Present Day
Behind the wheel of her rental car, Francesca gasped for breath and searched her phone for Alexander’s number. Sight of Alexander’s son across the street from the Nantucket grocery store had forced her down a wonderful, if heartbreaking, memory lane, and she needed to see him desperately. She wanted to cook for him. She wanted to see him happy and surrounded by his own family.
He was her first child, her first star. From a terrifying distance over the years, she’d watched his meteoric rise through the ranks of various airlines. He’d called her when he’d flown his first airplane across the ocean, a remarkable feat and one that seemed to surprise him. As they’d spoken on the phone about the journey, his excitement had reminded her of the first time he’d ridden a bike, how surprised he’d been that his body could do it.It’s a mother’s gift to see everything from the very beginning, she’d thought at the time.
Alexander answered his cell with a vibrant, “Ciao, Mama! How are you?”
Francesca’s breath caught in her throat. “Hi, honey,” she said in English, surprising herself and him. “I have something to tell you.”
As soon as Francesca confessed that she’d come to Nantucket, Alexander sprang into action, asking if she wanted him to come pick her up wherever she was, asking if she needed anything at all. Francesca assured him that all she needed was his address. “I have a rental car,” she told him. “And I still have the map of Nantucket written in the back of my mind.”
Alexander told her the address of the house he and his family were renting for the time being, and Francesca set off for it, squeezing the steering wheel tightly, her heart banging with adrenaline. When she pulled into the driveway, the door burst open to bring out her tall and dashing fifty-one-year-old first child, a man who looked at her with the same eyes as fifty years ago, a man who’d once been small enough to cradle in her arms.
Francesca made a grave error when she saw him. Almost immediately, maybe because of the cancer diagnosis or her return to Nantucket or the swirling chaos of the past, she burst into tears. Her children weren’t accustomed to her crying. She’d always wanted to be strong for them, to show them that she wasn’t a fragile American woman but a powerful, Italian lady who knew how to handle herself in any situation.
Alexander hurried to hug her. Francesca batted him away, sniffing and saying, “It’s just all this travel. I haven’t flown this far in decades.”
Alexander stepped back and squinted at her. He looked like he didn’t fully believe her excuse. “You really came back to Nantucket,” he said finally.
Francesca flinched, alternating between wanting to show him how much she longed for her family and how much she triedto fix the past and wishing to remain stoic and strong. But before she could come up with a strategy, Alexander’s wife appeared on the front stoop and strode toward them, her smile nervous and wavering. Of course, Francesca remembered Janie. Many years ago, Alexander had met Janie at one of their White Oak Lodge parties. His love for her had mystified Francesca and Benjamin, mainly after Alexander had fled the family and his Whitmore responsibilities and run off to Key West to be with her. Seeing Janie now brought back a flood of memories and feelings, times that Francesca wasn’t entirely proud of. It was hard to believe that in middle age, she’d pushed the Whitmore family agenda. She’d been brainwashed, maybe. Or she hadn’t wanted her son to go.
“Janie,” Francesca said, reaching out to hug her daughter-in-law. Janie was stiff in her arms. She hadn’t forgotten. “How does it feel to be back on the island for you?”
Janie hesitated and glanced at Alexander. “It’s been quite an undertaking,” she said, although her tone was positive and sure. “I never imagined I’d want the White Oak Lodge to be up and running again. But the way we’re doing it now is exciting. We’re all in on it. It’s not just Alexander, the eldest Whitmore. It’s his sisters and their partners and me, of course. And our children have come to really love being on the grounds.” Janie stuttered, then looked down, as though she felt she’d said too much.
Francesca understood that Janie considered her part of the “old guard.” She assumed Francesca would disapprove of a new structure at the White Oak Lodge.
“I think that’s great,” Francesca said gently.
Janie’s gaze fluttered back up to Francesca. She looked incredulous.
But then, a shadow fell over them on the driveway, and the three adults turned to see the teenage version of Alexander, striding toward them, fiddling with his backpack strap. When hesaw Francesca, he stopped and raised a hand. In a shaky Italian—what his father must have taught him, Francesca supposed, he said, “You are my grandma?”
Francesca nearly yelped with excitement. In rapid Italian, she responded, “Yes, I’m your Nonna, honey,” and hurried over to kiss him on the cheek. He winced but laughed, as though he’d been warned about European grandmothers and what they were like. He introduced himself as Xander. Francesca understood there were two others in Alexander’s family, Gwen and Conor, who were fifteen and fourteen, respectively.
“Dad didn’t think you’d come,” Xander said, eyeing his father as they entered the house, each with a bag of Francesca’s perishable groceries. (She was never one to forget her food and how best to handle it, even in the most difficult of situations.)
“It’s not just me,” Francesca informed them. “Your aunts Allegra and Lorelei are on the island, too.”
Alexander slid a bag of groceries onto the kitchen counter. “You’re kidding,” he said. “I never thought Allegra or Lorelei would see the States again. I figured they’d given up their American passports by now.”
“How did you convince them to come?” Janie asked.
Francesca remembered the numerous scans the doctor had made of her breasts, the radiation treatments she’d gone to in secret, her promise to her doctor that she’d update her family, even as she knew she never would.
“Mothers know how to manipulate their children,” Francesca said. “And I think Lorelei and Allegra were curious. It’s not every day your father comes back to life.”
Alexander let out a squawk of laughter, then quieted as he put away the groceries. Xander went upstairs to find his siblings, who hurried downstairs to meet their grandmother for the first time. They looked incredulous, as though everything that had happened to them since leaving Los Angeles was some dream.To Francesca, Conor looked even more like Alexander than Xander did, which almost destroyed her heart.
And maybe it was because of how overwhelmed she was, perhaps it was because of her eager and excitable grandchildren, or the salty air, or the fact that she hadn’t eaten in hours, but suddenly Francesca found herself unsteady on her feet, wavering, reaching for the kitchen counter right before she collapsed. Darkness filled her eyes.
For a moment, she thought maybe she was gone.
But a split-second later, she heard the voices of Alexander, of his children, of his beautiful and kind and forgiving wife, Janie.
“Should we call someone?” Janie cried.
“Oh my gosh,” Gwen breathed, on the verge of breaking down.
