Chapter 5
Present Day
It was eleven at night, the tail end of the opening party for the White Oak Lodge.
Aurora, her siblings, her cousins, and the stable boys were on the beach in their swimsuits, some of them covered up in sweatshirts against the May evening, watching as fireworks exploded over the hotel.
Gwen’s cast was now fully decorated in artworks, many of them from Aurora herself.
Once upon a time, long before her parents had pushed her to do business school, Aurora had fancied herself an artist. Was that in the past now?
Kenny and Oren were off to the side, away from the Whitmore cousins, talking among themselves.
Ever since Gwen’s accident, Aurora had felt a strange pull toward both of them, although her attraction felt firmly planted in Kenny, the moodier and more secretive of the two.
What on earth was he thinking about? She knew he would never tell, which made everything all the more exciting.
She knew, too, that the two of them were trying to find a topic for their documentary, which they planned to start filming sooner rather than later.
Over the previous few days, Aurora had been privy to several of their conversations, during which they’d tossed various historical Nantucket facts at one another.
Many of those facts concerned shipwrecks and whaling.
Sometimes they looked at Aurora, hoping that she could supply them with something, anything.
But Aurora had just laughed and said, “I’m Italian.
I don’t know anything about this island.
” Although she desperately wished she did.
The island seemed endlessly fascinating and foreign to her.
Aurora’s older brother, Pino, and younger sister, Nadia, were sitting to Aurora’s left, both sipping wine and watching the fireworks reflect over the waves.
Just as had been planned, on the appropriate day, Pino and Nadia had met at the airport in Rome, where they’d promptly blown up Aurora’s phone, looking for her.
Aurora had written back simply: I’m already here.
Now, Nadia turned to look at Aurora. “Papa won’t stop asking me if you dropped out of business school or something,” she said.
Aurora’s breathing stalled. “Why would I drop out of business school?”
Nadia shrugged. “That’s what I told him. You’ve already put so many years into it. And you have, what, one semester left before you graduate?”
Aurora nodded and smiled a fake smile. “One more semester till I’m a fully-formed business-minded soulless cog in the machine.”
Pino rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how anyone half as dramatic as you gets through business school.”
At this, Gwen and Xander turned and looked at Aurora.
“You’re in business school?” Gwen asked, surprised.
Aurora rolled her eyes. “It’s just something to do with my time. It’s like, an experiment.”
Pino snorted. Aurora knew he didn’t always take kindly to Aurora’s lies. Then again, her siblings knew what had happened to her when she was nineteen. They knew why she’d had to come back to Rome and “make something of herself” so that she didn’t go insane.
She was grateful that Oren and Kenny seemed too immersed in their artistic conversations to hear about Aurora’s work in the business world. She didn’t want to destroy her cred.
Suddenly tired of her siblings’ probing questions, Aurora got up and went back to the main house, where she spotted her mother and Aunt Allegra off to the side, talking in low tones, gripping glasses of wine.
Her grandma and grandpa were nowhere to be found, and Aurora wondered if they’d snuck off to bed, exhausted after a long day.
The fireworks had begun to peter out, and several members of the catering staff were off to the side, grabbing cigarettes or sipping wine of their own.
The most beautiful and wealthiest of the guests had already returned home or gone to their White Oak Lodge suites.
It had been a successful party. Aurora could feel the hum in the air that suggested it. All of the Whitmores were pleased. After all, it had been a very long road to get them here.
Just before Aurora disappeared into the Lodge, into the old family apartment portion of the hotel, where her mother and her siblings had been raised before the fire, Lorelei turned to look at her.
Her eyes burned, as though she could see all the way through to Aurora’s soul.
Aurora raised a hand and mouthed, “Good night,” before ducking into the house and shutting the door behind her.
She knew she needed to keep her distance from her mother and father. She couldn’t admit to them what she’d done. She couldn’t disappoint them, not again.
The following afternoon, Aurora, Pino, and Nadia rode with Uncle Jack to downtown Nantucket, the old historic district.
Jack was meeting an old friend from high school, and Aurora and her siblings wanted to get out of the White Oak Lodge, where their parents seemed incapable of doing anything but bicker in Italian.
None of them wanted to talk about how terrible their parents’ relationship had been lately. None of them wanted to admit what they all felt coming.
Once in the historic district, the three of them walked slowly, taking in as much of the scenery as they could.
It was truly extraordinary, like an American movie set, with a massive pier lined with gorgeous sailboats, American flags flapping in all directions, and ornate sports cars parked in front of cute coffee shops and wine bars. It was nothing like Italy.
After five minutes, though, Pino dropped the news that he hated it here. “It’s so, ugh, American,” he said snootily, in Italian, avoiding talking badly about the place in its own language.
Nadia, who always agreed with their older brother, nodded. “I know what you mean.”
Aurora switched back to English, if only to prove something. “Are you kidding? It’s glorious. Do you feel that breeze off the ocean? Do you see how beautiful these houses are?”
Pino and Nadia rolled their eyes.
“What?” Aurora asked.
“You’ve always been obsessed with America,” Pino said. “We know that.”
“I have not been,” Aurora said. “I mean, everyone was. Back in school?”
“I don’t know,” Nadia said.
“Mom’s American,” Aurora reminded them. “We’re American.”
Pino raised his shoulders. “Don’t you think it’s weird? The Whitmores didn’t talk to each other for almost thirty years, and now, they’re just going to forgive each other and move on?”
“It’s weird, yeah,” Aurora agreed. “But it’s weird in an interesting way. It’s a great story! And you’ve seen the way Grandma and Grandpa look at each other…”
Nadia and Pino agreed that there was a lot of love between their grandparents, which was something they couldn’t really fathom.
Back in Italy, they’d known Francesca’s longtime partner Jeffrey Albright.
They’d loved him as though he was their grandfather, and even still did, although he’d died of COVID back in 2020.
It was mind-boggling to spend time with their actual grandfather, a man they’d thought was dead.
Benjamin Whitmore. Even his name felt like something out of a book.
“I just don’t get why you had to do that, Aurora,” Nadia said, seemingly out of nowhere. “Why did you have to get here early? Now, Mama and Papa think there’s something wrong with you, and they can’t stop fighting about it.”
She didn’t say it, but Aurora sensed she wanted to say the word “again.” Something wrong with you again.
Aurora stopped short, narrowing her eyes as she looked at her brother and sister.
How she loved them! And now, now that so much had happened to her, now that so much was happening to her yet again, she found that she was incapable of sharing her heart with them.
It was clear that they’d decided she was overly dramatic, the problem child, the reason for their parents’ fighting.
Aurora took a breath. “I’m going to stay in Nantucket for a while,” she said.
Nadia and Pino glared at her.
“Don’t do this,” Pino said, exasperated.
“Papa won’t like this,” Nadia whined. “And what about business school?”
Pino glared at her. “You’re supposed to take over the restaurant in Sardinia, right?”
“Apparently,” Aurora said, rolling her eyes. “Why don’t you take it over if it matters to you so much?”
“You know I’m a scientist,” Pino said.
“Yeah? Well, I’m an artist. I’m not made to work in an office,” Aurora said.
Nadia and Pino exchanged another look that nearly blinded Aurora with fury. It was clear they’d talked about Aurora all the way here on the plane. But there was still so little they understood.
Aurora knew they hadn’t earned their right to her honesty.
Suddenly, a man’s voice called, “Aurora! Hey!”
Aurora turned to find Oren and Kenny coming toward her. They wore jeans and white T-shirts. Their White Oak Lodge stable outfits were nowhere in sight.
“Come on, Nadia,” Pino said in Italian. “Aurora’s boyfriends are here.”
Aurora let her brother and sister go. She hurried over to find Oren grinning flirtatiously at her. Kenny hung back a little, looking at her as though he didn’t trust her. Her heart skipped.
“What are you guys doing?” Aurora asked, her smile so big that it hurt her face.
Kenny adjusted his camera bag on his shoulder. “We’re filming today.”
“Yeah, do you want to help?” Oren asked. He sounded greedy.
Aurora didn’t want to seem too eager for fear it would chase them off. “You guys have an idea for a doc?”
“Sort of,” Oren said. “We heard about this woman whose dad nearly drowned in a big shipwreck off the coast of Nantucket. Like in 1927 or something.”
“It was 1928,” Kenny corrected.
“Sure. Whatever. But we’re going to interview her and then head out to the cove where the ship sank,” Oren declared. “You should come. If you want.”