Page 34 of Nantucket Longing

Greta pursed her lips and continued to stir more dough.Still more Copperfields streamed in, brushing hair from their cheeks and hair and kissing and hugging everyone hello.A few of them hadn’t seen Madeline yet, and they stole space around the table to ask her questions about Paris, her jazz pianist career, and how she liked it.She didn’t tell anyone about Henry’s proposed proposal—a potentiality that opened her heart like a window.All the while, Greta beamed at Madeline with all the love and pride of a true grandmother.

Madeline wondered if Barbara Nowak was going to look at her like that.It frightened her to realize that soon, she would know one way or the other if Barbara loved her or her mother at all.

ChapterEighteen

Madeline

February 2026

It was seven years almost exactly to the date of her failed Juilliard audition that Madeline took a taxi from her apartment in Paris to the airport for the flight that would bring her to the world her mother had left behind.In the back seat of the cab, she tried to warm her hands and watched the gray and drizzly Parisian streets fly by, thinking of that long-ago morning when she and Diana had flown from Michigan to the East Coast for the audition meant to change everything for her.When she closed her eyes, she pulled up an image of her mother in her mind’s eye, remembering the little smile Diana always gave her when she spotted her from the audience, a smile that told Madelinethis is no big deal; go show them what you’re made of.How she wished her mother was coming with her.How she ached to see her for just one more minute.How she wished she could say, I’m sorry; there was so little I ever knew about you; I wish I could have understood how much you gave up for me.

It made her wonder what she would have to give up when she, too, became a mother.But she had the sense that it would come easily to her; she would give of herself, give everything she was out of a powerful love.Greta had said it was instinctual.

Just then, as though he knew she was struggling, Henry texted.

HENRY: Just woke up.The jet lag isn’t too bad yet.See you in a few hours!

HENRY: I love you!

Madeline sent back five hearts.Tears sprang to her eyes.Henry had left LA two days ago, eager to get a head start on dealing with the jet lag before her arrival.And he’d said he was tired of LA, tired of the smog and the expenses and the people.He wanted a vacation.“Nothing like chilly Poland this time of year!”he’d joked over the phone—during calls that had been more and more frequent since their romantic Christmastime.

They still hadn’t mentioned his idea to get engaged, but it bubbled around them, supporting them in a cloud of love and understanding.Maybe Madeline would be ready soon.But she knew there was no pressure.Although he was thousands of miles away, Henry was on her side.

When the taxi reached Charles de Gaulle Airport, Madeline got out and checked her bag and went through security.She tried hard to imagine her mother at age nine, maybe going through another version of security, saying goodbye to a life and a language that she would never know again.How bizarre that she’d never taught Madeline to speak Polish!She wondered how much of Diana’s inner monologue had been a language that Madeline herself didn’t know.She wondered how lonely that had made her mother.

At a little coffee place near Madeline’s gate, she checked her messages to see that David had sent a number of photographs from last night’s performance.Privately, he’d told her he’d thought she would have moved on by now, away from Paris, perhaps to do her own thing or to do classical music again.But Madeline had said, “Jazz opened my heart to music again.How can I turn my back on it?”

“Greta tells me you’re still dating her grandson,” David had said, poking around, she assumed, to see if she was leaving soon for romantic reasons—reasons that involved engagements and the buying of houses and the planning for children.

Madeline had smiled.“He’s coming to Europe for a little while.”

It felt impossibly wonderful—like nothing she could have imagined just a year ago, when she’d seen Henry on that plane and thought it was time for my life to begin.Now, they were going to build a life in Paris.They were going to discover what it meant to be together—in a foreign place.

What was more, Henry was no longer sure if the movie he was set to make next in LA would ever actually be filmed.They’d hit a snag.The production company was wavering on how much they could actually offer.“But there will be more ideas,” he promised both her and himself.“It’s never over.”

Madeline knew he was right—that he was the kind of man to continue to strive for greatness, no matter what.

The flight from Paris to Warsaw took two hours and fifteen minutes, during which time Madeline listened to the recordings from the previous few jazz performances and made notes about what worked in her solos and what didn’t.She felt as though, with jazz, she could constantly evolve in ways that classical didn’t allow.She wondered what Barbara Nowak would say about jazz—and dreaded learning.She assumed Barbara, like all women in the classical music world, looked down on anything that wasn’t pristine and very old.By comparison, jazz was ragged and messy and new.Diana probably would have hated it, too.

Madeline let herself think, for just a moment, that Diana and Barbara would be exactly the same; that meeting Barbara would be like seeing her mother again.But she banished that thought just as soon as it came into her head.It was dangerous.

Madeline’s plane landed at one in the afternoon.Near the baggage claim, she hovered, waiting and looking for her suitcase.When it surged out, she leaped for it and hauled it onto the gleaming floor, ready to hurry off to find Henry.His texts suggested he was back at the hotel that Barbara Nowak had rented for Madeline—a three-room suite in the town square and three blocks away from where Barbara was set to perform that night.Of course, Madeline hadn’t told her grandmother that she was going to bring a man with her.She hadn’t spoken to Barbara at all, in fact, and had expressed every bit of information required of her to Aleksander, a man who confused her.Was he Barbara’s relative?A worker?A younger romantic interest?It was strange.But every time that Madeline spoke with Aleksander over the phone, he grew more less comprehensive to her.She couldn’t get a clear picture.

Aleksander had said that Barbara was very excited to meet Madeline.To this, Madeline wanted to ask, then why can’t she come to the phone and tell me that herself?

When Madeline came out of baggage claim, her eyes flitting over the taxi signs, she heard her name in what was the most beautiful voice she’d ever heard.She whipped around and found Henry, standing with a massive bouquet of red roses and a big grin.Madeline rushed through the airport and threw her arms around him.It now felt insane to her that they’d ever spent more than a few seconds apart.They kissed, and it felt as though they were the only two people in the arrivals hall, as though their hearts beat as one.But when their kiss broke, Madeline took a staggered breath.With Henry there, she had to stop pretending everything was all right.She had to acknowledge real pain.

Henry’s eyes intensified.“What’s going on?”

Madeline shook her head and pressed her nose to his.“I’m nervous for tonight.”

“I’ll be right there beside you,” Henry promised her.“We can leave whenever you want.”

Henry and Madeline took a cab back to the hotel.When it snaked around the circle driveway, Madeline tilted her head to try to take in the enormity of the grand hall, its gold-laced windows, and its elaborate sculptures.A few bellhops came out immediately to welcome them in a mix of Polish and English and take her bags to their room.It seemed that they already knew who Madeline was—and it occurred to Madeline that this was because she had her grandmother’s face, or the version she’d carried around with her forty-plus years ago.Did everyone in Poland know the beauty of a classical pianist?Was everyone here really so cultured?The hotelier came to the foyer to welcome her with flutes of champagne.She was in her late thirties with deep blond hair and a smart mauve suit.She shook Madeline’s hand and said, “We are so pleased to welcome you.Your grandmother booked her favorite room in the hotel.Perhaps Mr.Crawford has already informed you of its beauty?”She smiled hopefully at Henry, who nodded with enthusiasm.

“It’s something special,” he said.

Upstairs, Madeline discovered the most sensational suite she’d ever seen.With its ornate velvet sofa and its floor-to-ceiling double-wide windows and its hand-stitched rugs and double-king-sized bed, it spoke of royalty and money.Madeline sat at the edge of the bed and gazed through the window at downtown Warsaw, a city she’d dreamed of all her life.From here, she could make out the top of the opera house, where Barbara would be performing later.She wondered where Barbara was just then and realized with a funny jolt that Barbara was surely practicing—that the majority of her life had been spent practicing.By contrast, Madeline hadn’t spent more than three and a half hours at the piano in one sitting since she’d begun her “career” as a jazz musician.She’d explored Paris and eaten croissants and fallen in love.

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