| |
By the time nine-thirty a.m. chimed on the ancient grandfather clock in the living room, both Danny and Laura were stretched out on two of the living room couches, twitching in their sleep. Ella and Julia discovered them when they stepped out of the study and gave a wry laugh.
“I guess they ate too much toast,” Julia offered.
“It’s my fault. I kept them awake all night long to get here,” Ella said. “I would wake them up, but I’m terrified of grumpy teenagers.”
“Yeah. We have enough problems without that kind of attitude,” Julia joked.
Julia and Ella took quick showers and met in the foyer a little after ten. Julia jangled her keys from her spring jacket and led Ella wordlessly to her SUV, where it remained stationed at the side of the road. Ella’s station wagon, which was parked directly in the driveway, was clunky and vintage-looking, like a prop for a seasoned New York artist. By contrast, Julia’s SUV was fit for a soccer mom. If only she still had someone to drive to soccer.
“Wow. Heated seats?” Ella hissed excitedly a minute or so after Julia turned on the engine.
“It got so cold in Bartlett,” Julia explained. “When I was driving Henry to basketball, Anna to play practice, and Rachel to gymnastics, I spent a lot of time in this car.”
“On top of your publishing house in the city?” Ella asked.
“For a while, I felt like I had two lives,” Julia told her. “I wanted to perform all the duties of Super Mom, and I wanted to be a top-grade businesswoman. I probably failed at both.”
“It doesn’t look like you did. Not from here on your heated seats.”
They drove the rest of the way to the hospital in silence. The clock next to the speaker system told her the date— April 7th. When was Jackson taking off for Beijing? Was it April 8th? Sometime that weekend? As she’d once known the ins and outs of everything from Jackson’s writing schedule to his underwear drawer, her heart yearned to know the intricacies of his schedule. That feeling wouldn’t go away quickly. She knew that.
Once in the hospital's foyer, the smell of sterilization equipment and bad hospital food wafted through the room. Julia’s stomach twisted with fear. The woman at the front desk greeted them as they checked in, saying, “I don’t know the last time I saw so many Copperfields at once.”
Julia and Ella glanced at one another, simmering with the same feeling: Haven’t you people learned to just leave us alone? Haven’t we been your sideshow long enough?
Julia and Ella took the steps to Room 417. The door was propped open, and sunlight brewed out from the large window, drawing a halo around the doorframe and into the hallway. Julia watched as Ella stepped into the hospital room first, her hands clasped tightly behind her back.
“Is that my Ella?” Greta Copperfield’s voice was twice as bright as the day before, flowing with happiness.
“Mom...” Ella rushed to the bedside as Julia stepped in to join them. She paused in the doorway, leaning against the frame as Ella dropped low to kiss their mother on the cheek lovingly. Her leather jacket played out such a contrast to the sterile white of the hospital room and the beeping machines. Greta Copperfield didn’t seem to care.
“Oh, Ella, my darling. I hope you didn’t leave anything important behind to come here just for little old me,” Greta told her as Ella stepped back, drawing her fingers through her mother’s.
Ella turned to catch Julia’s eye. Hers glittered with a mix of fear and love, a love for where they’d come from and who they’d once been. Greta followed Ella’s gaze to catch Julia in the doorway, feeling like a stranger.
“You came together?” Greta’s eyes widened with surprise as she took in the gorgeous sight of these two women, her children— only one of whom had maintained ties with her. Only one of whom had called her on her birthday.
Julia stirred with resentment toward that previous version of herself, the one who’d burned every bridge.
“Julia...” Greta shook her head tenderly, reaching out her other hand.
The gesture was so pure, a mother yearning so desperately to hold onto as many of her children as possible. Julia recognized this feeling within herself when she forced herself not to text her children too much for fear they’d think she was needy or weak.
There they sat: Julia on one side, Ella on the other, and Greta in the middle, holding her two youngest daughters’ hands. Her eyes were damp with tears.
“I don’t quite know what to say,” Greta finally said. “Last night, I had a dream about you, Julia. You were just a little girl, and we were running across the beaches of Nantucket, singing songs and rushing through the waves. I woke up with the strangest feeling that I’d seen you just recently. And now, here you are.”
“She was with you yesterday, Mom,” Ella told her softly. “It’s why I knew you were in the hospital in the first place.”
Greta’s face shone with disbelief. After another strange and pregnant pause, she whispered, “Well, I’ll be,” because really, there was nothing else to do but marvel at the beauty of this reunion.
The door creaked to reveal the doctor from the previous evening, who reported that Greta’s vital signs were promising and that she could even return home that afternoon. Greta’s face twisted with a wave of fear, to which Julia whispered, “We’ve made the house look really nice, Mom. And Dad won’t bother you. We’ll figure something out.”
“You need to make sure her stress levels are low,” the doctor told them pointedly. “And that she eats three meals a day plus snacks.” He then turned his gaze toward Greta, like a stern teacher, to say, “You hear that, Mrs. Copperfield? You’re significantly underweight. You better let your daughters here take you out for ice cream.”
Julia and Ella caught one another’s gaze for a long moment as Greta shivered ominously between them. There was something strange about a doctor speaking “down” to their mother in this way, as though she was a child without the mental capacity to understand.
“We’ve got this,” Julia told the doctor with finality, using that business-world voice she’d cultivated over her decades in the publishing world.
**
JULIA AND ELLA HAD brought a pair of clothes for Greta: some slacks and a black turtleneck, plus socks, underwear, a bra, and a pair of tennis shoes, which had still been in the box they’d been delivered in. Greta remained a regal and proud woman and refused to let herself be dressed. Julia and Ella turned around to give her privacy as she shimmied into her pants.
“These tennis shoes don’t quite match the rest of the ensemble you girls packed for me,” Greta said.
“We wanted you to have the support to walk around, Mom,” Ella said coaxingly.
“Support comes long after fashion,” Greta returned, evoking a much younger version of herself.
“We can throw them into the ocean after we get home,” Julia quipped. “Let’s just get you home safe.”
A nurse arrived with the wheelchair Greta was required to depart the hospital in. Julia signed several pieces of paperwork and then followed along with Ella as she pushed her mother toward the elevator and the double-wide doors on the ground floor. The three Copperfield women were silent, too afraid to speak as they worked their way toward the illumination of this glorious April day.
Once outside, Greta lifted herself onto her tennis shoes timidly. Julia stepped toward her to draw a hand across her back for support. Greta turned her eyes toward her, giving her a once over.
“You were always so beautiful, Julia. And now, at forty-two years old, you evoke a similar beauty to my mother.” Greta’s voice cracked as she said it, overwhelmed with the sight of the girl who’d left her behind.
Ella zipped her leather jacket as Julia struggled to know what to say next. It was alarming that her mother knew her exact age, as though she’d celebrated each and every birthday without her. Julia could envision herself doing the same with her children, thinking of the unique birth stories of Anna, Henry, and Rachel and her very unique love for each of them.
“I think we should go out for lunch,” Ella suggested, looking from her mother to her sister.
“Go out?” Greta asked, as though it was the most outrageous concept she’d ever heard of.
“That’s a great idea,” Julia countered.
“It’s just...” Greta stumbled over her words as they moved deeper through the parking lot. “I just don’t...”
“You’ve been hiding from all the nosy islanders of Nantucket for too long, Mom,” Ella told her. “And even though I want to have a word with how disrespectful that doctor acted back there, his point about going out and eating a lot was a good one. Why don’t we go to that restaurant you always loved?”
“The French café!” Julia cried, her heart lifting with the joy of a thousand beautiful memories with their mother at Chez Longue. Chez Longue was a delectable little French restaurant that sold a wide array of crepes, sandwiches, omelets, cheese platters, and other French delicacies along the water’s edge.
Julia parked the SUV outside the cottage, with its slanted rooftops and white-painted porch overlooking the water. A crooked sign above the doorway read: CHEZ LONGUE, and a sign out front illustrated a wide array of specials for the afternoon ahead.
“Remember when you had your book club here?” Julia said suddenly as the memory rushed through her. “We would come here after school and listen to you talk about the books you’d read.”
Greta’s eyes lit up with the joint memory. “I loved leading that little group. We read some fantastic things together. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.”
“Do you still read often?” Julia asked her mother.
Greta shook her head timidly; her grey curls flashed around her ears. “I feel that I haven’t had a concrete thought in over ten years.”
A server in her early twenties showed the three Copperfield women to the corner table, which offered a gorgeous view of the Brant Point Lighthouse. The server poured them sparkling water into three water glasses as they studied the menus, all wordless as they took in the dynamic flavor pairings and listened to the rush of the waves outside. Occasionally, Greta’s eyes flashed up and around her as though she dared anyone to approach, to ask her how she was.
Julia supposed that she would have stayed locked away in The Copperfield House all these years, too. The embarrassment of being the wife of the island criminal was too much to bear.
Eventually, Julia ordered for them: a charcuterie board filled with various cheeses, croissants, jams, dips, a large bowl of olives, smoked salmon, and a crepe with goat cheese and honey to share. To drink, they ordered tea, too fearful that coffee would push Greta’s heart over the edge again.
“No stress,” Ella repeated sweetly as they piled the menus together and passed them back to the server.
As they sipped tea and waited for their food to arrive, the conversation shifted evenly toward what Ella and Greta knew about one another, leaving Julia on the sidelines.
“Tell me about Danny and Laura,” Greta said, sighing. “I haven’t seen them in so long. It has to be at least two summers now. Time seems to pass by quickly, especially when you get to my age.”
“They’re actually back at The Copperfield House,” Ella told her. “Sleeping in the living room.”
Greta’s face twisted. “I hope your father doesn’t come downstairs and scare them. What a shock that would be.”
“My kids are tough,” Ella told her simply. She then turned her eyes toward Julia’s as she added, “I imagine yours are, as well. All out of the house now, right?”
Julia recognized this as an olive branch. Ella wanted to bring Julia into the conversation, to shed light on the world Julia had created for herself back in Chicago. Greta’s eyes illuminated with excitement.
“Julia... Your children. Tell me about them.”
This was a topic Julia could speak about for hours. She leafed for her phone and flashed through the images: Rachel at her recent high school graduation, Henry at an intellectual competition for the University of Chicago, and Anna on the day they’d dropped her off in Seattle for her internship. Greta held the phone with both hands, beaming with pride at the images of these beautiful young adults, the grandchildren she’d never been allowed to meet.
Julia heard herself say, “I know they’d love to meet their grandmother.”
A tear trickled down Greta’s cheek. “I would love to meet them, as well.”
One of Julia's last photographs was a family picture of the five of them in front of Rachel’s high school on the day of her graduation. Jackson’s features were almost cartoonishly handsome, with his rugged good looks, his thick head of hair, and his crooked grin.
“Is that your husband?” Ella cried with excitement, grabbing the phone.
Julia’s throat tightened. “That’s Jackson.”
“Gosh, he’s something. Momma, isn’t he something?”
Greta nodded. “I don’t care what he looks like, as long as he’s a good man.”
Julia blinked twice and then forced herself to nod. What had Jackson done when he’d figured out she wasn’t planning on coming home? She imagined him drinking beer in his underwear while Nirvana played on high volume. She imagined him going through their photo albums and guffawing at the stupidity of their previous life. “I’m off to greener pastures, now...”
“A beautiful family, a publishing house all your own, and probably many creative works up your sleeves,” Ella said proudly.
“My girls are really something,” Greta affirmed, drawing her hands across both Julia’s and Ella’s and squeezing tenderly. She then turned her attention back to Julia to add, “It’s a good thing you and Charlie broke up when you did. Otherwise, you never would have built this big, beautiful life with Jackson.”
It was like a knife stabbed through Julia’s stomach. Ella could sense the shift and said quickly, “Oh, but Charlie was such a good guy. The breakup was probably really hard on you.”
This subtext was: We never really knew what happened between you. One day, Charlie returned to Nantucket without you, and we never got to know what happened.
“I saw Charlie yesterday,” Julia said suddenly, surprising all of them.
Greta’s lips parted with surprise. “What?”
“He came by the hospital to say hello,” she whispered. “I thought it was such a nice gesture.”
Greta and Ella exchanged worried glances. Ella sipped her water and set the glass back on the table.
“What’s going on?” Julia demanded.
“Honey...” Greta shivered. “Charlie hasn’t had as much luck as you have.”
“What do you mean?”
“His wife died two years ago,” Greta continued. “Poor thing. Such a sweetheart and she left two daughters and Charlie behind. And now, the daughters are off the island. I’ve heard that Charlie mostly keeps to himself these days, but I suppose I’m one to talk.”
Julia’s eyes widened with surprise. The server splayed the charcuterie board between them, exclaiming an eager, “Voila!” and then telling them that she was taking a French class online. Greta and Ella thanked her as Julia continued to stir in her sorrows.
That fateful day at the bus station, Julia and Charlie had embarked on very different journeys.
And neither of those journeys had really turned out the way they’d hoped.
But shouldn’t she have learned that as a Copperfield daughter? That life was a meandering journey toward endless disappointment?
“Eat up, Julia...” Greta told her, nudging the platter of cheese. “We’re all going to take care of ourselves for a change.”