“Hi. Yes. You too.”
After the conversation everyone had about where I was from and what I was doing on Nantucket, Noah excused us. I lowered my voice. “You didn’t mention there would bea gazillion peoplehere.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Why are there three tiny identical children?”
He laughed. “Aunt Joan’s kids.”
“Are youallon the island during the summer? Do you all stay here?”
He looked around the room, as though counting. “I think abouttwenty of us do. My dad has three younger siblings and everyone comes for at least part of the summer.”
I took in all the other kids. “Are you the only one without siblings?”
“Me and Shira both, yeah. My parents had me pretty late in life. Sort of adds to the pressure of everything, being their one precious miracle baby.”
“I’m sure they don’t mean to add pressure.” When he gave me a fiercely skeptical look, I changed the topic. “How was the house empty last time I came over?”
“Careful planning and expert manipulation.”
“Why, Noah. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
A grin broke over his face. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” He nudged me. “There’s my grandmother.”
I whipped my head around. She stood across the room, dressed in slacks and a sweater advertising the Nantucket Atheneum—more casual clothes than at the book club. She looked older, too, in the way she moved, the way a woman my mom’s age helped her lower onto the couch and a girl a few years younger than me curled up next to her.
It struck me, the three of them: three generations of Barbanel women. I’d spent so much time this summer thinking about my grandmother, my mom, and me. We’d been the center of my story, the pole everything rotated around. Maybe I needed to remember we weren’t the only tale unfolding.
“Hi, Abby.” A woman stepped up to us, a man at her side. Noah’s parents. Mrs. Barbanel smiled. Though tight-lipped and tense, her eyes looked tentatively hopeful. “Good to see you again.”
“You too. Thanks for having me.” Was she having me? Or were the grandparents the hosts? Should I thank literally everyone over fifty? Ahhh, etiquette.
“This is my husband, Harry.” She placed her hand on his arm. Harry Barbanel was tall and had a strong jaw and all his hair, and looked, I expected, as Noah would in forty years. I smiled hello and glanced at Noah, whose face displayed a cool politeness, like we were chatting with mere acquaintances. How unnerving. I might yell and roll my eyes at my parents, but I’d never treated them with this calm disaffection.
“Good to meet you.” His dad pumped my hand. I couldn’t remember the last time an adult treated me like anything other than an extra pair of hands to set the table or someone to grill about Gen Z’s takes on political issues. It made me uncomfortable.
“I sent Shira to get your father,” Mrs. Barbanel murmured to her husband. “Let’s gather everyone.” She raised her voice. “All right, dinner time! Let’s go!”
“Do you guys do dinner together every night?” I asked Noah as we joined the crowd slowly meandering outside. Two tables had been set up in the lawn—nothing so fancy as when I’d first been here, but still nicely set.
“No, just on the weekends, when more people are here. My dad only comes Friday to Sunday, and so do some of the aunts and uncles—and cousins, too.”
“What about your mom? She’s here the whole summer?”
“Yeah, she works remotely. She’s an engineer for a robotics company. Here, we’re at the adults’ table tonight.”
We took our seats with the other dozen teens and adults, while the little kids sat at their own table several steps away. It was still light—the solstice hadn’t yet arrived—but almost hazy, like we could see the heat surrounding us. A sea breeze lifted the humid air in little eddies.
Delicious foods weighed down the table: vegetable couscous withchickpeas and plump raisins; tiny bowls of olives; peppers stuffed with saffron rice; large clay pots of tagine. Cumin and turmeric perfumed the air. Everyone served themselves in a familiar, informal manner, passing and stealing dishes.
Shira, Noah’s younger cousin, walked arm in arm with an older man as he made his way to the head of the table.
Edward Barbanel.
I hadn’t come across lots of ninety-year-old men in my life: O’pa had died when I was twelve, and my dad’s dad hadn’t hit eighty yet. Edward Barbanel looked impossibly old, but he still had a full head of hair and thick brows, both snow white. He didn’t look thin and frail, though his frame looked as though it had once carried more weight. Still, I couldn’t imagine him as young, couldn’t make the mental switch from this elderly gentleman to the man who’d written my grandmother so many letters, who’d had saidfor me it is you. I could only see an old man, with papery, spotted skin and sunken cheeks.
He’d written all those letters, and for the first time I felt guilty and ashamed of reading them.
