Six candles tonight. Somehow I always was surprised by the sixth night—a little shocked, a little saddened, unable to understand how so much time had already passed. Hadn’t it just been the first night, me and Tyler, the shammash and a single candle? Or the second night, the menorah mostly empty, the days ahead showing such promise? Now seven candles glowed before me, four to the right of the shammash, two to the left, and so much time had already slipped away.
After dinner, most of us ended up back in the cousins’ room. I was determined to catch Isaac’s attention before we went to bed, to dosomethingjust the two of us, but it was hard with a mob of others listening to our every word. Isaac joined a group playing video games, and I reluctantly settled on a couch next to Rose, skimming my phone while she marked up a script. She was the quietest of the triplets, but when she let out a loud sigh I could tell she wanted to talk. I nodded at the script in her lap. “The play’s going well.”
She looked up quickly. “It’s not bad, is it?”
“It’s great. And very inventive, how you twine both the story lines around each other.”
“Thanks.” She riffled through the pages. I could see her notes, stage directions, and dialogue tweaks. “If it works, I want to do it at school next year. This is—like, we’re workshopping it. But I think it could be really good. If I fix some of the laggy bits and figure out how to make the stories parallel each other a little more.”
“Did you write the whole play?” I had a vague feeling that Rose did most of the writing, while the others contributed ideas and direction.
“Most of it. Iris likes to plan the big announcements and denouements and fights, and Lily likes the romantic stuff, but mostly I write everything.” She flushed. “I mean, they do a lot. Iris is the most organized, and Lily can really act.”
“I’m impressed by all of you,” I said. “How long did it take you to write it?”
“I started working on it this summer I guess?” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I want to be a real writer, you know.”
Damn. Even my twelve-year-old cousin knew what she wanted to do with her life.
As she focused back on her edits, I stared out the window at the waning moon and the scattered stars. How were people so sure of what they wanted to do with their lives? I pictured Shoshana Barbanel walking through Golden Doors dressed in a giant crinoline skirt, trying to decide between one of two paths: marrying her father’s apprentice or choosing her lover.
Not that we knew it was Shoshana—yet.
Who had the marital choices for Barbanel girls in the 1840s even been? A quick search told me the number of Jews in the US had increased from three thousand to three hundred thousand between 1820 and 1880, so hopefully Shoshana, Louisa, and Josephine had had a decent pool of bachelors to choose from.
A new thought struck me like a bell. I’d looked up Nantucket families earlier when trying to find sources referring my family, but my family’s strongest circle probably lay outside Nantucket, in the Jewish families of New Bedford and Providence and New York.Thosewere the families whose correspondences I should be reading, who might know the personal lives of a Barbanel girl in love with a sailor.
I started with the in-laws of the three girls. Shoshana’s husband, of course, had been her father’s apprentice, the son of a family friend from New Bedford who had moved to Nantucket when they were teenagers. Josephine had married a New York merchant, and to my delight, his family’s letters had been preserved and digitized. I hit pay dirt reading a letter from a Josephine’s future mother-in-law, written in 1843—six years before she got married and two years before theRosemarywas destroyed:
The Halperns brought their guests, Mr. and Mrs. Barbanel of Nantucket and their three charming daughters. Shoshana is seventeen years old and the eldest, though it was made clear she has an understanding with her father’s apprentice. Josephine, the middle, seemed rather headstrong, though of course my Samuel has his own stubborn nature, and I do not think a woman with a similar countenance a bad match. (Though perhaps he needs someone softer? It is so hard to tell, and, of course, he refuses to tell me and his father what he wants. Perhaps he would run right over a meeker personality.) The youngest, Louisa, is only fourteen, and bookish.
They shall stay three days...
Excited, I pulled up Tyler’s messages and attached the screenshot, then froze. Was it a faux pas to text someone anything on Christmas besidesMerry Christmas? Wasn’t this day supposed to be devoted to family?
But I really wanted to tell Tyler. I pressed send.
Me:
A description of the three daughters! Not the “X daughter is madly in love with an ineligible man” I was hoping for, but kinda cool
Tyler:
I’m betting on Josephine. It’s always the headstrong one.
Me:
Thought it was always the quiet ones?
Tyler:
You know I’m still really banking on it being Shoshana
Me:
My least favorite theory. Let her be happy!
I was so entrenched following different internet pathways, I almost didn’t notice when the gamers disbanded. It was past nine, and my last chance to get any alone time with Isaac today. “Oh, hey,” I said as he walked by me, as though a thought had just occurred to me. “Do you think we should practice our lines?”
