Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
I t was no surprise to Lucas that Tina and Gale appeared in his office the following afternoon with more than thirty percent of the work completed for the Whaling Museum street festival. That was just the kind of hardworking mentality Nantucketers had. Tina had secured numerous donations and prizes from local Nantucket shops and was now showing him several different ideas for “One Hundred Years of Whaling Museum” logos and posters to advertise the event. Jefferson hunched over Lucas’s desk and inspected each poster for a little longer than Lucas thought necessary. They were all vaguely similar.
Gale was being quiet. Her eyes were soft and big and round, and Lucas suddenly asked, “What do you think, Gale?”
Gale pressed her lips together, then stuttered to say, “I think maybe that one on the left. The whale tale is more prominent, and I think it draws the eye.”
Lucas hurried to the other side of the desk to inspect the poster she spoke about. He understood exactly what she meant from an artistic point of view. “We just need to make the text a bit bigger,” he said, finding authority in his voice.
“We can do that easily,” Tina said. She smiled and then listed everything she planned to do that week and the following. “We probably don’t need to meet again until the week of the festival,” she said. “If you give the okay, Gale and I can fly.”
“I’ll sign off on everything,” Lucas said with a sigh of relief.
Jefferson gave him a look that meant money doesn’t grow on trees. But Lucas reminded himself that a festival of this size would more than pay for itself if it were as successful as Tina’s prediction. Nantucket tourists were flush with cash. A magical festival like this was a cause for celebration, with numerous glasses of wine and plenty of twelve-dollar shrimp taco plates from the food truck Tina had an in with. Lucas decided he’d even find a way to relax at the festival. Maybe he’d even get up the nerve to ask Gale if she wanted a glass of wine. Don’t be crazy. You don’t know her.
He double-checked right now to ensure she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Her left ring finger was bare with what looked like a faded tan line. Did that mean she’d just taken it off? Or did it mean she’d forgotten to put her ring back on that morning after a workout?
Tina and Gale left, and Jefferson followed after them to grab lunch from a place across the street. This left Lucas alone in his office with the lunch of chicken chili with homemade bread that he’d packed from home. He reheated the chili in the microwave, bending down to watch the bowl circle the square box. He couldn’t shake the memory of Gale’s eyes upon his.
But he couldn’t help but think, Remember Monica. Remember what happened.
“Lucas?” Gale’s voice startled him from his reverie. He bucked up and turned to find Gale hovering in the doorway. She looked jittery. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you. I hate sneaking up on people.”
Lucas laughed at himself. The microwave beeped, but he didn’t bother to open it. “It’s cool! What’s up?”
He sounded like a teenager.
Gale pulled her hair into a ponytail that she immediately let fall. “I wondered if I could talk to you about something. It’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me. Stella said maybe you could help.”
Lucas’s curiosity was piqued. His chili was completely forgotten. “Is it a history-related problem?”
“I think so,” Gale said. “Insofar as it involves my history here in Nantucket. So it’s nothing major. Nothing life-altering for anyone but me.”
“History is just made up of people’s stories,” Lucas said. “And there are no small stories. Every story affects every other story. It’s like a braid.”
Gale looked as though she breathed easier. She gave him a beautiful smile, then produced a sepia-toned photograph from her wallet. She passed it over to him with a shaking hand and then shoved both sets of fingers into her pockets. Lucas looked at the photograph for a long time, then read on the back: the twins , 1981
“One of them is me,” Gale explained, her voice wavering. “But my mother won’t tell me anything about the other little girl.”
Lucas’s heart thudded. This was precisely the kind of story he wanted to dig himself into. But it was also delicate, the sort of thing that could shatter Gale if he wasn’t careful.
“I was born here,” Gale said. “ We were probably born here. Me and my twin.” She laughed nervously and tugged her hands out of her pockets again. “My daughters are twins, too. I thought it was so funny. ‘Twins don’t run in the family!’ I told my husband at the time. We thought they were so special. But it turns out, I was just a twin delivering twins. Funny.” Her face fell. “I’m rambling.”
“It’s okay. This is definitely cause for rambling.” Lucas passed back the photograph and said, “I think we should hit up the birth records at the Nantucket Records Office. Do you have time this afternoon?”
“I have all the time in the world,” Gale said. “Tina thinks I’m hopeless. She’s given me the lightest tasks.” Her eyes twinkled with tears. “I like to think I’m offering moral support, but I think I’m just making Tina’s life harder.”
“With something as big as this,” Lucas said, gesturing to the photograph, “I can’t imagine you can think about anything else.”
Lucas led Gale down cobblestoned Nantucket streets to the Nantucket Records Office. An old footballer named Jeremy helmed the desk in the chilly basement office and knew the ins and outs of all Nantucket records. He flashed Gale a handsome smile that reminded Lucas that he was just a nerdy historian and definitely not a jock. Never had been. “My sweet little nerd,” Monica had said tenderly, drawing lines down his nose and along his jawline.
Don’t think about her when Gale is around.
Jeremy led them to May 1978’s birth records. Lucas said a small prayer, asking for the record not to be there. That would simplify everything. That would be the end of the road. But he wanted to help Gale search. He wanted to dig through files and paperwork from Nantucket to Martha’s Vineyard to northern Maine. He wanted this to turn into his and Gale’s project—a journey to discover what had happened to her twin.
Already he’d begun to think of them as two characters in a book or a film. Maybe they’ll turn this into a miniseries on the History Channel. Maybe Gale’s secret twin is off somewhere with secrets of her own.
But Jeremy soon produced two birth certificates: one for Gale and another for her twin. Lucas’s heart sank, but he gave Gale a sturdy smile that he hoped translated he was here for her.
Gale took the birth certificate with shaking hands. “Lilian,” she read. “I can’t believe I’m looking at this.”
Lucas studied the birth certificate from over Gale’s shoulder. He tried to imagine what this felt like for her. Perhaps it was like discovering you’d had a third arm attached to your back all this time, and it had just been dangling there. Gale’s life as she’d known it was entirely different. She sniffled and turned to press her forehead against Lucas’s chest. It was so startlingly intimate that tears sprang to Lucas’s eyes. He touched her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I just don’t know what to do with myself.”
“It’s okay,” Lucas breathed. It had been a long time since someone trusted him this much. He fought the urge to throw his arms around her and tell her it was all right. He didn’t actually know if it was.
Gale took a deep breath, straightened up, and looked at Jeremy. Jeremy wore a stoic expression.
“Do you have death certificates?” she asked.
This is the bravest woman I’ve ever known, Lucas thought. She wants to stare her truth in the face.
He knew if the death certificate was here, that would launch them into a far different investigation—one more personal for Gale. Why wouldn’t her mother tell her about her twin? Why would she keep such a startling truth from her daughter?
Jeremy led them to a database, where he entered the now-known name: Lilian Dobbs. But the only record in the database was her birth certificate. There was nothing about her death.
“That doesn’t mean she’s still alive,” Jeremy explained softly. “It just means that she didn’t die here.”
Gale nodded. “Can you call Providence? It’s possible it happened there.”
“I know Larry over at their records office,” Jeremy said. “Give me a sec.”
Gale and Lucas waited in stunned silence as Jeremy swiveled in his chair and dialed the Providence Records Office. After light chit-chat, during which Jeremy asked Larry about his son’s baseball game, Jeremy explained the situation and their quest to discover what had happened to Lilian Dobbs. But his shoulders slumped a few seconds later, and he hung up. “Larry doesn’t have anything over there. He asked about you, though. He said you’re the famous Providence screenwriter.”
Lucas turned to watch a blush crawl up Gale’s neck and into her cheeks. “I’m not famous,” she said. “Nobody knows the names of screenwriters. Providence is a city masquerading as a tiny town.” She laughed, and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I really need to get out of this basement.”
Jeremy tugged a few tissues from the box and passed them over. “Let me know if I can be of any more help.”
Lucas followed Gale up the skinny staircase and into the splintering sunlight of the June afternoon. The light glinted off Gale’s cheeks. She staggered to a halt and gripped her thighs, focusing on her breathing. But it looked as though she couldn’t shake her smile.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the ground. “You shouldn’t have to see me like this. I’m acting insane.” She sniffed. “I just can’t believe she might still be out there. It doesn’t make any sense. But I have this strange hope in my chest. I haven’t felt this way in years.” She straightened up and looked Lucas directly in the eyes. Lucas felt as though she was peering all the way through him. “I just left my husband. I found out he was cheating on me. With multiple people.” She snorted, then pressed her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry! I can’t control any of my emotions right now. I’m laughing? I’m crying? What?”
Lucas couldn’t help but laugh with her. “You don’t have to apologize. I can’t imagine what this feels like.”
Gale sputtered and took a deep breath. She raised her arms and then let them fall to her sides. “I came to Nantucket for a fresh start. But my mother won’t talk to me. And I have a twin sister I don’t even remember.” She breathed deeply. “All my life I’ve felt a peculiar emptiness, like I’m slightly hollow. Like my insides are echoing. Writing has always helped fill that hole. But right now, I can’t write. I’m forty-six, and it’s my first writer’s block ever. And now I’m faced with a reason for that emptiness. I don’t know whether to be thrilled or devastated.”
Lucas reached for her hand and took it gently in his. He thought for a moment Gale would shake it off, but she suddenly looked relaxed, calm. She tucked her hand deeper in his and gazed at him.
“You can be thrilled and devastated. You can be anything you need to be. There’s no how-to manual for something like this,” Lucas said. He then pressed his lips together. “We’re going to find your sister, Gale.”
Gale was quiet for a long time. It was difficult for Lucas to guess what she was thinking. She probably thinks I’m insane. Just another nerdy historian.
But her smile widened. “I loved what you said about history just being people’s stories. I’d never thought about it that way.” Her hand was still in Lucas’s. It felt impossible.
It felt as though the Nantucket sun was shining just for them.