“I’m fine,” she says, though her voice is thin, as if she’s trying to convince herself as much as me. “How about you? That ferry ride was rough, huh?”
“Not super fun, no.” I eye the keyring in her hand. “But Dad always told me an upset stomach is a small price to pay for paradise.”
She nods, remembering. “Never quite felt that way to me, but”—she carefully removes the brass key to Dad’s study and offers it to me—“I know it did to the two of you.”
I hesitate before taking it. “What about unpacking and the million other things first?”
She smiles before pushing to her feet. “Tell you what. I’ll let you disappear into that study for the night if you promise to meet me outside early tomorrow to tear down that death trap of a porch railing.”
I take the key from her fingers and grin. “Deal.”
Mom and Goldie head upstairs, and though their footsteps creak overhead, I feel a strange sense of quiet as I turn the brass key in the study door and push it open.
Books line the wall-to-wall shelves, and I trail my fingers along their linen spines as I breathe in air that I foolishly expect to stillsmell like him—black licorice and coffee. The breath I take awakens an ache because of course it doesn’t. It smells stale and dusty and empty. I quickly pull off the sheets covering the rest of the furniture and let my eyes skim over things that haven’t been touched since he was here. A worn leather chair, a brass floor lamp, his old rug, some framed paintings of ships on the walls. And heavy, forest-green curtains that I throw open to let light in.
All through the air, tiny dust motes glitter and cascade down to rest on a huge honey-colored desk in the middle of the room. I don’t know much about antique furniture, but it looks maybe eighteenth century, and beautifully preserved. Only a few tiny edge pieces are chipped away from the rosewood inlay. I can’t help but touch it, tracing the swirling carved branches on the sides and drawer fronts, stopping at the keyhole centered on the top-right drawer.
I give it an experimental tug, but it doesn’t move.
Slowly, turning around the room, I try to imagine Dad in this position. He knew he was dying in the end. He didn’t have a lot of time, but he had enough. He left us this house, and that means that he left us whatever’s in his desk too. So I start looking.
I open all the unlocked drawers first but don’t find anything significant. I move on to the bookshelves, flipping through each title and checking all the notebooks that he kept about our various ancestors that he researched. I check floorboards and behind picture frames, and even carefully stand on the desk to peek inside the light fixture in the ceiling.
No key.
“Come on, Dad. Would you really make it this hard for me?” Stepping down, I realize that no, he wouldn’t. From the moment Ishowed the first spark of interest in history, specifically our family’s history, he’d been overjoyed and had set about teaching me everything there was to know about the Gardners and our legacy here on Nantucket. Nothing was more important to him than imparting that knowledge to me. Which means I’m looking too hard. He would make sure that of all people, I could find it.
I sit back at the desk, looking around now, not for hiding places, but for things that connect to me.
And that’s when I see it.
The brass floor lamp in the corner. It looks like an antique except for the cheap plastic whale charm hanging from the pull chain.
It 100 percent doesn’t belong in this room, but it’s there because I gave it to him when I was eight, maybe nine? It had initially been filled up with little candies, but as I give it a shake and hear a rattle inside, I already know it holds something far sweeter now. Cracking it open along the seam, an ornate, basket-handle carved key spills into my hand.
I rub the cool metal between my thumb and forefinger, smiling before returning to the desk and unlocking the drawer.
Two
Lili
The scent of coffee is what wakes me the next morning, and I’m smiling before I open my eyes.
“Morning, sleepyhead.”
I sit up at the sound of Mom’s voice, and immediately wince as I realize the rock-hard pillow I’d been sleeping on is actually a desk.
“Want to tell me what kept you in here all night?” She’s perched on the corner of the desk and offers me one of the steaming mugs she’s holding. As soon as I wrap my hands around the warm ceramic, she plucks a sticky note from my cheek and squints at the words I vaguely remember scribbling down last night. “Or who Mr. Fanning is and why you need to talk to him first?” She taps at the word I’d underlined twice.
I scald my mouth on the too-hot coffee, but I need my brain to fully wake up, and fast. I spot the plastic whale and sit up straighter, eyes instantly scanning for the worn, leather-bound notebook I’d found in Dad’s locked drawer. I slide it to me and set my coffee mug far on the other side of the desk.
“Because of this,” I say in a croaky, morning voice that makes her smile.
“One of his notebooks? That’s good. I know he would’ve wanted you girls to have those. After all, his history is your history.”
I shake my head, ignoring the sore muscles from sleeping bent over on a desk. “No, this one wasn’t just for his own genealogical research.” All my life, he’d traced family members that came before him, trying to track down every name and every significant contribution, unearth the forgotten details about the people who shared his bloodline. He had a shelf of notebooks in this very room that each covered hundreds of people, but this one that I hold right now is all about one woman. “It’s about Kezia Gardner.”
“Oh?” Mom’s expression goes carefully neutral. I know she’s heard the name. Dad was talking about her even before the divorce.
