Page 25 of Nantucket Longing

Madeline finished her wretched display of adolescent anger and finally began to practice the Rachmaninoff.Aleksander’s lips settled.“I’m sure you’ve heard your mother play this one?It’s one of her most famous performances.”

Of course Diana had.Barbara Nowak played this particular Rachmaninoff with the USSR Symphony back in 1978.She’d worn a black velvet dress, and her hair was piled in an elaborate swoop over her head.The video had been uploaded to YouTube, and Diana had watched it anywhere between twenty-five and fifty times.

Aleksander sipped his tea and studied Diana.It was clear to her that this man had far too much information about Diana, about her past, about what Barbara had really thought when her father had taken her out of Poland and moved her to America.Had Barbara cried?Had she tried to find Diana immediately, or had that come later?Or because it gave her more time to practice the piano and focus on her career, had she not cared at all?

“I’ll get to the point, shall I?”Aleksander went on, switching to Polish as though he wanted to test Diana and see if she still understood it.

Diana answered in a Polish she knew was unpracticed and strained.“Please, get to the point.I don’t have all day.”

Aleksander seemed to be enjoying himself.“Ms.Nowak requests that her granddaughter come to Poland to train with one of the best ex-Soviet piano teachers.It is only under her tutelage that Madeline will become what she’s meant to become.It is only under the watchful eye of Ms.Nowak that her career will really flourish.If she remains here, she will squander her unique and raw ability and become…” Here, he sniffed and looked at the tips of his fingers.“She’ll become like any other middling American musician.I’ve listened to the radio.I know what happens.”

Diana balked with a mix of surprise and rage.“I think you’re forgetting,” she answered in Polish so that Madeline couldn’t understand, “that it’s only under my watchful eye that Madeline has become a pianist at all.It’s only because of everything I’ve done by myself here in America that Madeline is winning competitions and practicing seven, eight, and sometimes nine hours a day.She’s already brilliant, and she’s going to be one of the greats.”

“That’s all well and good,” Aleksander said.“But she needs Ms.Nowak, now.Your mother knows that, and I think you know it, too.”

Diana was fuming.Never in her life had she wanted to throw so many things at a man’s head—not even when a judge in Topeka had suggested that Madeline “wasn’t exactly a prodigy, but she was very, very good.”

Diana pointed at the front door and glared at him.“You need to leave immediately.”

Aleksander removed a business card from his breast pocket and put it on the table.“Contact me at this number when you change your mind,” he said, his voice jovial.He then got up and began whistling along with Madeline’s playing.“I’ll tell your mother you said hello.”

“Don’t tell her I said hello,” Diana stammered, still in Polish.Her eyes were hot.“Tell her I said to leave us alone.”

Diana couldn’t believe her ears.After years of aching for her—after trying to contact her—Diana was closing the door on a future relationship with her mother forever.Never in her life had she thought her mother could be half as cruel as this.Diana felt her heart break.

After Aleksander left, Diana hunched over the kitchen table and bit her tongue to avoid crying.It didn’t work.When Madeline heard her, she stopped playing and ran in to comfort her, telling her mother, “I promise I won’t quit.I’m sorry.I’m really sorry.”Diana could see how miserable Madeline was.She could see that she was a prisoner of the piano.She could see that Diana had forced her into that prison.But everyone in life had their own sort of prison.Most of their prisons had nothing to do with being a genius capable of overtaking the classical music world.Diana’s prison was the fact that her mother didn’t love her enough to reach out.

Diana resolved to love her daughter harder, to do everything she could for her career, for her life.She doubled down because of guilt.Some of her knew that going to Poland to study with her mother and her mother’s ex-Soviet teacher would have been the best thing for Madeline’s career.But how could she possibly let her mother take over her daughter’s life like that?

That night, when Greg called to set up another date, Diana felt like a shell of her former self.She let the phone go to voicemail and deleted every single one he sent.Eventually, he left Michigan and went back to California, where, through social media, Diana saw that he met a beautiful and younger woman who, in quick succession, gave him three blond and blue-eyed children.They all went to the beach together and ate mangoes beneath the sun.

Meanwhile, Diana and Madeline were locked in a forever dance—en route to making Madeline’s career the best possible.Juilliard auditions were approaching.After that, Madeline’s life would open up, and maybe, just maybe, Diana could find a version of personal happiness that would make her understand all this sacrifice was worth it.

ChapterFourteen

Madeline

December 2025

It was the final week of jazz club performances before Madeline’s return to the United States.Paris was electrified with Christmas spirit, glowing with hundreds of thousands of Christmas lights and countless sidewalk markets that sold warm and spiced mulled wine and adorable chocolates and baked goods.Together with a few friends she’d made through the jazz club, Madeline popped from Christmas market to Christmas market, sampling as many treats as she could and buying gifts for Henry, Greta, and Bernard, as well as every member of the jazz band.It felt remarkable to have people to buy presents for.It felt remarkable to relearn how to love well.

At a market near Jardin de Tuilleries, Madeline sat with her friend Regina and drank mulled wine and swapped stories from long-ago Christmases.Regina was from Montana and explained that her family had been snowed in on Christmas more often than not, which made for strange but funny stories involving many hours of board games and charades.Regina was a jazz singer, and she’d left Montana at the age of fourteen to study in Paris, but she confessed to Madeline that she still ached to move back to Montana one day.She missed that big, beautiful sky.

It was Friday afternoon when Madeline swooped out of her apartment and went to the hotel down the block to meet Greta and Bernard.Just as she reached the curb, their taxi arrived and planted the two of them on the sidewalk, fresh-faced and smiling despite the long flight.Madeline threw her arms around them and helped them carry their bags into the hotel lobby, where two bellhops took over.

Greta put two hands on Madeline’s shoulders and scrutinized her.“You look beautiful and healthy, darling.It’s wonderful.Paris has been good to you.”

Madeline blushed.“You said it would be.”

“Greta is never wrong,” Bernard said, laughing as they climbed the stairs to their suite on the second floor.Bernard refused to get into Parisian elevators because they were too small and made him feel claustrophobic.“It’s best to just agree with whatever she has in her head so that you don’t waste anyone’s time, least of all your own.”

Madeline laughed and followed them into the suite, which was filled with buttercream light from the brief window of day before the city plunged into December darkness.Madeline chatted with them easily as they flitted in and out of the bathroom to freshen up, then led them down the block to one of her favorite Christmas markets, where she finally got up the nerve to bring up Henry.That week, they hadn’t found a single minute to talk on the phone, and Madeline’s heart felt squeezed with what she hated to admit was panic.At every turn, she felt more and more sure that Henry was going to fall in love with a Los Angeles girl and leave her behind.

Madeline said, “Henry’s probably on his way to Nantucket by now?I know he hates Los Angeles at Christmastime.It’s so soulless.”

Greta and Bernard exchanged a look that Madeline struggled to interpret.

“We can’t keep up with him,” Greta admitted finally.“Even Julia struggles to get a hold of him, and you know how close they are.But I’m glad to hear the two of you have continued your, um, correspondence?”

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