The Second Mother: A Novel Jenny

Milchman [Milchman
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-second-mother-a-novel-jenny-milchman-milchma
n-3/
 Thank you for downloading this
Sourcebooks eBook!

You are just one click away from…

• Being the first to hear about author
happenings
• VIP deals and steals
• Exclusive giveaways
• Free bonus content
• Early access to interactive activities
• Sneak peeks at our newest titles

Happy reading!

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Books. Change. Lives.

Copyright © 2020 by Jenny Milchman
Cover and internal design © 2020 by Sourcebooks
Cover design by Sarah Brody
Cover image © Mike Dobel/Arcangel Images
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of
Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing
from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are
used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are
trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their
respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product
or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Milchman, Jenny, author.
Title: Second mother / Jenny Milchman.
Description: Naperville, IL : Sourcebooks Landmark, [2020]
Identifiers: LCCN 2019055787 | (trade paperback)
Classification: LCC PS3613.I47555 S43 2020 | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019055787
 Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Part I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten
Part II

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine
 Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Part III

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight
 Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Part IV

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Four

Chapter Sixty-Five

Chapter Sixty-Six

Chapter Sixty-Seven
 Chapter Sixty-Eight

Part V

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy-One

Chapter Seventy-Two

Chapter Seventy-Three

Chapter Seventy-Four

Chapter Seventy-Five

Excerpt from Wicked River

One Year Before

Reading Group Guide

A Conversation with the Author

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Back Cover
This one is for my brother and sister, Ezra and Kari, and for our
parents, Alan and Madelyn, who made sure all our summers in
Maine were times of beauty, peace, and togetherness.
 Part I
Finding Mercy
 Chapter One

Julie Mason found the ad on Opportunity.com, the site she

frequented the most, in part because of its optimistic name. It
seemed the essence of simplicity: clear and unambiguous in
meaning. May as well have been called NewLife.com, although that
might’ve sounded a little religious.
Looking to start all over again? the site’s marketing message
beckoned. We can help. Julie just lurked, had never taken an actual
step forward with any of the opportunities that were posted. So far it
was enough to read the listings, imagine other lives.
This latest post fit her qualifications, though, and its old-fashioned
wording drew her eye. Like a classified ad from days of old, all those
small, perfect squares lined up in columns above and below a
newspaper fold. So many people searching for a second chance, and
so many chances on offer.
Julie wasn’t the only one with something to leave behind.
This particular opportunity seemed to come from a world that time
forgot, one that had vanished in the crush of modern-day life, which
had also crushed Julie.
Opportunity: Teacher needed for one-room schoolhouse on remote island in
Maine. Certification in grades K–8 a must.
 Julie read the post a second time, then a third, before glancing
down at the clock in the corner of the screen. Nearly noon. Four
whole hours gone since she’d sat down at the computer. This was
how time passed for her these days, not in a fluid, comprehensible
stream, or even streaking by, falling-star fast. Instead, it was as if
time had a beast lapping at its heels, taking great, gobbling bites.
David wouldn’t be home for hours still. And if she was going to
give some thought to a real, actual opportunity, then she should eat
lunch. That was what normal people who inhabited normal lives—
lives where things moved, and changed, and were accomplished—
did around noon.
The only problem was that she wasn’t hungry, and she didn’t think
there was likely to be much food in the house anyway. Over the past
year, they’d been subsisting on supermarket salads and sandwiches,
pizza for a diversion. David had never really gotten the hang of
grocery shopping. That had always been Julie’s task, along with
housecleaning, which explained why the floors were gritty underfoot,
and the furniture languished beneath an opaque veil of dust like
discards from Miss Havisham’s attic.
Their finances were probably in tip-top order, however. And the
yard looked shipshape, green and blooming at this height of
summer, while never overgrown. Ole didn’t-miss-a-step David saw to
that.
Julie pushed the chair back from the desk she and her husband
shared, its wheels grinding bits of dirt into the floorboards. David did
the aforementioned finances here, and once, a long, long time ago,
eons to her mind, Julie had used the laptop to communicate with the
parents of her fifth-grade students and keep up with work on the
school portal.
One year.
 As of five days ago, it had been exactly a year, which meant that
Julie had already lived this date, another July 28, without Hedley.
Each day in which her daughter didn’t take part was a new ordeal to
be gotten through, a fresh cut in Julie’s skin.
She stood up, legs wobbly from inactivity, or perhaps from the
prospect of leaving the house. But maybe if she went out to a place
where she could see and smell food, it would trigger her appetite.
Her shorts slid downward alarmingly on her hips; Julie couldn’t recall
the last full meal she’d eaten.
Nowadays she nibbled. Bites here and there. Partial plates.
She patted her empty pockets. Cash and keys. That was the first
step.

***

In Wedeskyull, New York, a town almost as remote as the island

Julie had just read about, you didn’t have to worry about locking
doors. Julie skipped the step of locating her purse; how would she
possibly find it in the unkempt clutter of the house? A quick peek in
her closet, where her bag usually hung, revealed a tangle of clothes
and the teetering stack of her old CD and DVD collection—
soundtracks, shows, and musicals sequestered away now that she
no longer played them for Hedley.
Julie settled for taking the Ford’s extra keyless remote along with
money from David’s neat stack of emergency bills.
Her husband’s punctilious ways kept their lives in order, and had
probably enabled them to survive this past year. Without heat, you
could die during an Adirondack winter. Every log in David’s
woodshed lay like a soldier in a bunk, and his barn looked like a
Home Depot ad: carefully maintained equipment and tools, each
stray screw and nail stored in a tiny box or tray. David also kept an
online calendar, color coded for both him and Julie. Only lately had
his methods started to register on her as smart and utilitarian, but
also hollow, devoid of the emotion she craved. The life.
NewLife.com
Julie gave a hard shake of her head. That wasn’t right. She’d go
online again as soon as she got back, open the bookmarked tab for
Opportunity.com—that was its name—then reread the post about
the one-room schoolhouse. Both activities might take up enough of
the day that sleep could be a reasonable next step, aided by some
liquid assistance combined with half of one of the pills Dr. Trask had
prescribed. Julie was down to three-quarters of a bottle from her last
refill, and carefully conserving. In Wedeskyull and the surrounding
towns, meds were no longer dispensed with a free hand. But Julie
wasn’t going to think about what would happen when her supply ran
out, how she would ever sleep more than five minutes at a stretch
again. Trask knew she was still relying on pharmaceuticals; maybe
he’d have mercy.
Julie scuffed across the driveway, the heels of her flip-flops
flapping loosely. Had even her feet shrunk, every bit of her
diminished now, whittled away?
She started the Ford, its wheel feeling alien in her hands, as if the
power steering had failed. Every inch of rotation was arduous,
effortful. The road, once she backed out of their drive, didn’t look
familiar. Had it always been this steep and winding? The SUV
seemed poised to topple at the start of a hill, fall nose over tail, like
a kid rolling down a lawn.
Julie braked in the middle of the road. One advantage to living on
the edge of the wilderness: there was no other car in sight to deliver
a beep of protest. She felt around for the gas pedal with her foot
and began again to drive.
 When had she last been out on her own? After, David was always
with her. And before, it would’ve been Hedley, tiny in age and size,
but huge in terms of the space she took up in Julie’s life. Since her
daughter’s birth, Julie hadn’t experienced much in the way of
aloneness, had even resented that reality, fighting for hard-won
fractions of time like every new mother: Can I just take a shower,
finish a cup of tea, or better yet, a nightcap without being
interrupted by this sudden, all-consuming presence?
The space in the rear of the Ford yawned, as dark and empty as a
cave. They mostly took David’s car now, on the rare occasions that
Julie did go out. She’d scarcely been inside this one in over a year.
Oh God, Hedley’s car seat was still belted in back there, secured as
required by law—so many parents got it wrong, but Julie’s closest
friend was a cop—yet so unspeakably vacant.
Julie hit the brake so hard the Ford jolted, and her chest struck the
steering wheel with which she’d just been doing battle.
Only this time there was a car nearby, and it sheered around the
SUV with a Doppler’s whine of wind and a furious blast of its horn,
making Julie throw up one of her hands in a futile, unseen gesture
of apology before driving off in halting spurts and stops.
 Chapter Two

Julie decided not to go to the Crescent Diner, the place her uncles
and grandfather used to frequent for a bite between shifts on the
job. On the rare occasions when Julie’s father and mother had eaten
out, they’d also been customers at the diner. Nor did Julie choose to
go to the new, upscale café in town, which her mom and dad
might’ve liked, had they still been alive when it opened. Fancy salads
and wraps and expensive coffee drinks that cost more than most
longtime residents’ daily food budgets. “What’s wrong with plain
black?” Julie could hear her uncle, the former police chief, asking.
Instead, Julie pulled up in front of a store that barely had a name,
at least not one that anybody remembered. The letters on its aged
sign had faded to the point of invisibility. An old-fashioned general
store, or The Store to the locals, as in, I have to pick up some soap
at The Store. Or pants even. Or berries, sold in season in gleaming
rows of jewel-filled cartons on the front porch. Julie had a different
mental name for the place, almost a term of endearment. The
Everything Store. Its wares had provided distraction for a baby,
enabling Julie to get shopping done during the most tender stages of
new motherhood.
Her heart thrummed in her chest as she parked. She sat staring
through the car window at The Everything Store’s facade till her eyes
started to tear.
 They have sandwiches here, Julie told herself, stabbing the button
to turn off the engine. I can get something to eat.
The door opened with a welcoming jangle of bells that gave Julie a
chill. She looked around before entering to see if the temperature
had dropped, leaves showing their underbellies in the type of wind
that preceded a thunderstorm, clouds rolling in. But the sun shone
warmly in a cornflower-blue sky and the day was still, the kind of
weather seen in Wedeskyull only a handful of weeks out of the year.
Julie rubbed her goose-pimply arms and went inside.
The first section to greet her was the easiest: hangers and racks
with tees and sweatshirts on display, Wedeskyull silk-screened over a
row of jagged mountaintops that looked like teeth. Then camouflage
gear in adult and youth sizes. After that came camping and outdoors
equipment, with portable hunting blinds and crossbows next. Guns
were kept behind a glass case to Julie’s left, taken for granted
enough in her life that their dark, threatening lengths and sleek
triggers curving like grins didn’t trouble her.
Beyond the guns stood the lunch counter. Julie could swerve right
now—stroll past the glassed-in case, or veer in the opposite
direction, toward where moccasins sat in boxes on shelves—and
avoid the area in front of her entirely.
She had shopped and browsed, hung out and played here, each
stage a marker in reverse of the years of her life. Married with
enough money to make purchases. A window-shopping single
woman, seeing which new goods had come in, but trying to
conserve her dollars. A teenager killing time over a soda and candy
with friends. A kid at her mother’s heels, or a baby in a stroller, as
the mysterious tasks required to keep house were taken care of.
Julie could thread her way to the row of stools without looking and
not even stumble. Perch on top of a cracked vinyl seat and order a
tuna-fish sandwich and iced tea, food as simple and old-fashioned as
the want ad she’d read a thousand years ago that morning. Instead,
she walked forward as if pulled by a rope. The act had a compulsive,
unstoppable feel, a victim returning to the scene of the crime.
These clothes were different from the ones that had faced her
when she came in. Tiny onesies and miniature sweaters hand knit by
local women, priced at amounts that, even in Julie’s near-
mesmerized state, seemed shocking, exorbitant. Board books about
nature, pairs of fur-lined booties so tiny, both would fit on Julie’s
palm. Sock animals and corn-husk dolls. Slightly less frivolous items
like organic teething biscuits and herbal remedies for nursing moms.
Julie spun around, turning her back, but it was too late. Memories
began swarming her like wasps. She tried to bat them away, fight
them off, but failed and dropped to her knees.
She couldn’t explain the sudden flurry of white; it was as if it had
begun snowing right here in The Everything Store. Cloth diapers,
Julie saw through blurred eyes, made of fair trade cotton, the
packaging somehow torn open, no, clawed open, so that the squares
fell in a pile on her lap. Julie leaned down, burying her face in the
sweet-smelling heap until it grew sodden, plugging her nose and
mouth.
“Um, miss? Ma’am?”
Julie looked up, and the woman leaning over her, her pregnant
stomach a swell that blocked out sight of anything else, took a
sudden, lurching step back.
“I think…we need some help over here!” the woman cried.
Julie bunched up the white drift of cloth in her hands, squeezing it
tighter and tighter. It was like a ball, an object that could be thrown.
Thrown at this horrible person with her immense belly, and her
innocent, concerned face, just trying to help because she hadn’t yet
learned that there were some situations that could never, ever be
helped.

***

From the side of The Everything Store where a cordless phone clung
to the wall—it had been a modernization not so long ago, replacing
the kind of contraption with a curlicued wire—Julie heard a series of
bleeps. The store clerk made the call matter-of-factly, her voice
bleached of sympathy, allowing Julie a shred of dignity.
Chief.
Not the old chief, thank God, Julie’s grandfather, nor the son who
came after him.
You mind coming down here?
The next voice Julie heard was husky and deep, echoing in her ear.
Julie had known this voice when it was less husky, and not yet deep.
“Come on, Jules,” Tim Lurcquer said quietly, squatting beside her.
She blinked.
“Come on,” he repeated. “You’ll feel better once we leave.”
Tim got to his feet—a faint creak from his knees as he rose that
surprised her—and extended a hand, strong enough to pull Julie
upright. The cloth of his uniform shirt felt crisp despite the summer
heat.
She held out a twisted clutch of plastic. “I have to buy these
diapers.” That was what you did if you broke something accidentally
in a store. Or ruined it with malice and fury. Maybe you paid double
then. “Also, I think I might’ve assaulted a woman.”
Tim took the packaging from Julie’s hand, his touch slow and
gentle, as if she were a deer or a sparrow, some sort of wild animal
that would shy away from human contact. “No,” he said, his voice so
kind it caused an ache. “You don’t. There’s not a person in this town
who would take your money.”

***

Tim pulled up in front of Julie’s house in his police-issue vehicle, a

luxury 4×4 that was a relic of another age. A whole other
Wedeskyull, a different kind of regime. Subsidized by the wealthy to
keep the powerful in charge. Julie’s uncle used to drive this Mercury;
the model wasn’t even made anymore.
Of the Weathers men living here since the town was incorporated,
Julie’s father had been an outlier. Younger by a fair shake compared
to his two brothers, and the only male in the family not to enter law
enforcement. He’d chosen logging instead, and had died in a chain-
saw accident. Julie sometimes saw her dad’s premature death as a
near-Grecian tragedy. Scandal and wrongdoing had undone the cops
in her family, and although her father had attempted to rebel, find
his own way, in the end he had been toppled too.
She unlatched her seat belt, which had imprinted a band of sweat
across her shirt. Tim had powered both windows down, and it’d felt
cool enough as he drove along at a good clip, but now the air grew
swampy and hot.
“It’s not the loss that kills you,” Tim said.
She looked at him sharply, and he lifted both hands off the
steering wheel, flattening his palms. A gesture of retreat, of
surrender. But then he went on. “It’s the guilt. I see it all the time on
the job. Guilt makes it so there are at least two deaths for every
one.”
Julie’s nose plugged solid with tears.
“But I can’t imagine less reason for guilt than you have, Jules.
There was just nothing you did wrong. Not one goddamned thing.”
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR
ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this
agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this
agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the
maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable
state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of
this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the

Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the
Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any
volunteers associated with the production, promotion and
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless
from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that
arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project
Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or
deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect
you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of

Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new
computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of
volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project
Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™
collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In
2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was
created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project
Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your
efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the
Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-
profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the
laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by
the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal
tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax
deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and
your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500

West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact
links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation’s website and official page at
www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to

the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission
of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works
that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form
accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated
equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly
important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws

regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of
the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform
and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many
fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not
solicit donations in locations where we have not received written
confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or
determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states

where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know
of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from
donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot

make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations
received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp
our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current

donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a
number of other ways including checks, online payments and
credit card donations. To donate, please visit:
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project

Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could
be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose
network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several

printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by
copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus,
we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any
particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear
about new eBooks.