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“I have nothing else to do but help you,” Anna said. “Let’s get started right away.”
* * *
Anna gathered the newspaper article that Eloise was pictured in, and together, she and Greta walked to the public library to make photocopies. Throughout the walk, Greta muttered to herself incoherently, and Anna burned with a mix of curiosity and fear. The April sunlight was a little too warm, and she began to sweat beneath her spring jacket. Around them, the air was, indeed, filled with the scent of daffodils, serving as a reminder of how many days Anna had missed from “real life” as she’d huddled inside, hiding away.
Anna sat at the library computer with her hand on the mouse and peered up at her grandmother. “How many copies do you want to make?”
“I don’t know.” Greta cupped her chin with both hands. “Twenty? One hundred? Anna, I just really don’t know!” Her voice was at a higher pitch than Anna had ever heard it.
That minute, Anna’s mother texted:
JULIA: My dad mentioned there’s something going on with my mom. That she saw something in the newspaper about this woman named Eloise?
JULIA: Can you text me when you understand what’s happening?
JULIA: We’re all worried here at home.
Anna wrote back quickly to say that she was monitoring the situation, but that Greta still hadn’t revealed why this had torn her apart.
“Let’s do two hundred,” Anna tried, typing the relevant number into the print box. “And let’s put your phone number on it.”
“Along with the words:CALL ME - GRETA,” Grandma Greta said.
Anna was careful to type the correct phone number beneath the photograph, along with the words Greta had instructed.
“We can plaster them up all over town,” Anna said as she sent the photo and the instructions to the nearby printer. Next came the roar of the printer as it burst to life and began to spit copies into the little ledge beside it.
“And you think she’ll see them?” Greta asked, sounding very young and naive.
“I don’t see why not,” Anna said. “If someone plastered my photograph all over town, I’m sure I’d notice it.”
Two-hundred copies of Eloise’s beautiful face were printed to the tune of eight dollars and fifty cents, which Greta paid with a crinkled ten-dollar bill. After that, Anna and Greta hurried into the beautiful late-morning and began to tape the pages across telephone poles, beneath shop signs, at bus stops, near the ferry, and on bulletin boards in every coffee shop and restaurant. They also passed out copies to coffee shop baristas, hotel managers, and anyone else they could think of, each time saying the same thing: “We’re looking for this woman. Could you call this number if you see any sign of her?”
After nearly three hours of chaotically circling bars, coffee shops, restaurants, and hotels, Greta staggered to a halt in front of a bench near the harbor and collapsed. Her face was slack, and she looked very fatigued, as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders. There was so much Anna didn’t understand.
“Grandma?” Anna said softly as she sat beside her and took her hand. “Are you all right?”
Greta shook her head, and her eyes were far away, searching along the furthest horizon. “I don’t know how to tell you this. You’ll probably think I’m the most selfish woman in the world.”
“I would never think that,” Anna said. “Because it’s not true.”
Greta shot her a look, but then continued. “When I left for Paris, I was twenty years old with eyes the size of saucers. All I wanted in the world was to become someone— someone with meaning and purpose and artistry. This was a rare thing for a woman in those days to want.
“For reasons I’ll never understand, I was beloved by my parents. To them, I could do no wrong. I think they always wanted a son, someone to hang their hopes and dreams upon, and when they didn’t get a son, they decided I was the best they were going to get. My father treated me like an intellectual, and when I said I wanted to go to the Sorbonne, he made it possible for me to get there.”
Anna remained very quiet. She’d never been privy to such a personal insight into Greta’s past, and it thrilled and mystified her.
“When I left for Paris, my little sister was fifteen,” Greta continued. “She was young and funny and adventurous, a girl with her heart on her sleeve. For some reason, my parents were often very hard on her. Her grades weren’t as good as mine, and she got into trouble here and there— but no more than any other teenager. I told her to keep her head down, to not get in Mom and Dad’s way, but apparently…” Greta trailed off.
Anna’s heart had begun to thud like thunder. For the first time since she’d met Eloise, she’d allowed herself to notice small details in Greta’s face— details that seemed to belong to Eloise as well. The slant of their nose was the same, as was the way they leaned their head as they thought about something.Why hadn’t she noticed this before?Had the grief put her so deep underwater that she hadn’t seen anything around her?
“Well, apparently, Eloise got herself into one mess or another,” Greta continued, her voice breaking. “Because when Bernard and I returned from Paris a couple of years later, when I was pregnant with Quentin, Eloise was no longer in Nantucket.”
“Eloise,” Anna repeated her name, her eyes filling with tears. “She said she did something when she was sixteen. Something her father kicked her off the island for.”
Greta placed her hands over her eyes and sighed deeply. “My parents never told me what happened. They said that Eloise had had to be sent away, and that was that. I pried, of course. I asked where she’d gone. But my father was difficult about it; he put up a very thick wall. And by that time, I was pregnant, and Bernard and I were in the process of purchasing The Copperfield House.”
“And Eloise was forgotten,” Anna breathed.
