Page 12 of Nantucket Longing

But I need to live!Madeline thought.

“Should we take the boat out?”Henry asked.

“I can’t say no.”

From the little store near the harbor, they fetched supplies: strawberries and chocolate that almost immediately melted in its foil and champagne and crackers and cheese.They raced back to the boat and were out on the water in ten minutes flat.Madeline asked Henry to show her how it worked, and he did so gladly, touching her back, her shoulders, her arms as they traced the boat and bucked around the island.Madeline didn’t have a swimsuit on, but when they reached a pretty cove and dropped the anchor, she swam in her underwear and bra, floating on her back and gazing at the sky.She wondered if these were the happiest days of her life.

And then she heard herself say, “I don’t want to fall in love with you.”

Henry was a few feet to her left, treading water.He laughed, and Madeline bucked up to look at him.They held one another’s gaze for a long and magical moment, and then he said, “Do either of us really have a choice?”

It was that evening as the orange sun slid into the Nantucket Sound and draped a purple, fuzzy sky over the island that Henry and Madeline kissed for the first time.Madeline shivered against him, her eyes closed as he wrapped his arms around her, cradling her close.Her heart slowed.The only thought in her mind was that it was the first thing that’d felt right since Juilliard.It was the first time she’d felt like herself since then.

She never thought she’d find a way back to herself after that.

The following morning, Greta appeared to see Madeline’s progress on her painting, but Madeline was already on her way out.The canvas was turned toward the wall so she didn’t have to see it.“I don’t think I can do it,” Madeline confessed to Greta, her chin raised.“It doesn’t feel like me.I’m sorry.”Madeline bowed her head and hurried out of the studio, out of The Copperfield House, off to meet Henry at the diner for a big breakfast with pancakes and cheesy omelets and all the laughter and sun-dappled joy they could manage.

It went like that for the rest of the summer, in fact: Madeline, streaming out of bed and running to find Henry, or Henry bursting out of his mother’s place to find her.Sometimes Henry stayed in the bedroom he’d taken at The Copperfield House itself, and other times, Henry stayed in Madeline’s little artist bedroom, where they shared a twin bed and talked deep into the night about their dreams—or, mostly, about Henry’s dreams, because Madeline had long ago given up on her own.When Henry probed her for more information about her vision for her future, she said, “I used to have one, but now it’s this big, black, empty space.”

Henry said, “How can we find you a new dream?”

“Your grandmother has been trying to help me with that.I don’t know why she thinks it’s possible,” she said.

Henry laced his fingers through hers and whispered, “You really don’t see how special you are, do you?”

Madeline blinked back tears.Love flowed through her, impossible to resist.

But at the end of July, everything changed.

It was at another Copperfield bonfire that Henry announced he would soon be returning to Los Angeles to start filmingThe Most Brutal Horizon, the screenplay he’d written about Sophia Bianchi.Of course, he’d already taken Madeline aside to tell her, but now, as Madeline watched his family celebrating his success, Madeline reckoned with the fact that their dreamy, gorgeous summer was nearly over.He’d leave for Los Angeles, or else she’d go with him and wallow in the city she’d hated so desperately, waiting for him to come home.He’d probably recognize how little she had going for her.She’d probably hate herself for not being the partner he deserved.

As the Copperfield family poured glasses of champagne to toast Henry’s big mission out West, Greta caught Madeline’s gaze across the firelight.Madeline’s heart pounded.She wanted to run away from that woman—a woman who seemed to know everything she was and had once been.But that was impossible.

ChapterSeven

Diana

April 2002

Diana’s water broke as Allen slept off a hangover on the sofa.For a long time, maybe too long, Diana stood between the kitchen and the living room, focused on her breathing and trying not to cry out too loudly when the contractions came, watching as drool spilled out of the side of Allen’s mouth.Was this really the man she was going to let hold her baby minutes after she was born?Did she really want to start her daughter’s life out with such low prospects?No.Diana knew that motherhood was all about lying to your child until the true evils of the world spilled out.It was better to let them believe in beautiful things before everything crashed.It was a brief yet wonderful gift.

Diana had thought the world was beautiful until age nine, when she was yanked out of Poland, dropped into Manhattan, and forced to reckon with what it meant to be alone.

One of the Polish women from her father’s old neighborhood drove Diana to the hospital and sat by her bed during labor.It was a relief for Diana to listen to the woman’s Polish and imagine that Barbara Nowak was visiting from Poland to take care of her.Delirious from pain and heat and heartache, Diana squeezed the woman’s hand hard and begged her to take care of her baby if she died.The woman said, “Women have babies every day.They have them in Poland, and they have them in Detroit, and they always make it out all right.”Diana knew that this wasn’t true, that accidents in childbirth were far more common than people liked to say.But she knew the Polish woman was too no-nonsense to acknowledge anything quite so painful.What good would it do anyone to talk about the dark things in life—especially now as a baby neared birth?

Diana’s baby was born at two in the morning.Diana held her first; the Polish neighbor held her second and said, “Madeline is a silly name,” but still smiled happily, cooing over the tiniest baby Diana had ever seen.Had Diana been this small, too?Had her mother held her like this?Had Barbara’s heart broken just as Diana’s was?

Miraculously, Allen was awake and sober when Diana returned with the baby.He wept with joy and explained that he’d been terrified that Diana had left him.He held the baby and kissed her fingers and toes and promised Diana that he would be better, that he’d be a doting father, that he’d wake up when the baby cried, that he’d feed her.Exhausted from childbirth and delirious with love, Diana let herself believe him.She kissed him and left the baby with him and went to bed.But not two hours later, he shook her awake, saying that the baby was crying, and he didn’t know what to do.His eyes were rimmed with red.It took another two weeks before Allen left them, and by that time, Diana was so ready to see him go that she popped open a bottle of wine and toasted her house, her baby, and her brand-new life.She didn’t need Allen.

But it was true that he was the reason she had Madeline: her gift, her treasure, her love.

Diana did everything she could to keep herself and Madeline afloat.Tired of Detroit and its suburbs and its dark memories, she moved them to Grand Rapids, where there was a yearly cultural art fair and a university and a beautiful river that glistened and wound through the city.Diana picked up odd jobs as a cleaner because if nobody was around, they didn’t mind if she had a baby in tow.The chemicals frightened Diana, of course, so she made sure to keep the baby as far away from where she was cleaning as possible.Usually, Madeline slept all the way through her shifts, as though Madeline sensed how essential these sessions were for their livelihood.

Diana maintained the mindset of one day at a time.As long as I pay next month’s rent.As long as I buy this week’s groceries.As long as I can always feed Madeline and tuck her in someplace warm at night.They weren’t without their hardships.Some months found Diana skeletal and counting pennies.Some weeks found her sleepless, listening for Madeline’s breathing in the dark.But lucky for them, Madeline was very rarely sick.She was a robust American baby.

For Diana, dating was out of the question.Allen had brought nothing but difficulty to her life, and she felt sure that every other man would bring similar, if different-looking baggage.Besides, she wasn’t sure where in her mind she could find space to care for anyone, not when she struggled so greatly to maintain some semblance of a life for herself and for Madeline.

Diana took the job cleaning for the Hamiltons in early 2005.By that time, Madeline was nearly three and very active, a fact that weighed on Diana’s heart and made it far more difficult for her to clean houses.Madeline didn’t lay quietly and sleep any longer.Obviously, Diana didn’t have the money for childcare, and Madeline was still a year or two out from going to school.Diana brought countless snacks and activities for Madeline to do, setting up Madeline and praying that she’d calm down a little.But Diana guessed she’d have to find another way soon.Maybe she could find a cheaper babysitter, a group nanny situation.Perhaps she could even find a Polish woman, like the one who’d adopted her in her father’s neighborhood and sat by her bedside as she’d given birth.But where in Diana’s life would she find the time to socialize and build such relationships?

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