My Second Life

by Faye Bird

Genres: Young Adult

Synopsis

Fifteen-year-old Ana has a good life--she has friends and a boy she likes and a kind mother--but still, she's haunted by her past; she knows that she lived once before as Emma and still misses her old family. When, by chance in her life now, she meets a woman she knew then, a terrifying memory flashes through her mind of a young girl drowning. Was Emma responsible? And should Ana pay the price? Consumed by guilt, Ana sets out to find out as much as possible about the person she was before and what she had done, only to discover that the family she misses so deeply had dark secrets of its own. To come to terms with her life now, she finally figures out how to let go of the past.

Release date: January 1, 1970

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Print pages: 304

Sample

Monday

1



“WE’RE GOING TO SEE Grillie later. You have remembered, haven’t you?” Rachel shouted through the bathroom door to me as I stepped out of the shower.

“Yes! What time is her operation?”

“They said it’ll be sometime this morning. I can call at midday and we can go over after three. I’ll pick you up from school.”

“That’s fine!” I shouted back.

Except I remembered that I’d said I’d meet Jamie after school. We’d arranged to go for a coffee. Jamie was my friend, but I’d liked him for ages. For months. He’d been going out with this girl in my year, Melissa, over the summer, but when we got back to school last week there were rumors going around that they’d broken up. I was there when Zak asked Jamie what had happened—he had just said Melissa was “no fun.” I could have told him that and then he wouldn’t have had to go out with her. But I didn’t say anything. I just laughed, and then quickly suggested we go to the café after school the next day. And now I’d have to text him and let him know I couldn’t make it. I wanted to see Grillie after her operation, but not seeing Jamie was gutting. Really gutting.

I sighed, wrapped my towel around me, and opened the bathroom door and found myself face-to-face with Rachel more suddenly than I’d anticipated.

“Didn’t realize you were still standing right there!” I said impatiently as I nipped past her and made my way into my room.

She tutted and started to head downstairs.

“I’ll meet you at the gates, okay?” she shouted back.

“Okay!”

I picked up my phone to text Jamie.

Can’t make the café today. Got to see my gran. Tomorrow? x

Grillie—my grandma Millie—was old. Eighty-two years old. When I was younger I would sit on her lap for hours on long weekend afternoons, and I would stroke her soft cheek and sing with her, and wonder whether she’d ever lived before. It was only because she was old. And wise. The oldest and wisest person I knew.

They say that wisdom comes with age, don’t they? I worked out in the shower this morning that between my two lives, my cumulative age was thirty-seven. Weird. Thirty-seven years of living, and really I was none the wiser.

* * *

When Rachel picked me up after school she was really anxious. When we got to the hospital she pounded the corridors as we followed the signs toward the ward.

“Are you okay, Rachel?”

“Yes, yes. I just want to see her, that’s all.”

“It was just a routine operation, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but she’s eighty-two. There are always risks when you’re eighty-two.”

“What did they say when you phoned earlier?”

“They said it went well.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re thinking that’s what they always say … You never really know until you get there.”

Rachel slowed her pace and looked at me. “Exactly,” she said, and she stroked my hair as we walked and I wanted to pull away from her as she touched me. It just made me want Mum even more when she touched me. Her loss was like an endless ache when I was with Rachel. It was something I’d always lived with. It was with me almost all the time. But today I let Rachel stroke my hair. I didn’t pull away. Because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Not now when she was so worried about Grillie.

When we walked into Grillie’s room she was sitting up in bed. She smiled when she saw us. I could see it was a struggle to smile. Even though she was propped up she didn’t look all that comfortable. She had a crinkly gown on and a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She was pale but calm. I knew she wasn’t going to die. Not today.

“How are you?” Rachel said, leaning forward to give her a kiss.

I wanted to give her a kiss too, to say hello, but I was nervous. I didn’t want to lean in and press down on her in all the wrong places.

“My throat’s a little dry,” she said.

I jumped to it. “Here, I’ll pour you some water.” There was a plastic jug on the side with a flappy white lid and a small plastic cup.

“Thank you, lovely,” she said.

I sat down gently on the side of the bed, passing her the cup. She took a drink and then she set the cup down and took my hand.

“You’ve got the room all to yourself, Grillie! You’ve lucked in!”

“Well, yes. For now,” she said. “So how was your day, lovely?”

“Oh—not much to tell. Just school,” I said.

“But you like it, don’t you? It’s a good school. Rachel’s always telling me how well you’re doing.”

I looked at Grillie. This was the same conversation we always had. She was tired. Her usual feisty chat dulled by the painkillers. She was slow, placid.

“I’m going to go and find a nurse. See if we can get you another pillow,” said Rachel. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“How long do you have to stay in for?” I asked.

“Not sure just yet. See how I go. If all is well I’ll be out by the weekend, I think.”

“I’ll come again tomorrow, okay? Bring you a magazine or something.”

“Yes. I’d like that,” she said, and then her hand slipped its grip from mine and she sank quickly into sleep. I knew it was the drugs but it still surprised me.

Rachel came back.

“She’s asleep,” I whispered.

“Oh—is she?” Rachel said. I could see the disappointment in her face as she pulled the pillow she’d just found for Grillie toward her tummy. She was hugging it for comfort.

“I’m sure she’ll wake up again in a minute,” I said. I wanted to make it better for her.

“I don’t know. She must be tired. And all the drugs … She needs to sleep.”

I stood up to let Rachel sit where I had been sitting on the bed, and I watched Rachel put the pillow down and take Grillie’s hand, and as she held it in her own she looked into Grillie’s face with such love. I had never felt love like that for Rachel. Because all I have ever wanted is my mum. My real mum. I wanted to cry and call out for her now, to come to me. But I couldn’t. Because no one would have come. The room suddenly felt hot.

Too hot.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should go.” I said to Rachel, picking up my bag from the floor. “We should let her sleep.”

I had to get out. Find some fresh air. I had to get out, to breathe.

“Yes,” said Rachel, and she picked up the pillow she’d left on the end of the bed and plumped it before putting it back, and then she kissed Grillie on the forehead, so gently, and we left.

We walked through the hospital in complete silence. I didn’t know why I felt so bad. Maybe it was just the hospital. There was a smell of illness in the air. A place where you went to get better should smell of good health—of a rich, dark earth and a fresh spring wind—but this place smelled sterile and poisonous. I kept walking, fast, trying to get Rachel to walk faster with me. I could tell she was worried, thinking hard. Her pace was much slower than when we’d arrived. And as I walked I looked at the walls, the signs, the people here visiting family, friends …

I could see a rush up ahead: a couple of doctors with a stretcher jogging it along the corridor, people parting ways. An emergency. Just let me out. Let me out … That’s all I could think as I kept walking. The stretcher was coming closer now, and I could see there was an old woman lying on it, crying, her arms stretched high on a pillow above her head, her head turned to one side. Crying. Wailing. I stopped. I had to. I was forced to. And as much as I didn’t want to look, I did. And that’s when I saw her—Frances. She opened her eyes as she passed me, and we were locked together in a moment—

“Frances Wells…,” I said, out loud, as they wheeled her away.

“What’s that?” said Rachel.

“That was Frances Wells!”

I knew her … I knew her face.

An image flew through my mind: a child, a small child, with her eyes open wide … wet and wild … her body, still … cradled by a mass of twigs and branches in the water …

I thought I might pass out. I took a deep breath in.

“She didn’t look so well, did she?” said Rachel, utterly mishearing me. “Let’s go, come on. Let’s get fish and chips.”

And as we walked out into the cooler air I could feel that something had changed. There had been a shift—in me—and I had this feeling. A feeling that I had done something so wrong … so very wrong that I didn’t dare to name it … And I was afraid.



Text copyright © 2016 by Faye Bird