Page 5 of Nantucket Longing

“She looks like her!”the neighbor lady cried in Polish.“Why didn’t we see it before?”

“Does your mother know you’re here?”another neighbor asked.

Diana shrugged.

The neighbors didn’t know what else to say.Diana left them to gossip about Barbara Nowak—about the woman who felt lost in another dream.

At this point, Diana hadn’t spoken about her mother in years.When she was able to, Diana let everyone believe that her mother was dead.It was still hard for her to fathom the fact that her mother hadn’t come to find her.Where was she?What was she up to?Was her father right—that she’d married the piano and, therefore, abandoned them?

Diana had long since given up being angry with her father for ripping her out of Poland and bringing her to the United States.She’d been here three years, and three years felt like a million to a kid like her.And besides, her father had a job.He provided for her and enrolled her in school and let her have a little spending money, sometimes.He was too exhausted looking to be angry with him.He always looked on the edge of death.

When one of the neighbor ladies got a piano and invited Diana to come play, Diana was nearly too frightened to go.She waited for three weeks before she got up the nerve and walked down the road.The neighbor lady—a Polish woman who had listened to many records of Diana’s mother—bustled in from the kitchen with a plate of Polish desserts and said in Polish, “You take all the time you need.”

In English, Diana answered, “I’m sure I’ve forgotten everything.”

The neighbor lady blinked at her.A strange look passed over her face.Diana knew the neighbor ladies didn’t like it when she spoke English to them.They preferred to maintain the culture they’d run away from as best as they could, and they saw Diana as someone they could mold in the style of a Polish child despite being so far away.But Diana had to go to school with American children five days a week.It was 1995.She was entrenched in American society.

Diana sat down at the piano and stared at the keys.Memories flashed through her: her mother positioning Diana’s hands on the piano, her mother instructing her to curve her fingers, and her mother banging on the wall to keep Diana’s hands in time.When Diana had left Poland, she’d been on the verge of entering a competition for little girls, and she’d had three pieces memorized for the occasion.Once, her mother mentioned the prestigious music universities around the world, and now that the East had fallen, Diana would have her pick of wherever she wanted to go.“Piano will be your passport,” Barbara had said.

But now, Diana found that her fingers were not the same ones she’d had three years ago.She’d grown and felt clunky and strange on the keys.Terribly, she found that she no longer remembered the pieces she’d worked on so diligently—for hours and hours every day.She had no wherewithal on the piano anymore.It was so frustrating and so strange and such proof of the passage of time that Diana promptly burst into tears and ran out of the neighbor’s house.She knew that the neighbor had wanted Diana to be a prodigy like Barbara was.But Diana was different now.She wasn’t Polish.She wasn’t American.She wasn’t a musician.Who was she?

ChapterFour

Madeline

June 2025

Madeline was dizzy with feeling and sun-tired after six hours on the boat.Standing on the dock, she cupped her elbows and watched Henry tie the last of the rope knots and pull a tarp over the seats to protect them.She was glad she’d stopped at two glasses of champagne.Otherwise, she was sure she wouldn’t have been able to walk back to The Copperfield House.With a jolt, she remembered her meeting with Greta later—in just an hour or two, probably, although she needed to check the time to be sure.She’d lost track.But when it happened, Greta would probably take one look at her and say, “You’re in no sound mind to talk about your artistic practice.”Would she ask Madeline to leave The Copperfield House?Would she say she made a mistake by asking her back?

Henry smiled and put his hand around her waist.Madeline swayed with adoration.On the boat, they’d done this continually—touching each other, gazing into one another’s eyes—but they still hadn’t kissed.She wasn’t sure who was drawing the boundary between them.Was it her?Or was it him?Then again, she was sure Henry was more experienced than she was in matters of the heart.Since she was seventeen, she’d been more or less alone and had only kissed a few boys here and there, ones she immediately rejected and never saw again.What kept her from rejecting Henry?Was it because he was a Copperfield?Or was what she was feeling for him genuine?

But when they reached the boardwalk, they ran into several other Copperfields: Henry’s cousins Scarlet, Daniel, Laura, Ivy, and James.Scarlet was licking an ice cream cone and talking enthusiastically about something she was up to in Manhattan, and Laura kept interjecting with stories about her life at Columbia.Their conversations seemed to flow seamlessly, as though they’d been talking for years and had fallen into a rhythm.But on the boat, Henry explained that none of the cousins had known one another until very recently.“We just clicked,” he’d explained.

“We were thinking about having a bonfire!”Scarlet said.

“Maybe out in front of The Copperfield House?”James suggested.

Scarlet scoffed.“You just want Grandma to make snacks for us.”

“Hey.I want snacks from Grandma, too,” Ivy countered.

There was a funny pause, during which Madeline realized the four of them were assessing her.

“You’re at the residency!”Scarlet said finally.“But wait.Weren’t you there last year, too?”

Madeline blushed.“This is my second run, yeah.”

“Wow.Lucky,” Scarlet said.“What’s your medium?”

Henry chuckled, and Scarlet gave him a look.

“She does everything,” Henry said.“I think that’s why Grandma has taken such a liking to her.She sees herself in her.Ultra-talented at everything she sets her mind to.”

Scarlet’s eyes glinted.Was that jealousy Madeline sensed?Of course, she’d long since recognized the healthy competitive streak in most Copperfields.

“That’s a lie,” Madeline said, knocking Henry’s arm with her elbow.

“The Copperfields want us all to have a medium.Art is the only thing that matters around here,” Laura explained with a funny laugh and an eye roll.“Our parents are musicians, and they’ve hit that on Danny and me pretty hard.”

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