Chapter 1 Lili #2
explains, then less lovingly updated in the ’80s. Now it’s dated but clean, the walls a mix of faded wallpaper and peeling
paint.
When she mentions previous plumbing leaks, Mom’s expression wavers—just for a second—but I catch it. Her pallor hasn’t improved
much since the ferry, and talk of water damage isn’t helping.
Mrs. Mayhew pulls an envelope from her bag. “The plumbing issues have been repaired and were isolated to the second story,
so nothing down here was damaged.”
Mom nods as Mrs. Mayhew hands her a stack of papers and a full keyring.
“Those will open any room in the house. The iron one is for the shed, which has two bikes with freshly aired-up tires in it.” She winks as Goldie perks up at that announcement.
“And the brass one is for the study.” She indicates a closed door just off the kitchen that I’d assumed was a closet.
“I’m sorry to say I never could find one for the old locked desk in there, but maybe you’ll have better luck. ”
It’s my turn to look excited. “Desk?” Dad’s death blindsided us all, but the one silver lining had been learning he’d left
us this house. I’d wanted to come right away, as if setting foot on the island could somehow right a world that had just been
turned upside down. But Mom had looked at me with those green eyes of hers, wild and panicked like a cornered cat.
So, I backpedaled. Compromised. We made plans to come in the summer after I graduated and Goldie finished homeschool for the
year, and instead held a memorial service in Arizona while some of his smaller, personal effects were boxed up and sent to
us. I thought we already had everything important of his—the watch from his grandfather, his first edition of Moby Dick, the framed Gardner family tree he’d researched all the way back to the 1700s—but what if he left something else behind?
Mrs. Mayhew nods. “Looks like something that would have come over on the Mayflower. I hate to say it, but I’m glad my husband never saw it. He’d have no doubt tried to buy it for some exorbitant amount of
money, and I just don’t know where we would have put it.” She laughs, oblivious to the way my eyes are now focused on the
closed study door.
“I think old desks are gonna have to wait,” Mom says. “We need to unpack and do a million other things first.”
Mrs. Mayhew smiles. “Of course. Well, Ollie and I will leave you to get settled then. I wasn’t sure what you’d have on hand to eat, so I left you a basket out on the porch including some of my homemade blackberry jam.
The wild shrubs grow all along the harbor from Monomoy to Quaise, and lucky for us, they bloomed early this year.
” She gives us a warm smile. “If you need anything else—or want more jam—I’m just a mile down the road. ”
As soon as Mrs. Mayhew steps out the door, Mom exhales like she’s been holding her breath for hours. She sends Goldie to pull
the sheeting off the furniture, then drops onto the couch with a thud. The cushions puff out a faintly musty smell, but she
doesn’t seem to notice.
“I’m fine,” she says, though her voice is thin, as if she’s trying to convince herself as much as me. “How about you? That
ferry ride was rough, huh?”
“Not super fun, no.” I eye the keyring in her hand. “But Dad always told me an upset stomach is a small price to pay for paradise.”
She nods, remembering. “Never quite felt that way to me, but”—she carefully removes the brass key to Dad’s study and offers
it to me—“I know it did to the two of you.”
I hesitate before taking it. “What about unpacking and the million other things first?”
She smiles before pushing to her feet. “Tell you what. I’ll let you disappear into that study for the night if you promise
to meet me outside early tomorrow to tear down that death trap of a porch railing.”
I take the key from her fingers and grin. “Deal.”
Mom and Goldie head upstairs, and though their footsteps creak overhead, I feel a strange sense of quiet as I turn the brass
key in the study door and push it open.
Books line the wall-to-wall shelves, and I trail my fingers along their linen spines as I breathe in air that I foolishly expect to still smell like him—black licorice and coffee.
The breath I take awakens an ache because of course it doesn’t.
It smells stale and dusty and empty. I quickly pull off the sheets covering the rest of the furniture and let my eyes skim over things that haven’t been touched since he was here.
A worn leather chair, a brass floor lamp, his old rug, some framed paintings of ships on the walls.
And heavy, forest-green curtains that I throw open to let light in.
All through the air, tiny dust motes glitter and cascade down to rest on a huge honey-colored desk in the middle of the room.
I don’t know much about antique furniture, but it looks maybe eighteenth century, and beautifully preserved. Only a few tiny
edge pieces are chipped away from the rosewood inlay. I can’t help but touch it, tracing the swirling carved branches on the
sides and drawer fronts, stopping at the keyhole centered on the top-right drawer.
I give it an experimental tug, but it doesn’t move.
Slowly, turning around the room, I try to imagine Dad in this position. He knew he was dying in the end. He didn’t have a
lot of time, but he had enough. He left us this house, and that means that he left us whatever’s in his desk too. So I start
looking.
I open all the unlocked drawers first but don’t find anything significant. I move on to the bookshelves, flipping through
each title and checking all the notebooks that he kept about our various ancestors that he researched. I check floorboards
and behind picture frames, and even carefully stand on the desk to peek inside the light fixture in the ceiling.
No key.
“Come on, Dad. Would you really make it this hard for me?” Stepping down, I realize that no, he wouldn’t.
From the moment I showed the first spark of interest in history, specifically our family’s history, he’d been overjoyed and had set about teaching me everything there was to know about the Gardners and our legacy here on Nantucket.
Nothing was more important to him than imparting that knowledge to me.
Which means I’m looking too hard. He would make sure that of all people, I could find it.
I sit back at the desk, looking around now, not for hiding places, but for things that connect to me.
And that’s when I see it.
The brass floor lamp in the corner. It looks like an antique except for the cheap plastic whale charm hanging from the pull
chain.
It 100 percent doesn’t belong in this room, but it’s there because I gave it to him when I was eight, maybe nine? It had initially
been filled up with little candies, but as I give it a shake and hear a rattle inside, I already know it holds something far
sweeter now. Cracking it open along the seam, an ornate, basket-handle carved key spills into my hand.
I rub the cool metal between my thumb and forefinger, smiling before returning to the desk and unlocking the drawer.