in the recounting to really parse, yet something in it tugged at her, a kernel of memory.
“Mrs. Hempstead heard the news,” Bobby went on. “Powerful families being what they are. She pieced it together, knew my brother had been visiting the area, then left all of a sudden. But she never said a thing. Until the night Peter was born.”
Silent tears had begun slipping down Melinda’s face.
“It was a devil’s choice,” Bobby said. “Give up our son—but to people who loved him, could maybe even offer him a better life than we could—or let my brother rot in prison.”
It appeared like a flash before Julie’s eyes, the entry in the ledger.
Second son killed two while driving drunk. (Hold in reserve.)
Melinda looked at Julie, her eyes webbed with red. “Be careful,” she said. “You know what you’re up against now.”
Julie rose from the chair. It had gotten dark, and she needed to meet Callum.
“I’ll be careful,” she promised. “And I’ll be back. With Peter.”
* * *
Bobby returned Julie to the dock, driving off with a brief beep of his horn.
There was no one around at this hour; no lights shone from the ferry station. The sea on both sides glimmered darkly. Neither Callum nor Depot waited nearby.
Julie checked her phone.
Callum hadn’t answered her text, saying she was on her way.
And the Mary Martin was no longer tied up at the pier.
Julie walked up and down the full length of the dock, the receding tide quietly lapping both sides as she made sure she hadn’t missed a lobster boat in the darkness. She read each name painted in elegant, looping letters across the sterns of the boats.
The Mary Martin wasn’t among them.
Julie checked her phone again, fighting a fizzy feeling of panic. No way could Callum be one of the grandmother’s minions. Nobody could fake the connection, the desire, perhaps even more, that had begun to grow between them.
But Julie of all people knew that wasn’t true.
Acting was about finding the truth inside a part.
She bit back a bleat of fear. Callum had her dog.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Running now, Julie veered toward the unlit ferry station, twisting the knob on its door. There was nobody in there, but Julie pounded on the door anyway. Walking over to the window, she leaned her face against the glass and strained to get a look inside.
Empty.
She stopped to check her phone, fired off another text to Callum, all caps screaming CALL ME NOW. Realized she could make a call herself, dialed, got voicemail, ended the call only to try again, and again, the messages she left increasing in intensity, in urgency, the last one all but hysterical.
Ellie had been driven to suicide. Peter’s real parents had been forced to give up their son. Anything could happen on Mercy Island. Even, or especially, to the teacher who had sought to interfere. Or to her dog.
Callum’s ex-girlfriend. Hadn’t she come from Duck Harbor?
Julie spun around on the pier, then sprinted to the road, turning first left, then right.
A car whizzed by, blasting her with a cold rush of wind, and a furious honk as it swung wide to avoid a collision. Julie stepped back, but another car came, this one also not so much as slowing down, before there were no more cars on the road, no red trace of taillights in the distance. Julie leaned over, hands on her thighs, trying to control her breathing.
Her phone lit up, a laser beam in the night. A split second later, it buzzed like a wasp in her hand. Julie slapped the screen to her ear. “Hello? Callum? Hello?”
In the background, Depot delivered a cheerful bark of greeting.
Julie hadn’t realized how hard her heart had been knocking in her chest till it started to slow. “Callum? Is that you?”
He answered, his voice pitched low. “Sweetheart, it’s me, be quiet.”
A pause, some barely audible sounds that could’ve been mumbles, then Callum said, “Listen to me. Everything’s okay. But you have to stop talking and listen.”
Julie obeyed instantly.
“I can’t come back for you now,” Callum told her, still speaking quietly. “I’ll tell you why later. There’s a motel, maybe half a mile south on the road. Go and get a room for the night. I’ll pick you up at first light tomorrow. You’ll be back in time for school.”
“Callum—” Julie found herself whispering too.
Explanations arrowed through her head. The grandmother had gotten to Callum. He was setting her up; one of the Hempsteads would be waiting at the motel. But when Callum spoke again, his voice laden with emotion, that sort of traitorousness felt outside the realm of possibility. Callum was protecting Julie from something.
“Sweetheart,” he said. “Don’t answer your phone tonight, okay? Even if it’s me.”
* * *
Julie didn’t expect to get any rest, far away from her dog, on an uncomfortable motel bed, sheets coarse with laundering. But after a hot shower and dinner from a vending machine, grief over Ellie, last night’s missed sleep, and the events of the day assailed her, and Julie could no longer fend off fatigue.
What if the grandmother knew where she was and sent someone to come get her, or vanquish her farther away, in the night? A yawn cracked Julie’s jaw as she leaned back against the headboard. The grandmother might have total dominion over Mercy, but Julie had a feeling that her reach didn’t extend off-island. She should be safe here for the night. Julie collapsed onto the paper-thin pillow, and didn’t stir until the alarm on her phone woke her just before dawn. She got up to trudge the half mile back to the f
erry landing.
Callum stood on the dock, Depot trotting in an anxious circle around him.
Julie started to run, but her dog covered the distance faster, nearly knocking her down with his heft. “Deep,” Julie murmured, kneeling to bury her face in his fur. “You okay? Did you have a good night?” The dog licked her face, a long, rough swipe of his tongue that seemed to signal assent.
Callum stood above them, arms crossed over his chest. He smiled at the dog’s rejoicing, but his face wore the hardened expression it had when he and Julie first met.
Julie rose. “What happened? Are you all right?”
For her dog was clearly fine. His breath smelled like meat; he must have eaten a kingly repast. Callum wouldn’t have had any dog food. Perhaps he and Depot had shared a steak.
“We’d better get on the boat if I’m to get you back to school on time,” Callum said. Something had changed in his voice.
She followed Callum, assisting Depot on board. The dog paced back and forth a few times before positioning his body in a mound on a dry section of floor.
Julie walked over to the bow, noting that she didn’t require a hand for balance, even though the water was choppy, white-tipped triangles of waves all around. The Mary Martin started chugging out to sea. Callum eased the throttle forward, then turned to face Julie.
* * *
“I hung around on the mainland for as long as I could and still count on getting back to the island before dark,” he said. “After nightfall, a boat coming to Mercy is like a beacon, no way to hide its passage. Especially not from anyone on the cliff side of the island.”
Julie wiped a slick of spray off her face. “You knew who I was hiding from?”
“I took a guess,” Callum responded. “You’re the teacher, and that woman’s always had a strange thing where your star pupil is concerned. I assume she knows we’ve been spending time together, and I figured it’d be better if she didn’t have any reason to wonder why you’d made a trip off-island.”
The Second Mother Page 34