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ChapterTwenty-Four
On July 8th, Ella, Danny, and Laura packed up their station wagon, prepared to return to the oozing humidity of the city. Over the previous days, the Copperfield family had nourished themselves with laughter, never-ending meals, and conversations that lingered on until late into the night. Even still, as Ella slipped back into the front seat of her station wagon and gave a final wave, Alana whispered to Julia, there on the porch beside her, “I still feel like she’s keeping something from us.”
As Ella backed the station wagon out onto the road, her children’s hands waving joyously, Julia muttered back, “She’s always been secretive. Never wanted to let us in.”
Alana pursed her lips as they watched the last of the station wagon slip out of sight. Her heart cracked at the edges. “I wish there was something we could do. Something to make her open up.”
Julia ruffled her curls, giving Alana a sleepy, sun-kissed smile. “And what could she possibly be hiding from us?”
“Julia, she’s a Copperfield woman,” Alana countered. “It really could be anything.”
Julia’s smile faltered. She glanced back toward the front door, which remained partly open. Greta already clacked around the kitchen, opening and closing the faucet and rummaging through the cabinets. Their father had said his goodbyes the previous evening, hugging Laura and Danny with his eyes closed, as though he prayed that he would see them again. There really was no telling what would happen next, especially in The Copperfield House.
Alana and Julia had taken up residency in the downstairs study, where Julia pored over Bernard’s manuscript, making diligent notes, edits, and writing emails to her marketing staff. They’d created a book jacket for the hardcover, which featured a black-and-white photograph of Bernard himself on the back. The photograph, Alana knew, had been taken by Julia at the beginning of June, and it showed off a broody, pipe-smoking Bernard Copperfield with a tangled beard. “He looks like he lives at the top of a lighthouse,” Alana said.
“The book comes out in August,” Julia muttered, mostly to her flying fingers.
It was a ridiculously quick turnaround, Alana knew. What’s more, sales of the book had to save Julia’s drowning publishing house. You could feel the intensity of her mission in the dark hollows of her eyes.
Alana returned her attention to her own stack of papers— grant applications to begin The Copperfield House Teenage Community Theater Project. It was a long name, she knew.But how could she possibly shorten it?Anything that existed within the walls of The Copperfield House deserved the once-famous name along with it.
Besides, didn’t she want to have a hand in building back the name to its former glory?
On a portion of the application, Alana was asked to describe how she would use the grant money, what sort of culture the group would bring to Nantucket Island, and why this would benefit the artistic community at large. Alana clicked her pen, reading and rereading the description.
“Can you please…” Julia sighed from the corner.
Alana stopped clicking her pen. “Sorry.”
Julia laughed. “You didn’t realize you were doing it, I guess.”
“Not at all.” Alana dropped her head back, draping her curls across her shoulders and the top of her back. “If you were giving out art grants for the island of Nantucket, what would you want to read on this application?”
Julia puffed out her cheeks. “If you were a woman or man from the ages of twenty-seven to seventy-five with a lust to read large literary novels that had the potential to shift the cultural consciousness, how would you edit this chapter where the main character is sentenced to twenty-five years in prison?”
“Good question,” Alana returned with a smile.
“Back ‘atcha.”
It felt like they were doing their homework back in high school. Any minute now, Greta would appear with a platter of healthy snacks and ask if anyone wanted their math problems checked.
The doorbell rang. Alana and Julia both popped up quickly, hungry for a distraction from their work. When they opened the door, they discovered the same courier who’d dropped off the divorce papers several days before. Alana glowered at him.
Beside him were six large boxes, each withTHIS SIDE UPpointed the wrong way round.
“I have a delivery for Alana Copperfield,” the man said, pressing a clipboard forward. “I need your signature.”
Alana scribbled her name as Julia stepped around the boxes, assessing them. They shared a collective, fearful gasp.
“Do you think…” Julia trailed off.
“I can’t think of anything else they’d be.”
Julia and Alana made three separate trips, one box each, and piled them in a single-file row in the downstairs study. With a shrug, they tore into the first box and discovered just what they’d hoped for.
Julia grabbed the first of what might have been fifty files and read the first page. “The Island of Nantucket Versus Bernard Copperfield. Court Minutes, April 5th, 1997.”
A shiver raced up and down Alana’s spine. Together, she and Julia bent their heads over this first document. It was probably the most boring document either of them had ever read, with the judge asking not once, but twice for a fresh glass of water.
