“Isn’t there someone you can call?” Jefferson asked. “I can’t help but feel that you’re alone here. That if you don’t do something about it very soon, you’ll burn out and leave Nantucket forever.”
“Maybe it’s good if I leave Nantucket forever,” Francesca said, remembering her exhilarating desire to take the kids to Italy and never return.
Jefferson’s smile grew. “You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t mean that,” Francesca agreed, thinking of Benjamin, tossing and turning in bed, depression a rock on his chest. “But you’re right. I need help.” She bit her lower lip. “Maybe I could call my mother.”
Jefferson snapped his fingers. “Your mother! I would love to meet her.”
Francesca’s heart shone with sudden eagerness. Of course! Her mother could come to Nantucket and save the day. In the meantime, she could get to know her grandchildren better. She could improve her English (something her mother had always planned to do but never succeeded). She could assess Francesca’s marriage and tell her whether it was salvageable. She could tell Francesca if the White Oak Lodge was really as poisonous as she currently felt.
It took no more than four days for Francesca’s mother, Maria Accetta, to arrive from Italy and set up a bedroom down the hall from Francesca’s children. Unfazed by jet lag, the beautiful and vivacious Italian grandmother threw herself into tending to Alexander, Lorelei, and Allegra, seemingly grateful to have something to think about that wasn’t her son Angelo’sdisappearance. She beamed when she realized how good at Italian the children were and confessed that she’d assumed Francesca had “eliminated their cultural heritage.”
With her mother caring for the children, Francesca went to her bedroom to find Benjamin half asleep, with a sour reek in the air around his bed. She knew he had a meeting with an important tourist later on, someone with whom he’d schmoozed for years, someone whose money they would need for future summers. Francesca told Benjamin it was time to get up, to shower, to tend to his physical and emotional needs, but Benjamin rolled away from her and groaned.
That evening, Francesca met with the famous tourist by herself, telling the man that her husband had come down with something absolutely heinous, a flu of some kind. “But I’d be happy to talk to you about all Lodge matters,” she said, delivering her most beautiful smile. “My husband lets me in on all business operations. We are partners in every dimension.”
Although the famous tourist was miffed at first, Francesca soon charmed him, and by the end of their three-hour conversation, she had him eating out of her hand, metaphorically speaking. When he finally went up to bed, Francesca felt a fire in her chest so profound that she knew she couldn’t sleep. She went upstairs to check on her mother and the children, all of whom were slumbering peacefully, and then she ran from the Lodge and into the horse stables to find Jefferson Albright, still wide awake, tending to the gleaming coat of one of their best horses.
“Thank you for pushing me to care for myself and my personal time,” she said, her breath coming in jagged gasps.
Jefferson gave her a crooked smile and held the horse brush aloft.
“I want to go horseback riding,” she said. But what she really meant was,I want to race across the sands. I want to feel themoonlight on my face. I want to feel the salty wind in my hair. I want to do it with you by my side, Jefferson Albright, the only person who sees me for who I am.
Without another word, Jefferson saddled two horses and helped her on. They clopped gently into the night, their hearts alive.
Chapter Sixteen
Present Day
It was the end of Francesca’s first week on Nantucket and the beginning of October. Blustery winds churned from the ocean, and steel-gray clouds moved over their slate-roof houses and forced them into their sweaters and cozy socks. At the rental house she shared with Allegra and Lorelei, Francesca made a grocery list for their upcoming “Whitmore Family Party,” an affair Benjamin had come up with, meant to celebrate their coming back together and their united focus on reopening the White Oak Lodge by 2026. Francesca didn’t know what to make of any of this, but if there was one thing he knew how to do, it was cook. She would make the best feast imaginable. Allegra and Lorelei had agreed to help.
From the kitchen window of the rental, Francesca could see both Allegra and Lorelei far down the beach, jogging in sleek black running clothes and talking as they went. Since their arrival, Allegra and Lorelei had grown tremendously introspective. They, too, had gone to the White Oak Lodge tolook around and see what had transpired since 1998, but they’d also walked through their old high school, met up with longtime friends they hadn’t talked to in decades, and started speaking even more English with one another, as though the island drew it out of them. Francesca hardly recognized them. She worried her girls were losing their Italian identity. Maybe Francesca was losing hers, too.
That afternoon at one thirty, Francesca, Allegra, and Lorelei drove to the White Oak Lodge to begin cooking for the party. Just as Benjamin had said, the kitchen in the hotel part of the Lodge was ready to go with state-of-the-art appliances and every sort of kitchen gadget imaginable. Francesca and her daughters strode around, picking various items up and watching them shine in the modern lights. In the distance, down one hall or another, they could hear the construction crew, following the orders of the Whitmores as they returned the White Oak Lodge to its former glory. Francesca felt a throbbing in her chest.It’s showtime, she thought, using an incredibly American-sounding expression. She made herself laugh.
“What’s gotten into you?” Allegra asked as she rolled out dough for fresh pasta, coating herself in flour.
“We have to entertain ourselves in this life,” Francesca said. “Who else will do it for us?”
Lorelei and Allegra chuckled. Eventually, they turned on a little speaker one of them had brought from the rental house to play Italian music that reminded them both of summers in Nantucket. “You always played this when we were growing up,” Allegra said, waving around a knife. Francesca knew the words to every song they played and sang exuberantly, surprised by how full her voice sounded in her chest. When she’d been diagnosed with cancer, she’d half assumed the cancer would attack every last piece of her.Maybe it still will if I don’t take care of it sooner, a voice inside her head said. She dismissedit, reminding herself that her time at the Lodge mattered more than anything else.
She hadn’t seen Benjamin since their first meeting at the Lodge, a meeting that had ended with an emotional hug and a promise to plan the family party. Francesca was especially apprehensive because her entire family (minus Jack, she supposed) would be together for the first time. She felt that everything needed to be perfect.Maybe if it’s perfect, she thought,Jack will know it’s safe to come home. But the minute she thought it, she dismissed the idea as outrageous. Wherever Jack was, he probably wasn’t in the corner of their lives, spying on them.
Footsteps rang down the hall to the kitchen, bringing Nina and Charlotte into their world of music, food, and tradition. Allegra and Lorelei stopped what they were doing to scoop their other sisters into hugs. The sight of her four daughters together shattered Francesca’s heart. Even Nina, Nina who wasn’t hers, looked profoundly like the other daughters. Nina’s eyes filled with tears as she clutched Allegra and Lorelei, telling them, “I never went a single day without thinking about you. I can’t believe we’re all here.”
With Nina in the kitchen, everyone had to speak English, which nobody minded. Often, Francesca still cursed herself for how she’d treated Nina, boxing her out of her traditional language and sending her off to live with Great-Aunt Genevieve. Maybe because of this guilt, she showered Nina with compliments and asked her to taste-test all the sauces for her opinion.
“I’m not the chef here,” Nina said. “I’m not even Italian!”
“You’re Italian,” Allegra chimed in. “You grew up eating the same recipes we did. Your palate must have developed from an early age.”
Nina blushed but looked pleased to be included in these beautiful memories of simple days, seated around a table with their parents and siblings.
Not long after that, Alexander swung into the kitchen to say hello. He kissed Francesca on both cheeks and announced, “We’ve set everything up in the dining hall. You’re going to love it, Mama. It’s a divine occasion for the best chef I’ve ever known.”
“Don’t tease me about my cooking.” Francesca put her hands on her hips.
