Page 3 of Nantucket Longing

“With Charlie?”

Henry raised his shoulders.“That’s her high school sweetheart.”

“Wow.”

“Right?It worries me that she spent all that time married to my father, thinking about someone else.”

“Maybe she wasn’t,” Madeline said.

Henry offered her a curious smile.“What do you mean?”

“Maybe she really loved your father,” Madeline said.“In fact, I’m sure she did.Why else would she have married and built a life with him?”

Henry’s face looked calm, but he didn’t respond.Silence filled the air around them.Madeline twisted around to gaze out across the water, which glowed turquoise.She hoped she hadn’t overstepped her boundaries.But all she could think of when she thought of Henry’s parents was the fact that love was a strange and exhilarating emotion that was difficult to fathom.It was wrong to ever suspect you understood what was going on in someone else’s heart or mind.

Henry continued to sail the boat around the island until he dropped the anchor in a cove and got out a bottle of champagne.It was half past eleven, and Madeline laughed, saying, “Are we still celebrating your gala?”

“Why not?”Henry said.“I still can’t believe I pulled any of that off.”

Henry poured their glasses and sat across from her on the boat.Madeline craved his touch and fought her urge to clear the distance between them and sit beside him.

Should she tell him that she’d never been in love before?At twenty-three, she was pretty sure that was pathetic.

Henry’s eyes glistened in the sunlight.“What about your parents?”

Madeline’s heart felt squeezed.When she didn’t answer right away, Henry looked flustered and said, “That was crass.I’m sorry.You don’t have to tell me anything.”

Madeline took a deep breath and urged herself to tell him the truth.But she hated being judged for her past.She hated being put into categories she couldn’t overcome.

So she said, “We don’t really talk anymore.”

Henry bowed his head.“That sounds really hard.”

“It’s okay.I mean, I prefer to be on my own,” she lied.

“Why were you out in LA?”

“I went out there after I graduated from high school,” she said.“I thought I could, I don’t know, work in the movie industry in some way.I’ve always been sort of artistic, I guess.”

“You’re at The Copperfield House,” Henry reminded her.“It’s the most artistic place on the East Coast.”

And I’m already failing!she thought.

“Maybe you can help me with my movie,” Henry said, raising his chin.

Madeline’s heart churned.“Oh yeah?”

“You’d just have to tell me what your medium is,” he said with a laugh.“You’re so secretive about that.”

“I’m sort of in between mediums at the moment.I’m trying to figure out what’s next.”

“Okay.What was your medium before your in-between state?”

Madeline swallowed a big gulp of champagne and pictured herself on stage at Juilliard with all that light spilling over her hair and fingers.Was that really the last time she’d ever touched a piano?Even when Greta told her she could use the piano at The Copperfield House “to experiment,” Madeline had thought,Yeah right.She hadn’t told Greta she was a musician.Greta had suggested it purely because she thought she’d enjoy it.She’d thought it would be a nice way to unleash her creativity.

“I guess I used to do music,” Madeline said, surprising herself.When was the last time she’d told someone she was a musician?She couldn’t remember.

“Oh.Wow.”Henry looked rapt.“Did you play an instrument?”

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