Chapter 21
December 2025
Nantucket Island
My invitation to celebrate Christmas at The Copperfield House came as a surprise. Sophia hadn’t heard from Henry in two or three months, not since they’d begun filming on The Most Brutal Horizon , and she’d been fully immersed in edits for her memoir—a memoir that told the total and complete story of what happened back in 1985. Those sorts of creative headspaces didn’t breed time for phone calls or messages. Sophia had decided her friendship with Henry was over. It had to be all right.
But when she got off the ferry in Nantucket and drove her rental to The Copperfield House, she was surprised when Henry bucked out the door to hug her and help her with her suitcases. He seemed stiffer and more muscular in her arms, and his face had changed a little bit, transforming him more into a man than he’d been a year ago when she’d met him.
“How was your trip?” he asked, hauling her two suitcases up to the porch.
“It was lovely,” she admitted, grinning from ear to ear. “When did you come out to Nantucket?”
“I’ve been here since early December,” he explained. “Madeline was back at the artist residency, and we took a break from filming for the holidays. Grandma bribed me into coming, telling me she’d already baked my favorite kind of cookies, and there wasn’t anything in LA for me anyway. Not in December.”
Sophia considered telling Henry he could always come over. But she didn’t want to push it.
Her heart gushed with goodwill.
The Copperfield House had been decorated immaculately for Christmas. The tree in the living room towered and glinted with what looked to be hundreds of decorations, many of which seemed to have been decorated by one of the many Copperfield children over the years. There were Christmas cookies and chocolates wherever you looked, several of which looked to be Greta inventions. Henry disappeared upstairs to put her things away, and Greta whizzed out of the kitchen to wrap her in a hug.
“You made it!” she cried. Then she lowered her voice and said, “I hope you don’t mind, but Julia let me read the latest draft of your memoir. It’s sensational, darling. It’s really the best thing you’ve ever made. And that includes A Cataclysm and A Sacred Fig .”
Sophia thought she was going to burst into tears. She bit her tongue and tried to find the words to demonstrate how grateful she was.
But instead, she heard herself ask, “You don’t blame me for what happened?”
Greta shook her head. “It was an accident. You were having one of the worst days of your life. I was there. Remember?”
“You’re in the book,” Sophia reminded her.
“I love the way you represent me,” Greta said, pulling back to take a cookie off a nearby tray.
“I thought of you as a brilliant friend,” Sophia offered. “I still do.”
Greta swung her arm around her shoulder and pulled her deeper into the house, calling out to everyone, “My friend is here! Everyone, come say hello!”
Sophia felt swept up in Christmas magic. That night, she stayed up late with Bernard, Greta, Julia, Henry, Madeline, and a young woman named Scarlet Copperfield, talking about every book, film, and television show they experienced that year. Henry spoke at length about the changes he’d made to the script prior to filming, including pulling the story even further away from Sophia’s reality to make it “something else, something that feels more my own.”
Sophia was glad. She didn’t want Natalie’s life to be misrepresented.
Yes, Natalie had had an affair with Francis. But Sophia had long ago forgiven her for that. Now, all that was left was aching and sorrow about what had happened.
But Sophia needed to find a way to forgive herself. It would be a journey.
Before Sophia left on December 27th, Julia cornered her to talk dates of release for the memoir. “We’re thinking spring 2027,” she said. “That’s around the time Henry’s film comes out, and we want all the hype to carry over into sales.”
Sophia snapped her fingers. “It’s perfect, Julia.” After a moment of silence, she added, “I really appreciate you taking a chance on me. I know my first draft was a joke.”
“Most first drafts are messes,” Julia said. “Yours wasn’t a mess. It was just a lie.”
Sophia laughed. “I think there’s a compliment somewhere in there. I’ll take it.”
Julia hugged her tightly. “I can’t wait till we’re on the book tour together.”
Sophia could already imagine it: swanky hotels across the country, meet and greets with fans, fans who were probably just as much fans of Francis as they were of her. It would be a time of revelation, of fatigue, of talking and talking and talking about what she thought and felt all the time.
But it was so much better than sitting in her house alone.
She’d had enough of that.
Sophia drove to the Nantucket harbor and onto the ferry. Once parked, she got out and went upstairs to watch the island recede into the horizon. Seagulls buzzed overhead, swooping down to see if she had anything to eat. She didn’t.
“I’m sorry, boys,” she whispered to them, laughing at herself. Some way or another, she’d transformed into an older woman who talked to birds.
What a blessing old age is , she thought.
Sophia drove from Hyannis to the Boston Airport, where she returned the rental car and scouted for international departures. It was a loose plan. But at some point during her stay in Nantucket, she’d decided to miss her flight back to LA and take a different one instead. A flight from Boston to Paris was scheduled for five thirty that evening. She planned to be on it.
At this point in her life—a life she’d spent more or less wealthy—Sophia was accustomed to first class. She was accustomed to nice meals and divine champagne and enough space to move around. Sometimes, she let her eyes drift back to economy class, where she knew she would have been had she never met Francis Bianchi. But everything in life happened for a reason.
The following morning, Sophia landed in Paris and took a cab directly to a quaint boutique hotel in the Marais. Once there, she asked that her bags be stored in her suite while she “attended to something in the city.” The cab waited for her outside. She got in and directed them to the next location: Montparnasse Cemetery.
How had she discovered where Francis was buried? It was all publicly listed. She’d had a French friend look into it. He’d told her exactly where to look—which row, which stone.
It was here that Francis Bianchi lay forever at rest.
Recently, it had snowed in Paris, and Francis’s stone was lined with white. Sophia bent down to trace his name with the tip of her finger. In her mind’s eye were flashing images of the day she’d met him, the day he’d asked her to run away with him, the day he’d told her he loved her, the day he’d asked her to marry him. For better or for worse, Francis was the only husband she’d ever had. And for better or for worse, he’d never divorced her. The reason for it had never been clear. Maybe it never would be.
Sophia let herself cry. Her shoulders shook and shook.
But then, just as quickly as the emotions had come, they were gone. She righted herself and exited the cemetery, getting into the same cab and asking to be taken back to the hotel. Once there, she slept for five hours, then woke up to eat the most buttery and divine croissant she’d ever had.
“Okay,” she said to nobody in her hotel room. “I’m in Paris. Now what?”
It was not difficult to figure that out. Sophia spent her days in cafés, reading and writing. She ate at wonderful restaurants and flirted with servers. She went to the many small cinemas, watching old movies with old Hollywood stars who’d died long ago. On New Year’s Eve, she celebrated with a glass of champagne in the hotel restaurant and clapped when a young couple got engaged two tables over. Everything was happening around her. Even her own life kept going.
It wasn’t till she’d been in Paris for two weeks that she got up the nerve to contact Francis’s daughter. Based on a bit of light snooping, she’d learned that Francesca Bianchi was a professor at the Sorbonne—the same university where Greta and Bernard had met—and that she taught history and religious studies classes. Unsurprisingly, she was beautiful. Surprisingly, she wrote back.
Sophia Bianchi and Francesca Bianchi met at a wine bar on the Left Bank. It was immediately after one of Francesca’s university classes, and she came in with a briefcase full of class papers and a look on her face that meant she was panicked and didn’t know how to feel. Sophia tried her best to smile, to make the girl feel easy in her presence, but she knew this was no small thing.
Francesca put her briefcase on the table and looked at Sophia. Sophia was speechless.
“I’m sorry,” Francesca said in perfect English. “I don’t know what to say.”
Sophia stood and put out her hand. Francesca shook it.
After a very long pause, Francesca said, “My father was not a good man. But I think sometimes he wanted to be.”
Sophia laughed abruptly. Tears welled in her eyes. “I loved him.”
“I loved him, too,” Francesca admitted. “Shall we sit?”
They did.
Francesca ordered a bottle of wine from a region near Toulouse and folded her hands under her chin. “You’re the woman my father refused to divorce.”
“And you’re the only child he ever had,” Sophia said, smiling. She felt as though she were floating above the table, looking down.
“Why did he never divorce you?” Francesca asked. “My mother tore her hair out over it. She said that woman is not a part of our lives! You left your past in America! End it! But he refused. I never understood it. Did he still love you? Is that it?”
Sophia laughed. “I doubt it. I don’t know if he ever really loved me. I don’t know what that man ever thought.”
“He thought he was a genius. That’s clear,” Francesca said. “He thought he was five steps ahead of everybody.”
Again, Sophia chuckled. “I think he felt guilty.”
Francesca’s eyes were shadowed. “Do you think he murdered that woman?”
Sophia shook her head. “He didn’t.”
She considered telling her about Dean Chatterly, about her suspicions. But the woman she saw before her was clearly reeling from the death of a father she’d never fully understood.
All we have are our memories , Sophia reminded herself. Let this young woman cherish her memories with Francis.
“Tell me,” Sophia urged. “What was it like for Francis in Paris? Who is your mother? What was your life like growing up?”
Francesca hesitated. “Do you really want to know?”
Sophia considered this. For years, she’d avoided the truth, so certain that staring at it too closely would mean her doom. But now? Now she felt she understood herself, Francis, Natalie, and everyone around her with a sense of clarity that only brought beauty to the world.
“Don’t leave out any detail,” Sophia urged Francesca. “I want to know how his story really ended.”
But when Francesca took a breath and began, Sophia realized that Francis’s story had never really finished. His daughter was an extension of his story. Sophia’s memoir was a part of it, too.
Maybe in that way everyone is immortal , she thought. Our stories lived on.