“Mom, I think this is what he was working on when he died.” I start to open the notebook, but her hand moves to rest on mine, stopping me.
“Lili, he was always working on theories about her.” Her voice swells with old-fashioned-newscaster delivery: “One of history’s most notorious female smugglers, who swindled both the colonies and the Brits during the war.” She drops the act with a slight sigh. “And yet he’d go on for hours about how he thought she was just misunderstood.”
I run a finger over the smooth leather cover, trying to prod her own curiosity. “He might have been right.”
She takes a long sip of her coffee before answering me, but when she does, her voice is almost sorrowful. “You look just like him right now.”
A smile lifts one side of my face. “Yeah?”
She nods, even though we both know she’s not exactly telling the truth. I look like her, the same round cheeks and button nose. Her hair is an ashier shade of blonde than mine, but it’s the clothes that differentiate us the most right now. I’d fallen asleep wearing the same vintage white eyelet sundress from yesterday, whereas she’s got her favorite oversized Hansen T-shirt on.
I like hearing it though, and she knows it.
She picks up the sticky note again. “And this guy? Is he a Kezia believer too?”
“Not exactly, but he might be able to help me figure out some of Dad’s research.” I puff out my cheeks as I exhale. “Dad’s notes are kind of all over the place, but I thought I might go into town today and see what he thinks.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Is that your way of asking if you can bail on helping me tear that porch railing down this morning?”
“No.” I hastily gulp more coffee, feeling more awake with each swallow. “But maybe after?”
She presses the sticky note to my forehead before heading for the door. “Fine, but that means we’ll all be up late removing wallpaper tonight. And you’re going to get stuck holding the steamer.”
It’s funny how places can feel different without ever changing at all. After so many years away, Nantucket is not the same summer vacation destination I remember from my childhood; it’s bursting with sights and sounds I must have experienced countless times before that I’d either forgotten or never appreciated until now.
This morning, as I bike into town, I’m reveling in every cobblestone bumping under my tires as I coast down narrow lanes,thrilling as I pass all the historic homes adorned with bursts of blooming hydrangeas in brilliant shades of blue, pink, and purple, savoring every breath of sea air filling my lungs.
Before I even glimpse Main Street, I’m smiling at the faint sound of people laughing and bustling in search of coffee, souvenirs, and the ineffable magic of this tiny coastal island.
I’d almost forgotten it.
I come to a stop outside a café I can’t specifically recall but that has the familiar weathered charm of a building that has stood for countless decades, and inhale the scent of freshly baked cinnamon rolls so sweet I can almost taste the sugar crystals as they crunch beneath my teeth. I’m tempted to join the line already forming outside. Dad would. He’d have instantly abandoned whatever plans we had and already be betting me which of us could eat more.
I loved his spontaneity and the ease with which he could change the course of his life—and ours—whenever the impulse struck him. As a child, our summers always went the same way. As soon as we got off the ferry, he’d scoop me onto his shoulders and head straight to Dionis Beach. I’d shriek as I teased the gentle surf, build sandcastles until they were taller than me, and later lay on a towel with the sun warming my skin and the comforting rhythm of the waves lulling me to sleep.
And then there were the history days, when we’d go on long hikes to barely discernible landmarks, take dull museum tours that often as not ended with Dad arguing with guides over details he insisted they got wrong, or go nowhere at all while he’d read aloud from some old book that I barely understood.
It wasn’t until after he left that I realized how much I missed those days and him. He wasn’t there when I started having myown history days, reading the books I knew he’d want me to read, watching the documentaries he’d love—or love to dispute—and learning as much about our history as I could so that when those rare phone calls came, I’d be able to say something that made them last that little bit longer.
Leaving the bakery and the rest of Main Street behind, I keep moving toward a destination I know better than almost any other place on the island: the Whaling Museum, whose collections chronicle four centuries of Nantucket history, including the only known copy of one of Kezia Gardner’s diaries. The one the Whaling Museum has ends right before the Revolutionary War, leaving the rest of her story to be told by others, but it’s a good place to start.
Parking my bike outside the redbrick building, I shade my eyes as I glance all the way up to the patinated whale-topped weathervane that almost seems to wink at me in the morning light. “I’m going to take that as a good sign,” I whisper to the whale, then walk through the thick white columns flanking the entrance, purchase a ticket, and pass under the always-impressive forty-seven-foot sperm whale skeleton suspended high overhead.
The museum is quite large, but I remember the layout well enough to find my way around. Urgent as my task feels, I can’t help from seeking out Kezia’s diary. Standing over the glass case, I indulge in a quick fantasy where I manage to silently break the lock, slip the diary into my bag, and disappear among the tourists until I can dash outside before anyone even notices it’s gone. But I know I’m not as daring as my ancestor was.
I wouldn’t have minded lingering, and I probably would have if Dad hadn’t made me memorize the two displayed pages years ago.I know all about Kezia’s take on the Great Nantucket Bank Robbery and her emphatic doubt regarding the guilt of the eventually convicted men. The museum does occasionally showcase a handful of other select pages, but I know those too. It’s everything else I needed to find out now, everything else that will remain hidden away until I help bring it to light.
Finally, I stride off in search of Mr. Fanning. I have vague memories of the collections manager at the museum, mostly of how red his pale face would turn when my dad loudly and vehemently questioned his mental fitness to tie his shoes, let alone to accurately display an exhibit. He looks perfectly normal colored when I catch up to the man and hear him say he’s leaving to grab his second cup of coffee of the morning.
Short and slightly rounded, he wears his thinning light-brown hair neatly parted and, despite the warm weather, a navy sweater vest with an azure-blue tie patterned with gray whale silhouettes. He looks like a kindly teacher type and gives me an inquisitive smile when I call his name.
“Hello there, young lady, and what can I do for you on this fine morning?”
“I have a request regarding access to some of the restricted materials in the museum’s possession.”
“Oh? Are you a history student?”
Not yet, I think, since I know he means college and the ink on my high school diploma has barely dried at this point.
