Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Madeline
June 2025
I t was the day after the beach bonfire, the day after Madeline’s six-hour sailing adventure with Henry Crawford, and Madeline hardly slept a wink. She was too eager for what the summer had in store for her. It already felt like the most exciting time of her life.
Madeline was in the studio of The Copperfield House residency, drinking coffee and listening to the other artists catch up down the hall. Because Madeline had been “inducted” into the Copperfield family (at least for the time being), Madeline hadn’t spent much time with the residents, a fact that made her pang with guilt. She urged herself to go down, grab one of Greta’s croissants, and say hello, strengthening their connections. But she knew that urge was related to her desire to get as far away from her studio as she could. The blank page on the computer document beckoned; the blank page in her notebook echoed; the blank canvas seemed to shout at her to make something! Greta had texted to say that she’d join Madeline in her studio at eleven that morning “to discuss next steps,” and Madeline knew that she owed it to Greta to prove how remarkably gifted and creative she was.
But a part of Madeline wanted to ask Greta why she invited her back.
During Madeline’s first stint at The Copperfield House, she’d made a series of subpar paintings that had made Greta cluck her tongue and say, “Keep going.” She’d written a short story that had made Bernard say, “Your characters need more interiority. Does that make sense? They need to go deeper.” Because Madeline had once been well-versed in speaking to her piano teacher, crafting plans of attack for her more difficult pieces, Madeline was able to lie and agree and hatch a plan for her next creations. But she wasn’t a painting or writing prodigy. Did the Copperfields actually think she had talent?
Last night around the bonfire, Bernard had asked, “Have you ever given thought to playing music? We have plenty of them around here.”
But Madeline had never confessed to her pianist past. It felt like betraying herself and her mother to even talk about it. So she’d lied and said, “I’m tone deaf.”
How awful it felt to say that! It felt like denying her very name. But how could she possibly talk about everything that had happened? It was better to keep it buried.
To distract herself, Madeline pushed paints out of tubes and set up her easel. Sunlight came through the window and pooled on the hardwood floor, beckoning her. But Madeline set her jaw and got to work, painting what she initially assumed was just any woman’s face—a woman in her twenties or thirties, maybe, sitting by a window and gazing at the ocean. She worked diligently, letting her ego fall away (always a necessity when practicing the piano), and didn’t emerge from her reverie until Greta knocked on the door at eleven. Madeline nearly tumbled out of her chair.
“Come in!”
Greta swept inside, bringing a croissant and the smell of lavender and coffee. Madeline felt as though she’d been caught doing something outrageous. She could hardly look at the painting, so she pulled up her chin to look at Greta. Greta betrayed no emotion.
“Good morning.” Greta closed the door and sat beside Madeline, handing over the croissant. “I hope my grandchildren didn’t keep you awake too late last night?”
Madeline could have said, I couldn’t sleep because I want so desperately to kiss your grandson, and it’s all I can think about . Instead, she said, “I was in bed by eleven.”
“Not too bad.” Greta smiled. “When Scarlet gets everyone going, it can be difficult to say no. She’s a spitfire.”
It was true that Scarlet was the one who’d demanded everyone sing songs and tell “secrets” and eat a few too many s’mores than they’d planned for. Madeline had wondered how anyone lived so well.
Madeline smiled. “I’d never really spent time with her before. She’s fun.”
“She’s fun, all right.” Greta sipped her coffee, and Madeline watched Greta’s eyes as they traced the painting. Madeline’s heart pounded. “What do we have here?” Greta asked, getting up to stand closer to the canvas. Madeline hung back, fearful. She felt the way she had when she’d played a new piece for Mrs. Everett—worried that she hadn’t interpreted it correctly.
Greta took a few minutes to say anything. Madeline alternated between fear that Greta would kick her out of The Copperfield House and relief that maybe, if she was kicked out, she could go back to her little life and stop pretending she was worth anything.
“This is something, Madeline,” Greta said finally. She twisted around to look at her. “Who is she?”
Madeline stuttered. “Oh, she’s just, you know. A woman.”
Greta arched her eyebrow as though she didn’t believe her. “You’ve painted her like you love her.”
Madeline stood with surprise. Her eyes went from Greta’s to the painting and back. Her heart pounded.
It was only then she realized she’d painted her mother. She placed her hand over her mouth in horror. How could she have conjured up this image of her mother—a version of her mother from so long ago—without realizing it? In the painting, her mother looked sorrowful and poetic, as though she were dreaming about her past or a future she’d never been allowed to have. The sight of her after so many years nearly brought Madeline to her knees.
Greta was watching her like a hawk. “You know her, don’t you?”
Madeline wasn’t sure how to speak about her mother. But under the intensity of Greta’s gaze, she felt she couldn’t lie, so she said, “She’s my mother.”
Greta nodded. “Is this taken from a photograph?”
“No,” Madeline said. “I don’t have any photographs of my mother.”
Color drained from Greta’s cheeks. The air thinned with what Madeline had said. But it was true. Madeline had never gone back to Michigan to get anything she’d owned, not photographs or old mementos, nothing; she’d never returned to the life she’d once shared with Diana; she’d never returned to any level of comfort after that fateful day at Juilliard. Her mother’s image had only ever lived in her head—and now, here she was on the canvas. Madeline felt as though she’d betrayed herself.
“I don’t know if I can finish it,” Madeline said.
Greta touched Madeline’s shoulder. “Maybe you owe it to yourself to try.”
Greta walked to the doorway, leaving Madeline alone with her mother. Madeline was suddenly frightened to remain in that room alone.
“Greta?” Madeline asked.
Greta paused in the doorway.
“It isn’t that good,” Madeline said of the painting. She’d seen marvelous paintings and sensational artists before, and she knew she wasn’t one of them.
Greta raised her shoulders. “How do you know? You aren’t done yet.”
After that, she disappeared down the hall.
* * *
At one, Madeline took a break for lunch and stumbled into Henry in the residency kitchen. He was tan and gangly and smiling, lost on the wrong side of The Copperfield House but very obviously looking for her. Madeline’s heart pounded. She glanced down at herself to see that her hands and clothing were covered in paint. But Henry wrapped her red hair around his finger and said, “I realized I forgot to tell you something yesterday.”
Madeline’s heart throttled in her throat. She couldn’t speak.
“I forgot to tell you how beautiful you are,” he said. “But I realized I was too frightened to.”
Madeline remembered how coy and funny and sarcastic she’d been with Henry until now. It was because everything had been a game, and now it very suddenly wasn’t. She trembled. Down the hall, she could see one of the artists, the English writer Benedict, ducking out of his room to fetch more coffee. She didn’t want him to share this intimate moment with anyone but Henry, so she suggested, “Let’s go outside.”
Henry and Madeline abandoned The Copperfield House—and Madeline’s painting of her mother—and raced down the golden sands beneath another cloudless sky. The farther Madeline got from the painting, the freer and emptier she felt, so much so that she felt she might float away. When they reached the harbor, Madeline and Henry pressed themselves into a hug and felt their bodies shudder with the strength of each other’s hearts. Still, they hadn’t kissed.
Madeline thought back to what her mother had always told her about her father, Allen Willis—how he’d swept her off her feet, and she’d always regretted letting a man do that. What if Madeline was making an enormous mistake? What if she needed to protect herself? After all, Henry was headed somewhere incredible. He was bound to be a successful screenwriter because the Hollywood elite had chosen him as the next best thing. That probably meant Madeline would be just a blip on his love résumé.
But I need to live! Madeline thought.
“Should we take the boat out?” Henry asked.
“I can’t say no.”
From the little store near the harbor, they fetched supplies: strawberries and chocolate that almost immediately melted in its foil and champagne and crackers and cheese. They raced back to the boat and were out on the water in ten minutes flat. Madeline asked Henry to show her how it worked, and he did so gladly, touching her back, her shoulders, her arms as they traced the boat and bucked around the island. Madeline didn’t have a swimsuit on, but when they reached a pretty cove and dropped the anchor, she swam in her underwear and bra, floating on her back and gazing at the sky. She wondered if these were the happiest days of her life.
And then she heard herself say, “I don’t want to fall in love with you.”
Henry was a few feet to her left, treading water. He laughed, and Madeline bucked up to look at him. They held one another’s gaze for a long and magical moment, and then he said, “Do either of us really have a choice?”
It was that evening as the orange sun slid into the Nantucket Sound and draped a purple, fuzzy sky over the island that Henry and Madeline kissed for the first time. Madeline shivered against him, her eyes closed as he wrapped his arms around her, cradling her close. Her heart slowed. The only thought in her mind was that it was the first thing that’d felt right since Juilliard. It was the first time she’d felt like herself since then.
She never thought she’d find a way back to herself after that.
The following morning, Greta appeared to see Madeline’s progress on her painting, but Madeline was already on her way out. The canvas was turned toward the wall so she didn’t have to see it. “I don’t think I can do it,” Madeline confessed to Greta, her chin raised. “It doesn’t feel like me. I’m sorry.” Madeline bowed her head and hurried out of the studio, out of The Copperfield House, off to meet Henry at the diner for a big breakfast with pancakes and cheesy omelets and all the laughter and sun-dappled joy they could manage.
It went like that for the rest of the summer, in fact: Madeline, streaming out of bed and running to find Henry, or Henry bursting out of his mother’s place to find her. Sometimes Henry stayed in the bedroom he’d taken at The Copperfield House itself, and other times, Henry stayed in Madeline’s little artist bedroom, where they shared a twin bed and talked deep into the night about their dreams—or, mostly, about Henry’s dreams, because Madeline had long ago given up on her own. When Henry probed her for more information about her vision for her future, she said, “I used to have one, but now it’s this big, black, empty space.”
Henry said, “How can we find you a new dream?”
“Your grandmother has been trying to help me with that. I don’t know why she thinks it’s possible,” she said.
Henry laced his fingers through hers and whispered, “You really don’t see how special you are, do you?”
Madeline blinked back tears. Love flowed through her, impossible to resist.
But at the end of July, everything changed.
It was at another Copperfield bonfire that Henry announced he would soon be returning to Los Angeles to start filming The Most Brutal Horizon , the screenplay he’d written about Sophia Bianchi. Of course, he’d already taken Madeline aside to tell her, but now, as Madeline watched his family celebrating his success, Madeline reckoned with the fact that their dreamy, gorgeous summer was nearly over. He’d leave for Los Angeles, or else she’d go with him and wallow in the city she’d hated so desperately, waiting for him to come home. He’d probably recognize how little she had going for her. She’d probably hate herself for not being the partner he deserved.
As the Copperfield family poured glasses of champagne to toast Henry’s big mission out West, Greta caught Madeline’s gaze across the firelight. Madeline’s heart pounded. She wanted to run away from that woman—a woman who seemed to know everything she was and had once been. But that was impossible.