Second Lives

by P. D. Cacek

Nora shook her head and felt a tear fall. Dear God, maybe, at the end, his parents would come for him, but until then there was nothing she could do for the little boy inside Henry except lie to him.

  “It’s not right,” she whispered. “It’s just not right.”

  “No, it’s not, but overall he’s happy and an absolute joy to be around, especially compared to some others I have to deal with.”

  “You mean the other three…Travelers?”

  “Oh, no, no…I meant in my private practice. Sorry. The other three are doing fine and have adjusted to their new lives with varying degrees of ease.”

  Nora nodded and dabbed at her eyes with one of the many tissues she kept in the pocket of her cardigan. Timmy’s nose always seemed to be running and he never remembered to wipe it.

  She sniffed and put the damp tissue back into her pocket. “That’s good to hear. They deserve to be happy.”

  “Happiness is a relative term, but they’re coping as well as can be expected.” Dr. Ellison folded his hands on the tabletop and leaned over them. “You don’t have to worry about them.”

  “I’m not. It’s just that they’re lost and alone, like Timmy.” She took a deep breath and used the sleeve of her sweater to polish her fingerprints off the table edge. “I’ve never been able to pass a stray cat or dog without wanting to take it in and care for it, and I guess that’s the way I feel about these poor souls.”

  Dr. Ellison smiled. “That’s because you’re a natural mother, but I promise they’re doing well. Maybe not as well as Timmy in there, but how can anyone hope to compete with this?”

  “This?”

  “You’ve created a childhood fantasyland here, Mrs. Rollins. No school, no homework, all the TV and comic books he wants…plus fresh-baked cookies on demand. I tell you, I’m more than a little jealous of him.”

  Nora laughed out loud. “Oh, now, it’s not that much. I used to do the same for Marjorie when she was home sick from school. You have children, Dr. Ellison?”

  “No. My wife and I wanted children but it never happened.”

  “You’re still a young man, there’s time.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said and changed the subject. “Mrs. Rollins, I think it might be best if Timmy went back into the hospital.”

  “No. And I’ll tell you the same thing I told Martin…Dr. Cross. Timmy’s been through enough, more than any poor child should, and he deserves to be at peace now. Especially now. I won’t put him in some sterile, soulless room to breathe his last. I won’t do that, not again. I let Henry die that way but I won’t let it happen to Timmy. He likes it here, Dr. Ellison, and he’s happy here and here is where he’s going to stay.”

  “Dr. Cross told me you were feisty.”

  Nora raised her chin. “I’m beginning to like that word.”

  “All right,” he said, “you win, but it’s not going to be easy.”

  “There’s where you’re wrong, Dr. Ellison. Dying is the easiest thing we ever get to do. It’s staying behind that’s hard.”

  “That it is, Mrs. Rollins. Well, I’d better be going. Thank you for the cookies and insight.” Dr. Ellison stood up and pushed his chair back under the table, as Nora got to her feet and followed him back into the living room where he waved at Timmy. “Okay, pardner, be seein’ ya next week.”

  “Same time, same station!” Timmy yelled back and clapped his hands.

  “You got it.”

  “Missus Nora…can I have a cookie?”

  Dr. Ellison looked at Nora and laughed. “And some things he never forgets. You go ahead, I’ll let myself out. Goodbye, Mrs. Rollins.”

  “Goodbye, Dr. Ellison.”

  * * *

  Three days later the living room looked like the front room of a very friendly haunted house.

  Nora had found some old sheer curtains in the back of the linen closet and taken a pair of scissors to them, shredding them as they hung in the windows. With the help of the hospice nurse and under Timmy’s instruction, a parade of smiling jack-o’-lanterns, cackling witches and dancing skeletons had been taped on every wall and around the doorway. Black plastic bats and tissue-paper ghosts flew from the blades of the ceiling fan.

  A large, uncarved pumpkin sat on a pile of newspaper on the small table next to the hospital bed. They were going to carve it, her and Timmy, when he felt stronger, and then, maybe, they’d work on the paper chain garland they’d started but probably would never finish.

  He was always tired now, sleeping most of the day, even when he woke up late. The hospice nurse told Nora that it was a normal part of the end process and that she shouldn’t worry. Nora told her she wasn’t worried at all.

  He woke up around three and asked for cookies and milk and ate two before falling back to sleep. He was still asleep when Nora put the strips of black and orange paper and rolls of masking tape back into the plastic bin and lifted out the unfinished chain. It was still only a few feet long, but was long enough to drape around the pumpkin when she put it out on Halloween night.

  And maybe she wouldn’t even carve it this year; maybe she’d just leave it whole so it would last longer. When Marjorie was little she always cried the morning after Halloween when they threw away the withered and candle-cooked pumpkin. She never understood why they wouldn’t let her keep it.

  “Because there’s a time for things, baby, and it’s just the pumpkin’s time to go.”

  Just like it was getting to be Timmy’s time.

  “Mama?”

  Nora brought the chain with her, shuffling her feet against the floor so she wouldn’t stumble over anything before she was able to turn on the lamp next to her chair.

  “No, baby,” she said when they could both see each other, “it’s just me, just silly old Missus Nora.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was just going to wake you up, baby, because I’ve got some wonderful news for you.” Only his eyes moved, flickered toward her. “Your mama and daddy just called and told me you have a brand new baby…sister.”

  “Sumfaawinsprig,” he said so softly that Nora had to lean down to hear.

  “That’s right, little Summerfall Winterspring. You’re a big brother, Timmy.”

  “Big.”

  “Yes, you are, and you know what that means?” He just looked at her. “It means your mommy and daddy and baby sister are coming to get you.”

  “Mama?”

  “That’s right, they’re coming here to get you and then you’ll all go home.”

  “Home?”

  “Yes, you’re going to go home.”

  “Home.” He smiled up at her.

  “That’s right, baby, home. Would you like me to read to you until they come?”

  Timmy smiled and closed his eyes. Nora touched his cheek. His skin was cool and dry. She pulled the blankets higher over him and sat down and put on her reading glasses. There was a small stack of library books on the end table, all due back at the end of the month. Nora picked up the one on top and opened it.

  “Oh, this is your favorite, Treasure Island. Shall I read it?”

  Timmy made a sound and Nora began reading.

  It was almost midnight when the sound of his breathing changed. Nora raised her voice so he could hear her, so he knew she was there and that he wasn’t alone. An hour later Timmy stopped breathing, but Nora continued to read until the night had passed and a new day began.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Elisabeth

  Despite the warmth of the cloth against her breast, the heat rising in her face made it feel so cold to the touch that her body trembled. Liar! Keeping her head turned and eyes closed, lest the body she now inhabited betray her again and she see its naked reflection in the glass, Elisabeth finished swabbing the breast and covered herself with a towel before dropping the cloth into the sink.

&n
bsp; The towel was soft, almost silken to the touch, and smelled of lavender. It was a far cry from the stiff, coarsely woven sheets that her mother had favored.

  Eyes still closed, Elisabeth lowered her head and inhaled the sweet fragrance deep into her lungs, but as she did so, the towel brushed against the swollen nipple of her breast and a shiver, a tremor deeper than a chill, invaded her nether parts and made her gasp.

  Elisabeth threw the towel away from her and, though her breasts still felt damp, quickly pushed them into the cumbersome brassiere she now wore in place of a corset. The material was not quite as soft as the bathing towel, but it provoked the same terrible secret sensation as it compressed her nipples.

  The first time Elisabeth felt it was in the hospital when, still befuddled with laudanum or whatever tincture of opium the physicians had given her to battle the pain of the wound they’d inflicted upon her, the nurse had placed the babe Emily to her breast and given it to suck.

  The shame was almost enough to conceal the trembling, throbbing warmth that radiated upward from betwixt her legs.

  If it had not been for the babe Elisabeth would have given in to the hysterics that grew in equal measures to the terrible, pleasurable sensation. It was only after the babe was removed from the room, asleep and satiated, that Elisabeth gave way to her emotions.

  “It’s all right,” Sara’s mother, Lillian, had said, “a lot of new mothers are uncomfortable nursing. I’ll get you a breast pump.”

  But I am not a mother, she’d wanted to scream. This is not my child.

  Still the babe had been delivered of the body she now wore and had to be fed in those early weeks, so, twice a day, morning and afternoon, Elisabeth had been milked, first by the nurses in the hospital and now, because the mother’s breast still produced milk, by her own hand, half-naked and sequestered in the Jack-and-Jill bathroom.

  Opening her eyes, Elisabeth lifted the blouse she’d chosen to wear from the robe hook on the door and slipped it on. She was halfway through buttoning it in place when she stopped and, holding her breath, listened.

  Was that the baby?

  Every morning since becoming a part of Sara’s family, she’d wakened to the soft sounds of Emily rousing herself from sleep. She had heard tales, reticently spoken, of the unearthly shrieks and howling tantrums an infant would produce upon awakening, but Sara’s child, Emily, awoke only with murmurs that became a series of gentle coos and babbles, as if she were saying goodbye to the wondrous creatures that had peopled her dreams and was welcoming the bright new morning.

  “What fanciful rubbish,” her mother would have said if she’d dared to speak such a thought aloud. But, as she still needed to remind herself on occasion, her mother was long dead and turned to dust and, therefore, no longer a matter of consequence.

  Elisabeth turned her head toward the nursery door, the fingers of her right hand motionless against the bare skin of her throat, her body already inclining forward before she remembered that the baby’s father, Daniel, had taken Emily for the long Columbus Day weekend and wouldn’t be returning until later that evening.

  The sounds had been purely her imagination attempting to fill the inexplicable void she had felt at the child’s absence.

  It was such a strange fancy, almost as if she loved the child as her own.

  But perhaps that was only because her body still retained its need to provide nourishment.

  Nodding at the explanation, Elisabeth turned back to the bathroom’s vanity mirror and finished dressing.

  When she had secured the topmost button and made sure the pins holding the tight bun to the back of her head were secure, she stepped back to appraise the gray-and-mauve plaid jumper and pale lavender blouse she’d selected to wear. The colors complemented the rose-and-milk-glass complexion of the face she now wore and enhanced the color of her eyes.

  For they were still her eyes even if they were now set in a younger, more beautiful face than she would ever have dared imagine for herself.

  Even Frances might have been jealous of her.

  And so wonderfully astonished by the strides her Suffragettes had accomplished. Closing her eyes, Elisabeth silently prayed that her beloved friend had lived long enough to at least see the Nineteenth Amendment ratified.

  Frances would have made a much better Traveler, but she would not have wished this upon anyone else. If she had only obeyed her mother that morning so long ago and stayed at home she would have lived out her natural life, and in due course, died and been buried.

  And forgotten.

  And not made to suffer the indignities and…obscene sensations that the flesh she now wore was heir to.

  Elisabeth could not bring herself to think of it as the miracle both Lillian and Daniel’s mother, Judy, inferred it to be. For miracles were joyous and wondrous events for all who witness them.

  And that was certainly not the case.

  A true miracle would have been for Sara to come back from the abyss. It was Sara the daughter and wife and Emily’s true mother they wanted, not the spirit within the animated poppet her body had become.

  If self-murder was not a sin and I could be certain that my death would be final this time….

  Opening her eyes to the reflection in the glass, Elisabeth tilted the head to one side and frowned. Sara had been a lovely young woman, but she’d worn her hair very short and though Elisabeth was allowing it to grow, it was much thicker than she was used to and almost willfully obstinate in her attempts to fashion it. Despite her best efforts, and an innumerable amount of hairpins, a number of curls consistently escaped to cascade down the sides of her face. She was told it was quite becoming, but it still somewhat irked her sense of propriety.

  Giving the hair a final pat, Elisabeth picked up the jar of milk she’d siphoned that morning, but, instead of going back to her own room from which she’d descend to the kitchen, she turned and walked to the door directly opposite.

  The nursery. Emily’s room.

  Pressing the jar of warm milk to the front of her jumper, Elisabeth stopped just short of the door and took a deep breath, imagining, even though the door was closed, that she could smell the sweet, light scent of the child – powder and soap and sun-dried linen, a smell that evoked spring even as the year was drawing to a close.

  Her breasts (Sara’s breasts), though empty, ached as she opened the door and walked into the room.

  All brightness and light, it was a room she herself would have loved to occupy as a child. There were no sharp corners or unwelcoming shadows, no dark wainscoting or heavy drapes that kept out the light. Gauze curtains, ethereal as mist, moved slowly in the warm draft from the floor’s furnace register. Walking to the rocking chair where, at night, she sometimes came to sit and simply watch the sleeping child in its crib, Elisabeth set it to motion.

  On those nights, more so lately, she found herself having to fight a deepening urge to pick up the sleeping babe just to feel the warmth of her. It was perplexing. She wasn’t Emily’s mother, she wasn’t anyone’s mother, and therefore she had neither claim nor right to feel anything for the child.

  Especially the growing sense of love.

  But that was a secret Elisabeth swore she would take to the grave.

  Whenever that might occur.

  Stopping the motion, Elisabeth turned and left the room to Sara’s ghost.

  * * *

  The eggs did not look like the ones Lillian made, but they were fluffy and not burned and – thanks be to God – finally cooked all the way through. Elisabeth was more familiar with the coddled eggs prepared by her mother’s cook, so her first attempts at ‘scrambling’ eggs combined with her complete lack of culinary skill had resulted in either semi-coagulated soup or charred slabs that smelled of brimstone.

  And were just as inedible.

  She had never been taught to cook, of course, only how to select cooks.
How unfortunate that particular skill was no longer essential.

  Elisabeth sniffed the air cautiously – at least they smelled fine – before spooning the eggs onto a serving platter.

  “I believe the eggs are done,” she said, carrying the platter to the table. Bob nodded, but she’d seen the wary look in his eyes as she set the platter down.

  Lillian simply smiled up at her. “They look wonderful, dear.”

  “But looks can be deceiving,” she reminded them.

  “Well,” Bob said, casting all earlier tentativeness aside as he scooped eggs onto his plate with the serving spoon, “like the old saying goes: the proof of the pudding is in the taste.”

  Oh, dear.

  He took more than his usual single scoop and Elisabeth knew it was more than his just being polite; he wanted her to succeed. Yet, both she and Lillian remained still and quiet, and perhaps Lillian was holding her breath as Elisabeth was, waiting for Bob to finish sprinkling a salt-substitute and pepper on the eggs and take a bite.

  “Mmmm.”

  Elisabeth exhaled, but it was Lillian who asked, “Well?”

  Bob took another forkful and winked. Lillian looked up at Elisabeth and smiled.

  “That means he likes it,” she explained and lifted some eggs onto her own plate, nodding in agreement when she tasted them. “And he’s right, they’re delicious. And much creamier than mine…what did you do differently?”

  Elisabeth smiled and went to fetch the toast she’d made, a skill – thanks to the electric toasting machine – she excelled in.

  “I added a quarter cup of milk and a dash of nutmeg.” The statement was met with stares from both Lillian and Bob. “It was something I saw on a cooking show on the television. Are they really all right? Not overdone?”

  “No, they’re perfect – really!” Bob said and took another bite. “Lil, maybe you should start watching those cooking shows.”

  Lillian glared at him, but since Elisabeth knew it was only in jest it was all she could do to keep from laughing.

  “Then I’ll go fetch the sausages and coffee pot,” she said and turned away from the table.