Francesca groaned and dropped onto the bed. “What did you get arrested for?”
“They thought I stole something,” Angelo said.
“But you didn’t?”
Angelo shrugged again, and Francesca fumed. Before she could think of what to say, of how to tell him to be better, to become something, the makeup artist came to her door to tell her it was time to get ready. She needed to be in her dress soon. She needed to play the part of the bride. It was why so many people were here, after all.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Francesca hissed, shooing her brother out.
At two thirty that sunny afternoon, the famous Italian director Enzo Accetta walked his beautiful and only daughter Francesca down the aisle to marry Benjamin Whitmore, the love of her life, the next-generation Whitmore, and the rightful heir to the Whitmore fortune and the luxurious White Oak Lodge. As Francesca read her vows and slid a ring onto Benjamin’s finger, she felt three hundred pairs of eyes on her and the flashes of numerous cameras. In the following weeks, she’d see her photograph in the newspaper, where she’d be called an Italian princess. Not often would she catch herself thinking about her past as a wannabe filmmaker, a past during which she’d never wanted to be called “beautiful” because it bored her. Now, everyone called her a beautiful, blushing bride. She was theenvy of all. It was better than fighting tooth and nail to become something nobody wanted her to be—artistically successful, something a man was meant for.
During the reception, Francesca danced with her darling husband, cried with her mother, hugged Rosa and Barbara, and watched as night fell over the island and lit it up again with sparkling stars. The food was sensational: fish and Italian pasta and fresh, decadent bread, and the multitiered cake that everyone agreed was the best they’d ever had. Francesca frequently caught Benjamin laughing with his friends, dancing with his mother, or gazing over at her, waiting for her to join him again after she made her rounds. Each time they returned to each other, they said they loved each other. They repeated it again and again.
Later that night, Francesca and Benjamin stood alone on the beach, watching the moonlight drift through the waves. Behind them, their friends and family continued to celebrate, but Francesca was grateful for a moment of peace with her beloved. Quietly, she told him about Angelo’s arrest and how worried she was about his future. “My father never thought Angelo was good at anything,” she whispered, “and I think he’s trying to prove how ‘not good’ he can be. He’s trying to ruin his own life. I hate it.”
Benjamin kissed her cheek. “You can’t take care of him forever.”
Francesca felt her eyes flicker back to the party, where she could see Ronald, hunched by a bonfire, his hands in his pockets. Benjamin could read her mind.
“I know,” he said. “I can’t take care of him forever either. But I have to think he’s getting better? A little bit? You’ve been a big part of that, making him feel loved and cared for. Thank you for that.”
But Francesca continued to watch Ronald, captivated. Something about his face was strange and slippery. She couldn’t figure out what he was thinking about. And then, Ronald tipped backward, his shoulders hitting the table directly beside him so that the table flipped and beers, wines, plates of cake, and trash erupted into the air and spilled across the lawn. Shrieks filled the air. Benjamin took Francesca’s hand and led her back to the party, where a group of people had gathered around Ronald to see if he was all right. Embarrassment echoed from his face. Slowly, he got to his feet, mumbled an excuse, and looked at his brother, Benjamin. Benjamin looked aghast, but he drew his arm around Ronald’s shoulder and led Ronald to the house, where, Francesca guessed, he would put Ronald to bed.
It didn’t take long for the party to get going again, mercifully. But Francesca knew that the groom’s brother had made a fool of himself and would be the talk of the island tomorrow. She’d gleaned from her eight months on Nantucket that gossip was its fuel. It wasn’t so different from Tuscany, nor from Rome. But it was a world she didn’t understand, a foreign environment for her, which meant she was the subject of much more gossip than she knew what to do with.
That night, Francesca and Benjamin stayed the night in the White Oak Lodge’s bridal suite, where they helped each other out of their wedding outfits and slipped under the covers. A few revelers remained at the party downstairs, but most everyone had either gone to their rooms at the Lodge or been taken back to their alternate Nantucket hotels. There were more post-wedding festivities in the following few days, more days of socializing ahead. But here and now, it was just Francesca and her husband, alone in the darkness.
“I can’t believe we made it,” Francesca whispered, thinking back to 1969 and how sure she’d been that she needed to leave Nantucket and become something.
“We’re going to take over the Lodge sooner rather than later,” Benjamin said, kissing her forehead. “And our children will learn about the Lodge, and our history, and why it’s important to uphold the past. And…” His eyes shone in the dark. “And their Uncle Ronald will be here through all of it. Angelo, too, if he wants it.” He went on to admit that he knew how desperately Francesca loved her brother, how eager she was to help him, and how that echoed his own feelings for Ronald. “All we have is our family,” Benjamin said, kissing her nose. “You’re my family now, too.”
Chapter Eight
Present Day
It was Allegra’s idea to take the ferry from Hyannis to Nantucket Island rather than a private plane. Francesca welcomed it, yearning for the very picture they now had before them: Nantucket Island, its sweeping golden and white beaches, its gorgeous homes, its fishing boats, and its charm. It came across the water toward them, drawing closer and closer, until at last the ferry set down its anchor and its ramp and let them drive off. Lorelei was behind the wheel, but Francesca sat up front, directing them from the port to the house she’d rented for the following two weeks. Was two weeks enough time for her to make peace with the past and with Benjamin? Was it enough time for her to prepare for the impending surgery? She wasn’t sure. But nothing about her time on Nantucket Island had ever been sure—not even on her wedding day.
The rental house was a four-bedroom, three-bath Greek Revival on the beach in Siaconset. The woman who rented it to them was in her forties and returning to Manhattan “far toolate in the year,” she explained, touching her sleek blond bob. “Everyone I know is already back in the city, and I don’t know what to do with myself.” She looked at Francesca and her two eldest daughters and smiled. “Is this a mother-daughter trip?”
“Something like that,” Francesca said.
“Let me know if you want to stay longer.” The woman then gestured again to the list of things to do and not do on the property and the keys in the bowl on the kitchen counter. “My husband and I won’t want to sniff in Nantucket’s direction until June comes. Have you been here before?”
“Once,” Allegra said, speaking up for the first time.
The woman lit up. “You’re Americans!” She’d only heard Francesca’s Italian-accented English so far.
“We all are,” Lorelei said. “But we haven’t been back to the United States in nearly thirty years.”
The woman looked mystified. “Thirty years! Things have certainly changed since then.”
“A few things,” Allegra agreed, and together they stood in silence, considering the wars that had been fought, the tragedies that had befallen the United States, the presidents who had come and gone. America seemed so foreign to the three of them, something they’d read about and seen on television, a massive country on the other side of the ocean, the place where they had once belonged.
Francesca watched as the woman drove down the long, serpentine driveway and shot out toward the harbor. She remembered saying goodbye to women like that who’d left the Lodge at the end of the summer, women who were sure that Nantucket Island didn’t exist in the autumn, winter, or spring. What those women didn’t know was that Nantucket only got better when the tourists left.
Francesca followed Allegra and Lorelei upstairs and waited as her daughters poked their heads into the bedrooms to assess which one they wanted. “How are you feeling?” she asked them.
Allegra and Lorelei had been mostly quiet since they’d arrived. Lorelei cleared her throat and offered, “I feel strange?” Allegra nodded furiously.
