David rolled his eyes. “Only New Yorkers think people from other places are ‘jealous’ of them.”
“Where are you from?” Isaac asked politely.
“San Francisco.”
Isaac lit up. “I grew up near LA.”
This devolved into a classicName every town in California and share your opinion on itconversation, with an addendum of theoretically-friendly-but-slightly-edged discussion of the differences between NorCal and SoCal and the classicLet’s bond over In-N-Out and the East Coast’s attempt at Mexican foodexchange.
“Shira!” Iris ran up to me, interrupting the boys. Thank god. “We need you upstairs. Gaberefusesto practice his part, and if he doesn’t rehearse the scenes with Ethan where they speak in tandem, it’s going to be a mess. And Oliver keeps wandering off, and Noah says he and Abby aren’t going to evenbehere for half the day—”
“Iris. It’s nine forty-five.”
“So?”
Right. “The triplets are putting on a play,” I told Isaac.
Iris scowled at David. “Why aren’t you upstairs?”
He pointed at me. “Shira’s not upstairs.”
“What’s the play about?” Isaac asked.
“It’s about the Maccabees and Judith,” Iris told him. “And imperialism and assimilation and female empowerment. Oh, and we’re writing in some stuff about renewable energy, for Shira.”
“I’ll leave you to it.” Isaac took a step back. “I’ve got some papers I should read.”
Rehearsal took us through to two o’clock. When I wasn’trunning lines or maintaining the peace, I looked up Nantucket in the 1840s, curious about what life would have been like for my ancestor and her sailor boy.
Sperm whales had been discovered off the island in the early 1700s, and their oil provided an astonishingly clean light. Nantucketers specialized in hunting them. The whaling capital of the world, they called Nantucket, and the early 1800s had been the height of the island’s cosmopolitan glory. Money, people, and fame poured in.
But by the 1840s, more than half of the whaling vessels in the world were based out of nearby New Bedford instead. The Atlantic whales had all been killed, so ships had to travel farther afield, and larger ships were necessary for the voyages that now lasted years instead of months. Larger vessels called for deeper harbors than Nantucket’s shallow waters, so the industry moved to New Bedford.
In 1845, when theRosemarysank, Nantucket had been at the end of its glory days, a civilization heady with success and unknowingly on the brink of crashing. There had been mansions and balls and celebrities, and three daughters of Golden Doors, one who had been in love with a harpooner—an ambitious man with a career set to skyrocket, before he had died.
If he had died. If he hadn’t, instead, gone to the oil fields of Pennsylvania. Because the death knoll to Nantucket’s whaling days came in 1859, with the discovery of oil in Philadelphia. Manyformer sailors headed there or out west in search of gold. Maybe it was part of the human condition, to chase oil, money, light. To chase whatever could push back the night.
I snuck out of rehearsal and headed to Grandpa’s office, knocking gently before entering. “Hi, Grandpa.”
He looked up. “Well, hello there, darling.”
“Can I ask a few more questions about the early family?”
“Of course you can.”
I pulled up a chair next to him, opening my computer. “We think the chest came from the 1840s, when Shoshana and her sisters were my age. I thought I’d see if you knew anything else about them? Or about who Shoshana’s sisters married?”
“Let’s see.” He leveraged himself out of his chair, peering at his bookshelves. He ran his finger along the albums. “Aha! This should be it.”
He passed me a binder, which included family trees of the families both Louisa and Josephine had married into. I snapped a few photos. “Thanks, Grandpa. This is perfect.”
I returned to the cousins’ room, settling on the couch again next to Miriam and pulling half her blanket over me. I googled each of the sisters’ partners. Shoshana’s husband, her father’s apprentice, came from New Bedford; Josephine married a New York merchant; and Louisa ended up in Ohio.
I wanted to share the news with Tyler, then hesitated. I was supposed to be getting to know Isaac.
But what was I supposed to do, catch Isaac up on my whole family history? Besides, I knew Tyler would find this interesting. No reason to think Isaac would.
Me:
