Chapter 15 #2
Jefferson left Francesca with strict orders to rest and recalibrate while he tended to everything else.
Within ten minutes, a stable boy of about twenty-two was at the front desk, fetching towels for the unhappy guest, giving advice to other tourists about where to eat and drink in town, and moderately flirting with the middle-aged women who walked through and waved.
Who was this twentysomething? their eyes seemed to ask.
Francesca laughed from her vantage point in the back office, marveling that Jefferson had fixed it so swiftly.
Maybe the stable boy would stay at the front desk all season long.
When Jefferson returned with a massive bowl of pasta with a delightful red sauce, Francesca burst into tears again.
Jefferson took baby Allegra in his arms and set her gently in the crib in the corner, then ordered Francesca to eat.
Francesca’s hands shook as she twirled the pasta.
She felt Jefferson’s eyes upon her, assessing her, and realized that since the night of Ronald’s disappearance, she’d hardly spoken with Jefferson at all.
Those hours they’d shared on the porch as the storm that had killed Ronald had felt mystical to her, but also illicit and wrong.
She knew Benjamin wouldn’t have liked it, although to her it felt like two lonely people, talking about life as the world went on without them.
“You’ve been working yourself to the bone lately,” Jefferson said finally, raising his chin.
Francesca was caught off guard. She hadn’t thought anyone was paying attention to what a mess she was at the moment. “I’m trying to hang on till everything returns to normal,” she confessed. “But I don’t know if they ever will.”
“They’ll find a version of normalcy,” Jefferson said. “They always do. For better or for worse.”
Francesca’s heart pounded. “That’s the thing.
I don’t want anyone to forget about Ronald.
I want the Whitmores and me to talk about what happened.
I want us to see it for what it really was, or is.
” She swallowed, waiting for Jefferson to ridicule her or tell her she was being overly dramatic.
He didn’t. “I worry that someday, something similar will happen to one of my children,” she said.
“I worry that I’ll give up on them, or stop seeing them for who they really are, or fail them in some spectacularly terrible way.
” She watched as Alexander revved a toy car across the hardwood floor, his face set with concentration. How she loved his earnest mind.
Jefferson clasped his hands. “You’re sweet for wanting that.”
“You don’t think I’ll ever get it?”
Jefferson heaved a sigh. “I’ve been at the Lodge since, what? March? But I think I’ve seen enough for me to say it’s almost impossible to demand the truth from a Whitmore. You and me, we’re not Whitmores, and it feels plain as day, especially when it’s just the two of us talking.”
Francesca’s eyes widened as she realized he was right.
Sometimes she thought of herself and Jefferson Albright as two European creatures in an American world she couldn’t understand.
“Are you going to quit?” she asked. “Everyone else has lately.
The babysitter's leaving was particularly difficult to take.”
Jefferson’s face darkened. “You lost your babysitter?”
Francesca explained that she’d tried to find a new one to no avail.
“Isn’t there someone you can call?” Jefferson asked. “I can’t help but feel that you’re alone here. That if you don’t do something about it very soon, you’ll burn out and leave Nantucket forever.”
“Maybe it’s good if I leave Nantucket forever,” Francesca said, remembering her exhilarating desire to take the kids to Italy and never return.
Jefferson’s smile grew. “You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t mean that,” Francesca agreed, thinking of Benjamin, tossing and turning in bed, depression a rock on his chest. “But you’re right. I need help.” She bit her lower lip. “Maybe I could call my mother.”
Jefferson snapped his fingers. “Your mother! I would love to meet her.”
Francesca’s heart shone with sudden eagerness.
Of course! Her mother could come to Nantucket and save the day.
In the meantime, she could get to know her grandchildren better.
She could improve her English (something her mother had always planned to do but never succeeded).
She could assess Francesca’s marriage and tell her whether it was salvageable.
She could tell Francesca if the White Oak Lodge was really as poisonous as she currently felt.
It took no more than four days for Francesca’s mother, Maria Accetta, to arrive from Italy and set up a bedroom down the hall from Francesca’s children.
Unfazed by jet lag, the beautiful and vivacious Italian grandmother threw herself into tending to Alexander, Lorelei, and Allegra, seemingly grateful to have something to think about that wasn’t her son Angelo’s disappearance.
She beamed when she realized how good at Italian the children were and confessed that she’d assumed Francesca had “eliminated their cultural heritage.”
With her mother caring for the children, Francesca went to her bedroom to find Benjamin half asleep, with a sour reek in the air around his bed.
She knew he had a meeting with an important tourist later on, someone with whom he’d schmoozed for years, someone whose money they would need for future summers.
Francesca told Benjamin it was time to get up, to shower, to tend to his physical and emotional needs, but Benjamin rolled away from her and groaned.
That evening, Francesca met with the famous tourist by herself, telling the man that her husband had come down with something absolutely heinous, a flu of some kind.
“But I’d be happy to talk to you about all Lodge matters,” she said, delivering her most beautiful smile.
“My husband lets me in on all business operations. We are partners in every dimension.”
Although the famous tourist was miffed at first, Francesca soon charmed him, and by the end of their three-hour conversation, she had him eating out of her hand, metaphorically speaking.
When he finally went up to bed, Francesca felt a fire in her chest so profound that she knew she couldn’t sleep.
She went upstairs to check on her mother and the children, all of whom were slumbering peacefully, and then she ran from the Lodge and into the horse stables to find Jefferson Albright, still wide awake, tending to the gleaming coat of one of their best horses.
“Thank you for pushing me to care for myself and my personal time,” she said, her breath coming in jagged gasps.
Jefferson gave her a crooked smile and held the horse brush aloft.
“I want to go horseback riding,” she said. But what she really meant was, I want to race across the sands. I want to feel the moonlight on my face. I want to feel the salty wind in my hair. I want to do it with you by my side, Jefferson Albright, the only person who sees me for who I am.
Without another word, Jefferson saddled two horses and helped her on. They clopped gently into the night, their hearts alive.