My Second Life

 

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About the Author

Copyright Page

 

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For Ruben and Rosa

 

prologue

T
HE FIRST TIME
I was born, I was born Emma Trees. I was born to Amanda and Richard Trees. I was Emma. I was beautiful. People told me that. I had everything to live for. People told me that too. But I died. It was October 18.

1994. I was twenty-two.

And then I was born a second time, utterly against my will. Who knew you could be brought into the world twice, the second time only six years after you left the first time? Who knew you could be born again and know
—
and I mean know like you know how to pull in the air and breathe
—
that you've been here and done all this before?

I was born Ana Ross on June 28, 2000. A millennium baby. I was born to Rachel Ross, and someone called David Summers, who has never shown up, which is okay because if I had two parents, two people who loved me as much as Rachel Ross loves me, I really don't think I could handle it. I feel kind of guilty that Rachel loves me so much and thinks I'm so completely wonderful, when actually I've been here and done all this before with my first mum and dad. I do love Rachel. She just doesn't feel like Mum. Not to me. Amanda Trees is my mum, and she always will be.

*   *   *

The first time you're born it's pretty traumatic. A bit like being pulled out of a deliciously warm bath and plonked wet and naked in the middle of the highway in rush hour and someone saying,
“Get on with it then!”

The second time I was born it was easier, because I knew the score. The rush of blind panic as you slip out, the first gasp of tight cold air, the hairy peering faces. I knew all that would pass, and that soon I'd be on the warm belly of someone I'd love for the rest of my life. Except when I looked up and saw Rachel, and she was looking down at me, smiling her tired puffy smile of love and exhaustion, all I could think was You're not my mum, before someone wrapped me in a towel and placed a plump nipple into my mouth.

And that was it. I was off. I was living my second life. And there was nothing I could do about it, but live.

So I did.

I followed the pattern of each and every day, but this time it was different, because this time I had a knowing sense of what was coming next. And I actually enjoyed childhood again a second time. It wasn't like I was bored or felt like I knew it all already. I mean, it's not like I knew everything
—
all the world's knowledge and all the world's secrets
—
from my first life anyway. One life lived is just that: one life lived. It's not every life.

I was quick to talk, and that was when things changed. Once I talked, once I could express myself, life began to feel somehow more fragmented. For a start, no one seemed to know my name.

“I'm Emma,” I'd say as Rachel called “Ana” across the park when it was time to go home.

“I'm Emma!” I'd say when she called me “Ana Ross” and told me off for sticking my fingers in the peanut butter jar.

“Emma,” I'd say as she sang me my bedtime song. I'd let her sing “Hush, Little Ana” all the way through, and I wouldn't ever interrupt. I'd wait until the end, and then I'd say it. I'd tell her my name was Emma, not Ana.

“Ana,” she'd say back. “Darling, you're Ana. Ana. Night night,” and she'd kiss me on the forehead and I'd want my mum, not Rachel, and I'd lie awake because it all felt so wrong. The wrongness of it was all I could feel.

*   *   *

I have never called Rachel “Mum.” As soon as I learned to speak I called Rachel “Rachel.”

She didn't like it.

“Please, Ana
—
call me ‘Mum'!” she'd say.

But I couldn't.

Because it hurt too much to say the word “Mum” and see Rachel's face looking back at me, not my real mum's face; my first mum.

Eventually Rachel sort of accepted me calling her “Rachel,” just as I had accepted her calling me “Ana,” not Emma.

In this we were the same at least.

*   *   *

So here I am. Ana. Only one “n,” which causes a huge amount of confusion throughout my life and generally draws attention in a way I really don't like that much. I'm fifteen years old, and I'm named after a Spanish Ana who Rachel went to school with, and whose name it seems just stuck in her memory. I don't know anything about Spanish Ana, but I do know that it kind of frustrates me that everyone is always spelling my name wrong, and I'm always having to correct them and spell it back, then explain about the Spanish Ana. It's like a curse, or one of my curses anyway.

And being Ana, well, it has good days and bad days, just like being anyone. To be honest, whole years have gone by when knowing that this is my second life hasn't even remotely bothered me. It is just how it has always been.

Until recently, that is.

Until I saw Frances.

And everything changed.

I'm not bipolar, in case you were wondering. I'm not manically depressed. I don't hallucinate, and there are no voices in my head. There is no Emma voice telling me to do stuff. I think I would know if I was ill, or someone would have told me, or suggested I see a doctor or a therapist or something. I've never been arrested for strange behavior in the street. I've never even had a detention. I think I'm pretty normal for a fifteen-year-old girl: I go to school; I do my homework; I've got friends
—
Zak, Hannah, and Jamie, a few others. I'm not one of those people who likes to hang out in a clique or a crowd. I had a best friend, Ellie, but she moved to the States. And of course I've got Rachel, and my grandma, Grillie. I fight with Rachel, but that's normal … right? To fight with your parent? And my vice? If you can call it that. Well, I've got a thing about Converse. I have three pairs
—
blue, purple, and green
—
and I'm aiming to own a pair in every color.

And that's it.

That's me
—
Ana.

I'm Ana.

And it's just that I was Emma, before. So I know more about the world than I should for a person my age. I guess you could say that's a shame, but what I know is so random, mixed up, that until I saw Frances it really didn't matter what I knew. It was just the varied stuff of a life that had been lived before. So I knew what it felt like to taste Kalamata olives and unripe avocados before I ever put them into my mouth … and I know what it feels like to down pints of cider and black out … The thrill of hailing a cab in New York … The utter joy of a first kiss with someone you've been waiting to touch and to hold and be held by. But it doesn't ruin life knowing these things. It hasn't ruined it at all.

Because even when life has been full of recognition, there's still always been room for discovery. And I thought that was a good thing. But when I saw Frances in the hospital, my whole life fell apart. It disintegrated like lit tissue paper in my hands. Because in seeing Frances I remembered what I did in my first life.

And what I did was kill a person. And to discover that
—
to discover the ugly memories of that
—
to remember some of what you did, but not all that happened
—
it is hell. And it is what happened to me.

 

monday

1

“W
E'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.”