I curled up on a couch in the great room, and the adults slowly trickled in, going straight to the coffee carafe. As had become my habit when I had a bit of downtime, I searched through old letters for mentions of the Barbanel girls instead of scanning my socials. After all, looking at other people’s posts bummed me out. Far less depressing to look for, say, mentions of shipwrecked sailors.
I paused. I’d been looking for mentions of the girls, but had anyone mentioned thewreck? Even if shipwrecks were common here, I had the date—if I narrowed in on Nantucket letters and newspapers and diary entries from the week or two following the disaster, perhaps I’d find something.
My burst of being impressed at my own brilliance carried me through for about half an hour before my interest started to wane. I found a handful of references to theRosemary, but none that conveniently said “And Shoshana/Josephine/Louisa sobbed and clutched a sailor’s body.”
I’d almost decided to give up flipping virtual pages and scanning cramped, faint handwriting when I saw the familiar doubleBand longLof my last name in the diary of a Nantucket merchant’s wife.
Came across Mrs. Sarah Barbanel, which was unexpected—nice family, but they don’t tend to gawk. She looked melancholy, so I asked her if she’d known anyone on board, and she said not for a very long time.
Wait.
Mrs. SarahBarbanel? The girls’ mom? Marcus’s wife? I supposed the island was small enough she might have known a sailor her daughters’ age, but still...
What did I even know about Marcus’s wife? I pulled up the images of the family tree on my phone, but she wasn’t marked with a maiden name. She had married Marcus in 1826. Where had she come from?
Before I’d thought it through, I’d pulled up my messages with Tyler, ready to text him this latest development. Then I paused. No. Tyler and I were done, weren’t we?
Or were we friends?
I couldn’t make this decision about Tyler right now, but I could learn more about Sarah Barbanel. I popped into Grandpa’sstudy, practically jittering with excitement. “Hi, Grandpa. Can I ask a few more questions about early Nantucket?”
He looked up and broke into a smile. “Always.”
I perched on one of the old wooden chairs. “Do you know anything else about Marcus’s wife? Like her last name or birthday.”
“Let’s see.” Grandpa pulled out one of the now-familiar binders and flipped pages. “Marcus’s wife... Ah yes. She was a Fersztenfeld.” He nodded decisively, like the name meant something. “Born 1804.”
“Who were they?”
“One of the old New York families. You should ask your grandmother about them.”
“You could ask her,” I suggested.
He patted my hand. “Best if you do, sweetheart.”
I headed to the sunroom, stepping through the door to find Grandma sitting across a wicker table from Great-Uncle Arnold. Neither of them appeared to be speaking.
“Oh.” I paused, a smile pasted on my mouth, even as my eyes narrowed. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“You’re not, dear,” she said smoothly. “My brother was leaving.”
He didn’t speak for a moment, then nodded and slowly raised himself from the chair. I half expected him to creak and fall, but he walked with his slow, awkward gait, nodding at me as he passed. “Shira.”
“Hi, Uncle Arnold.”
At the door, he turned and paused, another laborious process. “Think about what I said, Helen.”
She smiled thinly. “I always do.”
I watched Uncle Arnold go, then turned back to Grandma. “What were you talking about?”
“When did you become such a nosy child?”
“I got it from my grandmother.”
Her mouth twitched. “I was never nosy.”
“Yet you somehow always know everything going on. Which I aspire to be like.”
