Francesca raised her chin, watching as Ronald and Benjamin strolled across the lawn and entered the stables to tend to the Lodge’s numerous horses.
“I know what I’m doing,” Francesca told her.
“Your father won’t like this.”
“I imagine he won’t,” Francesca said, surprised at how brave she sounded. “But there is no future for women in filmmaking. I’ve seen what I’ve seen, and I know.”
Her mother sighed. “Angelo won’t know what to do with himself without you here.”
Francesca wanted to tell her mother that wasn’t so, that Angelo already had a very secret “other” life that had nothing to do with Francesca or their famous father. But she knew her mother was frightened for Angelo, and she didn’t need still more reason to panic about his future.
“I’ll visit,” she promised. “And Angelo knows he can come out to the Lodge to work whenever he likes. I’ll be the lady of the house someday. I’ll have a say in who works here.”
After a few more questions—if Francesca was eating well, if she was warm enough on that wretchedly cold island—Francesca’s mother couldn’t think of anything else to ask. She told Francesca she loved her and hung up. Francesca knew such a long-distance call was expensive, so she couldn’t call very often after this, if at all. Suddenly, the Atlantic Ocean between Nantucket and her family felt wider and deeper and darker than ever before. She wanted to throw herself into Benjamin’s arms and cry.
But that winter, Francesca fell into an easy rhythm with the Whitmores. She grew fond of Benjamin’s little sister, Quinn, and taught her to cook Italian recipes. She spent hours with his mother, Elaine, cleaning windows and shining floors. WhenChristmas came around, more guests returned to the island for a gorgeous holiday party, to which Francesca wore a divine dark red dress. Francesca and Benjamin danced all night and into the morning, when they collapsed in front of the fireplace in the drawing room and fell asleep. No one knew where they were, and no one came looking for them till dawn, when Elaine and Charles needed them to help clean up for the party. As they heard their names called through the hall, Benjamin awoke with a start and shook Francesca awake, whispering her name. And then, he kissed her, his breath hot and his eyes alight, and said, “Marry me, Francesca.” It was a command, not a question.
Francesca froze at first, then melted into him, throwing her arms around him. When they emerged from the drawing room and made their announcement, just as she’d thought back in Rome, she would be married to Benjamin Whitmore within the year.Maybe she was psychic, she thought. Or maybe when she’d first seen Benjamin Whitmore, something in her body had understood that he was the father of her children.
Since Francesca’s arrival, she’d kept watch on Ronald like a hawk, eager to step in to help the poor kid as he mended his heart and his mind and his spirit. Francesca made it her mission to make Ronald laugh at least once a day, which she did without fail throughout January, February, and March of 1972. She’d begun to think of Ronald as the younger and happier brother she’d never had, although she hated thinking of him as a replacement for Angelo. Feeling guilty, she wrote Angelo a letter, reminding him that she wanted him to attend her wedding and that he could stay at the White Oak Lodge all summer long. Angelo didn’t write back.
The date of the wedding was set for June 3, 1972—three years after they’d first met. A week before the ceremony, long after Francesca and the Whitmores had arranged everything, Francesca’s parents arrived with their luggage. They took up residence in the largest suite at the White Oak Lodge. Angelo wasn’t with them. When Francesca entered their room to ask after Angelo, they explained that he’d met up with friends after landing in New York City and would join them before the ceremony.
“Friends?” Francesca couldn’t believe it. “Angelo doesn’t have friends in New York.”
“Your brother has friends everywhere,” her mother said, her voice a false pitch of joy. “He’s very likable.”
Francesca’s stomach churned with a mix of fear and confusion. She wasn’t sure why, but she was pretty sure her parents were lying to her about Angelo’s whereabouts.
But in the days that followed, wedding preparations and pre-celebrations whisked Francesca out of her fears for her brother and into other worries, nerves, and excitements. Francesca’s wedding dress, which an Italian designer and friend of her father’s had made, required a last-minute fitting, as Francesca had accidentally lost a little weight in her waist due to nerves. Lodge staff members set up for the party, greeted guests, picked up flowers, baked a fabulous cake, and created Francesca and Benjamin’s wedding day into a fantasy. As Francesca watched this mystical wedding-world build up around her, her heart thudded with disbelief. And when Rosa and Barbara arrived to perform the duties of her bridesmaids, she shrieked with joy and threw her arms around them. Finally, it was real.
The morning of the wedding, Rosa and Barbara joined Francesca in her bedroom at the Lodge for coffee and croissants. They spoke excited Italian and danced around the room, talking about those long-ago days in their apartment in Rome, whenthey’d anticipated letters from Benjamin and called Benjamin their “other” roommate. Nobody could believe that that year of letters and yearning had resulted in a real marriage, a real wedding.
They asked Francesca if she was truly happy, and she searched her soul for an answer, realizing that yes, she was happier than she’d ever been. “But I’ll miss Italy for the rest of my life,” she told them, her eyes filling with tears. “I’ll miss my language. I’ll miss my parents. I’ll miss everything I ever was before I met Benjamin Whitmore.” And then, for the thousandth time since she’d moved to Nantucket, she burst into tears. Nothing was ever easy when it came to growing up.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Rosa got up to answer it and discovered Angelo, disheveled and dirty-looking, swaying in the doorway. Francesca’s tears stopped immediately. “Where have you been?” she demanded of her brother.
Rosa and Barbara knew to leave them alone. They hurried down the hall to their bedroom, glancing back, worried. Francesca dragged Angelo into her room and handed him the rest of her croissant, which he ate wordlessly in two bites before sitting on the floor next to her bed. “What did Mama tell you?” he asked.
Francesca groaned. She’d been right to think that their mother was lying about Angelo’s whereabouts. “You weren’t with friends, I take it?”
“I was at first,” Angelo said.
“Why do you have friends in New York?” she demanded.
Angelo raised his shoulders. “Italians come to New York. It’s always been that way.”
Francesca peeked out the window, watching as the last of the outdoor seating was set up. She traced the aisle that she and her father would walk down later. She wondered why Angelo had to make such a mess of things on today of all days.
“I’m here now,” Angelo said.
Francesca turned to glare at him. “What happened?”
“I got arrested, sort of,” Angelo said, offering a mischievous smile, one that she would one day see on her son Jack when he did something wrong.
“You sort of got arrested?” Francesca shrieked.
“Shh. Nobody has to know a thing,” Angelo said. “I got off with a warning.”
