He scoffed, and I thought he’d push back. It was a deeply personal question, after all. Instead, he frowned at the ice, tracing a line in the cold dust. “I wish I could get my mom her family back.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mom had a giant family growing up. She loved it. Especially at the holidays. Now—she gets kinda morose. That’s why we came to Nantucket this year, actually—to try to change things up. Make her happier.”
“But you said they chose not to spend time with your grandparents at the holidays, right? So they could if they wanted to.”
“Sure, technically. But they always get into huge fights about how Mom screwed everything up. Especially my life. I think they read it as this huge insult that she dared to leave the nest and have a job they don’t approve of and marry a food critic, which they also think isn’t a real job, and live in LA, land of vice andterror, and send me to public school instead of Phillips, which, like, god forbid.”
“Are they... Emily and Richard Gilmore?”
He snorted. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Oy.”
He smiled wryly. “But you know what they do approve of? What they watch every night? Channel 9 News. Danziger Media. And you know what they read?Today News.Danziger Media. If I can get an internship, a job—a realcareerwith a company they respect—maybe they’ll lay off my parents. They’ll think I’ve course corrected and won’t fight about my moms’ parenting. Maybe they’ll relax all around, and we’ll be able to have Christmas with them.”
“Tyler...” My heart hurt for him. “That’s why you want an internship with my great-uncle, isn’t it? You think it’ll bring your family back together?”
“I think there’s a decent chance, yeah.”
“You tell your moms this?”
“God, no.” He shuddered. “They’d tell me I was overburdening myself.Thatwould burdenthem, which is the exact opposite of the point.”
“But they’d be right. It’s not your job to make your parents and your grandparents happy.”
“Maybe not my job. But if I can, shouldn’t I?” He squinted at the sky. “And isn’t it, maybe, a small miracle if a way to get aninternship at Danziger Media drops in my lap? A way to meet Arnold Danziger, my grandparents’ hero?”
“I think a miracle would be if it made you happy, too.”
He shrugged. “Well. Miracles probably don’t exist.”
Maybe not. But maybe they existed if we made them, if we helped them into being. Maybe lightning wouldn’t strike from nowhere and tell me what I should do with my life. But maybe I could go after what I wanted. I could give miracles a nudge.
I thought once more of the strange little mystery of the wooden chest. Hadn’t the Barbanel girl gone after what she wanted with her secret lover? What had ended it—death, departure, loyalty to her family? Had she been happy she’d had her romance? I thought she must have been. Tennyson had probably been right: “ ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
“Come on,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Let’s go check out some Christmas trees.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Whaling Museum was located on Broad Street in a collection of buildings including an old candle factory. Back in the day, Nantucket had had a gazillion candle factories due to the whole whale oil thing. White columns flanked the redbrick entrance, and long banners announced exhibits.
Inside, we bought our tickets from one of the Nantucket Historical Association employees, a woman in her forties with a short bob and a blue vest. “I have a kind of weird question,” I told her. “We were wondering if you had a curator or someone we could talk to? We found a box of old things in the attic and wondered if someone could take a look...”
Without blinking, she said, “You’ll have to make an appointment at the Research Library.”
“Oh.” I exchanged a glance with Tyler. “There’s no one here who can look?”
“Nope,” she said.
Okay. Welp. “Are they open?”
“They will be after the new year.”
Of course. “Okay. Thank you.”
As we headed into the museum, we heard her say to her colleague, “Everyone thinks they have treasures in their attic.”
