It was funny to eavesdrop on them again. She felt like their mother in a far different era, listening from the top of the stairs at the White Oak Lodge as they gossiped about the boys they liked or the chores they hated. How she’d loved her children and the mischief they got up to! How she’d loved being a mother (although she probably hadn’t been the best of all mothers, when she considered it).
She understood it was probably wrong not to tell her daughters about her cancer diagnosis. It would probably come back to bite her.
That night, Francesca had a strange and exhilarating dream. In it, she was in her twenties and had newly arrived on Nantucket. Benjamin and Francesca were sailing around the island when they realized an ominous storm was brewing on the horizon. Benjamin pulled the boat into a harbor she didn’t recognize, where they took refuge in a dark and mysterious cave. As they stood in the cave’s mouth, watching the storm as it thrashed over the water, Francesca could hear voices in the cave behind her. She knew in her heart that they were their children’s voices. Their children from their future were warning them of something. She touched Benjamin’s elbow and said, “Quiet! Can’t you hear them? What are they saying?”
And then she woke up to the darkness of a night in Rome. She was in her seventies, and so much of her life had come and gone.
The following morning, Francesca’s Italian grandchildren—Teresa, Tatiana, Pino, Nadia, and Aurora—met at Allegra’s place to see her off. Francesca watched from the breakfast table as the five of them laughed and ate cornettos and made a big mess of things. Allegra and Lorelei stood in the corner of the kitchen, clucking their tongues and drinking their espresso. In all black, with their hair styled in glossy waves down their backs, they looked almost like twins. Francesca drew her grandchildren into final hugs and caught herself promising them that she’d fly them all out to Nantucket soon. “You will want to meet your grandfather,” she told them. “He is a remarkable man.”
Allegra and Lorelei gave one another looks that Francesca interpreted to meanMama has finally lost it, hasn’t she?
Allegra’s husband, Martino, drove the three of them to the airport, where he pressed kisses into their cheeks and hugged his wife extra long. Francesca and Lorelei waited off to the side, watching as streams of tourists and locals came and went from the airport, hailing cabs or waving hello to people picking them up.
“Did you tell anyone we’re coming?” Lorelei asked, watching as an older man embraced a man with the same face, but half his age.
Francesca shook her head.
“Not even Alexander?” Lorelei asked, fear mounting in her voice.
“I’ve rented a house for us,” Francesca announced. “I want to go and get settled and then decide how we handle things.” It was because she was frightened, she knew. She had no idea what would happen to her emotionally when she returned toNantucket Island, the source of so much of her life’s pain and joy. And returning to the White Oak Lodge felt like willingly going to a haunted house.
After dropping off their suitcases, Lorelei, Allegra, and Francesca went through security without issue. She sat in the first-class lounge, which often felt ridiculous to Francesca, though she knew Allegra was accustomed to traveling like this. Her fashion life necessitated it.
As they waited, Allegra and Lorelei sat nervously, glancing often at Francesca, as though sure that something bad was about to happen. Francesca closed her eyes, thinking again about October of 1971, when she’d returned to Nantucket Island to be with Benjamin after he’d come to find her in Rome. She’d been so expectant, so inspired. She’d worn her best dress on the plane, but nerves had gotten the better of her, and she’d spilled champagne down her front. Benjamin hadn’t made her feel bad about it, which had mystified her. Most Italian men would have. She and Benjamin had kissed as the plane went up and again as it came down. They hadn’t bothered with first class. They hadn’t even considered it.
When Francesca opened her eyes, she spotted a man across the room, a man so familiar that she let out a yelp.
“Mom?” Allegra looked at her, bug-eyed, and followed her gaze. “Who is that?”
Lorelei perked up, trying to see what Francesca had. But Francesca realized that the man across the way, the man she’d thought was someone from her past, was a stranger.
“I thought that man was someone I knew,” she explained timidly, embarrassed that she’d reacted like that. Maybe the cancer was getting to her. Maybe her brain was off-tilt.
“Who did you think it was?” Allegra asked.
Francesca pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “I thought it was your uncle.” It sounded ridiculous aloud, but it was so.
“Tio Angelo?” Lorelei demanded, panic in her voice.
“No,” Francesca said. “I thought it was your Uncle Ronald.”
Allegra and Lorelei’s eyes widened still more, as though unsure how to take this in.
“Who is Uncle Ronald?” Allegra demanded. When she got confused, she often got angry.
“We never spoke about him after it happened,” Francesca breathed, remembering the torment of that awful year and how it had cast her and Benjamin apart. “But your Uncle Ronald was your father’s favorite person in the world. And when he was gone, your father was never the same after that.”
Lorelei and Allegra didn’t have time to pry for more details before their plane was announced, and they walked to the gate to board. Francesca sat a row ahead of her daughters. She closed her eyes, listening as Allegra and Lorelei whispered furiously to one another about Uncle Ronald and all the mysteries awaiting them on Nantucket Island. When the plane took off, Francesca felt her heart rising with it, into the clouds over Rome. She was surprised by how much of her heart still beat for Benjamin, for their past. She had no idea what she would say to him when they saw each other for the first time. Maybe she’d say, “Why didn’t you write to me?” And they could start all over again as though it were 1971.
Chapter Seven
1971-1972: Nantucket Island
It wasn’t till Francesca had moved into her room at the White Oak Lodge that she called her parents and told them what she’d done. It was November, and everything out the Lodge window was cast in an eerie gray light, so different from Rome and its bright blue sky. Her mother answered the phone on the second ring. “Mama,” Francesca said in rapid Italian, feeling Benjamin’s mother’s eyes on her from the opposite side of the kitchen, “I wanted to let you and Dad know that I moved to America to be with Benjamin. We’re in love.”
Her mother’s breath caught in her throat. Francesca guessed this was complicated for her mother, who hadn’t necessarily wanted her daughter to get a degree or make films in a world that she felt was overwhelmingly male. She’d wanted Francesca to get married and settle down, as she had. But she’d wanted her to do that in Italy, closer to their family, surrounded by their culture.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” her mother asked, a question that surprised Francesca.
