Page 13 of The White Oak Lodge

Amos dropped his french fry in shock.

Chapter Seven

Nina

April 1998

It was six weeks until the White Oak Lodge opened its doors for the season, which meant chaos and the sounds of construction for the Whitmore family. Every morning at seven, it was the same: the harshness of hammers against nails, the landscapers barking at men with shovels, the pool cleaner here for an additional scrub, playing music from the eighties and dancing around, doors opening and banging shut, and people calling out names, telling them to hurry up and get over here.

As though she instinctually knew it was about to begin, Nina woke up by six thirty and sat in the little chair in her bedroom, peering through the window and watching the construction come alive. In the distance stood her father, his arms spread out as he discussed a new build with one of his construction guys. A hard hat glinted on his head, and he looked as though he hadn’t slept much. Bags hung beneath his eyes. Nina had heard her mother say to him a few days ago, “Benjamin, you’re looking oldbeyond your years,” and he’d given her a look that Nina hadn’t understood. She wasn’t sure there’d been a lot of love there.

But today wasn’t just a typical day of White Oak Lodge construction. It was Nina’s eleventh birthday. Her heart banged with excitement, wondering how her family would come together to surprise her, to illuminate their love for her. Last year, her father had gotten her a new bicycle, Allegra had done her hair in fancy braids, Charlotte had baked a strawberry cake, and Jack—Nina’s favorite sibling and the one closest to her in age—had danced around the beach with her to all her favorite songs, playing tapes and CDs on her new boombox that could take both. Everyone had said you’re double digits, now!

Of course, Nina knew that being ten was no real feat in a family of much older siblings. Now that Nina was eleven (officially, because on her birthday she’d come into the world at five in the morning), Jack was seventeen, Charlotte was almost nineteen, Allegra was twenty, Lorelei was twenty-one, and Alexander was twenty-three. Being twenty-three felt like an impossibility, an age she would never reach.

When the sun churned higher and burned the fog off the Nantucket Sound, Nina left her bedroom and hurried into the kitchen for a first round of birthday greetings. To her surprise, nobody was there, and the kitchen looked just as it always did: the countertops gleaming, the bowls and plates washed and put away, a few notes on the refrigerator, several of which her mother had written, reminding various members of the family to do whatever it was they were meant to do. Charlotte had a dentist appointment. Jack needed to write an English paper for his high school class. There, hanging to the left of the fridge, was a calendar upon which Jack had written Nina’s birthday in big, sloppy red letters with a heart around them. Her heart pumped with expectation for the day ahead.

Nina dug through the cabinets to find Little Debbie’s Oatmeal Cream Pies, which she’d decided to have for her eleventh birthday breakfast, and packed in a little backpack. Around her, the apartment in which the Whitmore family lived creaked and groaned. The apartment was just as large if not larger than a traditional house, but it was attached to the luxurious White Oak Lodge via locked doors and long, shadowy hallways. Her father had explained that the hallways were built because of the harrowing nature of Nantucket storms and icy winds. “When my great-great-grandfather built this place,” Benjamin had explained, “it was a lodge for men who’d spent months, if not years, on the high seas and wanted a warm place to tend to the wounds of their hearts and bodies.” Nina had gone through several of the tunnels herself, pretending it was another time, that the winds outside were howling, and that this was the only safe space in the world. But these days, the tunnels were locked, and it was important that she didn’t barge through and scare the few guests who spent time at the White Oak Lodge during the offseason.

When summer arrived, the White Oak Lodge would be bustling, its rooms packed with tourists and lodge regulars, friends of the Whitmores, iconic celebrities from Europe, gorgeous women who spent all afternoon drinking cocktails by the pool, men in sailing gear, and very few children.

Nina strapped her backpack on her shoulders and left, hurrying along the frothing beach until the lodge looked as small as a playhouse. There, she kicked off her shoes and dug her toes into the frigid sand. She tore open a cream pie and ate it as slowly as she could, which wasn’t very slow at all, and watched her father at a great distance, marching around the pool, talking. Just then, her mother popped out of the front porch, wearing a long white dress, her black hair a glossy river down her back, and her olive skin shining in the morning sun. Ninaknew that her mother had been born in Florence, Italy—that she’d met Benjamin because many years ago, her own father, an Italian film director, had summered at the White Oak Lodge. Benjamin’s entire life had been the lodge, and for Francesca, this was the life she’d married into.

Nina knew better than to ask her mother about any birthday plans, especially so early in the morning. She knew her mother would accuse Nina of badgering her. Nina dropped further from the lodge and opened another oatmeal cream pie, telling herself to bide her time and wait until the full morning had birthed itself. At that time, she was sure her father, mother, and siblings would gather around her, praising her and saying Happy birthday, my darling.

But hours passed, and no one called her name.

Nina was confused. By eleven, she was back at the hotel, wandering through construction workers and men with big painting buckets and baseball hats, looking for her family. The sugar she’d eaten for breakfast had rattled her. The radios scattered across the sweeping estate played all manner of talk show hosts and oldies stations, and they fuzzed together. At the corner, one of the painters pretended to throw paint at Nina and ended up flicking a few dollops on her cheek. Nina didn’t make a sound. She put her finger in a white droplet and brought it back, looking at it.

Just then, she heard her mother’s voice. “Nina? Are you getting underfoot?”

Fear crystallized in Nina’s heart. She turned to find Francesca draped on the veranda, watching her as though she’d had one eye on her all this time and had been waiting for her to make a mistake. Nina searched her mother’s face for signs of a happy birthday smile that never came.

Francesca beckoned for Nina to approach and led her into the kitchen, where she scrubbed the paint off her cheek. Allegraand Charlotte were at the kitchen table, poring over a list of to-dos for the day and talking about Allegra’s boyfriend, who hadn’t called when he said he would. There was something ominous about the way they talked about it, something that gave Nina the impression she would never understand adult lives. The feel of the rag on her cheek chilled her to the bone. Her sisters didn’t say happy birthday, either.

Should Nina remind them? Oh, but Nina was old enough to recognize how pathetic that was. She kept her lips snapped shut and let her mother continue to scrub her cheek, that was, until the phone rang and her mother abandoned her to fetch it.

It was a Saturday, which meant Jack wasn’t in school. Nina left the kitchen and padded through the halls to find him, but when she tapped open his door, she found only the messy bedclothes on his mattress, his backpack thrown against the wall, and an empty pack of cigarettes on the bedside table. She’d heard her father telling Jack that he needed to quit smoking immediately, to which Jack had said, “I’m half European, doesn’t that mean anything?”

Their father had rolled his eyes.

Nina wanted to throw herself onto Jack’s bed and cry.

But suddenly, from down the hall, erupted a voice. “What are you doing, snooping around?”

Nina jumped around to find Jack with his hands on his hips and a big smile. It was the first anyone had offered her all day, and she melted into it, throwing herself down the hall to hug him. He picked her up and swung her, just as he’d done when she was a whole lot younger than eleven, then set her down and said, “I have to run a few errands for Tio in town. You want to come?”

Tio meant uncle in Italian. Jack was referring to Tio Angelo, their mother’s brother, who’d moved in with the Whitmorefamily three years ago after a serious car accident back in Florence had left him both penniless and with a limp.

Nina said yes, and off she and Jack raced to his little light blue pickup truck. Buckled in, she raised a hand to their father, who stood with a few construction workers about fifty feet away from the driveway. Jack grunted and said, “Don’t bother. He’s lost in his plans.”

Jack backed them out of the driveway and turned up the radio to sing along to one of the top songs of the nineties—“Give Me One Reason” by Tracy Chapman. Nina tried to follow along, but she was no match for Jack, who seemed to remember every lyric of every song, even if he’d only heard it a few times. Nina never felt as safe with anyone as she did with Jack. He was muscular and six-foot-three with shaggy black hair and strange blue eyes the color of the Nantucket Sound in mid-July. As far as she knew, he had no girlfriend and very few friends, but she knew that was because he was more like her—a loner, a dreamer. Maybe she’d grow up and be like Jack. Perhaps that was all she really wanted.

Jack hadn’t wished her a happy birthday, either. But he was the first to have paid real, tender attention to her—and he was Jack, which meant she already forgave him for everything.

Jack parked at the hardware store and led Nina through the aisles that smelled of cedar wood and mulch to find rows of plastic containers about three feet by four feet. Nina could have sat comfortably in one. Jack piled three in one cart and two in another and asked Nina to wheel the lighter of the two to the checkout counter. Nina felt responsible and eager to please. Once there, Jack paid in cash and made light small talk with the hardware store owner.

“More storage for the lodge?” the owner asked.

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