His hand reached for my leg and pulled it over his own so I straddled him, and he let out a small groan as I settled on top. His hand clasped the back of my neck and pulled my mouth down to his for several long, burning minutes. Then he pushed me back slightly, both of us breathing hard, my hair dangling down, a curtain between us and the world. “Is this okay?”
“Yes.” I pressed a kiss to his brow, which was weird but seemed right. “Yes, it’s great.” Then realization clicked and I pulled back, bracing my hands on his shoulders. My cheeks turned bright red. “Oh! Um. I’m not going to sleep with you.”
He grinned up at me, eyes sparkling. “Okay.”
“Okay? Okay. Good. Just making sure—we’re okay.”
“This isn’t, like, an express train or anything. We can stop whenever we want.”
I couldn’t keep a grin from breaking. I already knew I liked Noah Barbanel, but I liked him even more when he was being considerate and making nerdy analogies. “I like you, Noah Barbanel,” I announced. “You’re a good person.”
“Thanks?”
“You’re welcome,” I said, and kissed him again.
Twenty-One
February 3, 1953
Remember how when I was little, I used to pace the widow’s walk? I told people I was pretending to wait for my whale captain husband to return from sea. Your mother had told me about past women of Nantucket who’d done so, and it sounded terribly romantic. I used to stand on the widow’s walk for hours. “She has such a rich imagination,” guests used to say.
I lied.
I wasn’t looking for some imaginary husband. I was looking for my parents. Even though I’d come by boat to New York, even though I knew most people arrived there, I had the idea my parents would come to Nantucket. They’d have learned, somehow, I was there. And I would see their ship sailing close, see it curving over the horizon, and it would draw closer and closer and they would be at the rail, waving.
I can’t believe I got the letter. I feel like I’ve been waiting for it a hundred years. And I know I told you it would be better to know, I know I said this state of suspense hurt too much, but now I’d give anything to go back to last week when I thought,Maybe. I’m not an idiot; I knew it was a pipe dream. I knew. But I didn’t really, did I?
1943. Gassed on arrival.
I hate this world, Ned.
I wish you were here.
I woke before Noah. We’d fallen asleep in his room, because the idea of separating from him, even to sleep, had seemed untenable. He faced me, his chest rising and falling peacefully, his lashes a sweep of black against his cheekbones. I gently dislodged his arm and slipped out of bed, padding toward the bathroom.
I’d never slept in a bed with a boy before.
Well, to be honest, I hadn’t done much sleeping. Turned out it washardto sleep with another body right next to you. But in a good way? I kept waking up, but instead of being irritated, I glowed with happiness and snuggled up to Noah.
Noah. Noah, Noah, Noah.
After showering and pulling on a lilac sundress, I sat in the unused bedroom and called Mom to give her the rundown. “One of the records mentioned O’ma!” I told her. “She said O’ma was from a town close to hers, and she was from Hamburg, in northern Germany.”
“Really? What else did she say?”
Suspecting Mom might ask this, I’d copied down Else Friedhoff’s words, and now I read them to Mom. “I was thinking, since we’ve narrowed it down to a region, I could double-check O’ma’s parents’ names against the 1930s censuses from the area, and see if we could find them?”
Mom let out a startled laugh. “Not a bad idea.”
“Except I have no idea how to get a hold of censuses.”
“There must be genealogy websites which can help. How are things going with Noah?”
I glanced at the other bedroom. “Good.”
“Is he there right now?”
“Yes.”
