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“Well, he wasn’t happy. But he said tomorrow was okay, too,” Ella said. “But look at them. Don’t you think she deserved this day in the sun with that handsome fisherman?”
Alana and Julia nodded serenely as Ella turned to freestyle back to the boat. There, she gripped the iron railing and peered up at Aurora. “Hey! You should get in! The water’s fine.”
Aurora’s cheeks were crimson. “I can’t swim.”
Ella’s heart dropped. “Oh. Oh gosh! Of course. Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry for being so rude.”
Aurora shook her head. “Don’t worry. Brooks was just telling me he’ll teach me as soon as I get back.”
“You’ll be great at it,” Brooks said. “A natural.”
“I don’t know about that,” Aurora said. “But you all make it look easy. I hope I can join you by next summer.”
It opened Ella’s heart to hear Aurora talk about next summer, about future sunny days, about times spent with no real goal except the nothingness of a gorgeous day.
* * *
The following morning, Greta and Ella took Aurora back to the facility. Aurora was quiet throughout the drive, stewing in thoughts. Ella half-expected Aurora to resist, to run away from the car and disappear. But when they reached the facility, Aurora hugged them both and thanked them.
“I’ll let you know what Dr. Winston says,” Aurora said. “I’m hoping, if the medication is still working by next week, he’ll let me go.”
“We’ll come get you as soon as he gives the all-clear,” Greta said.
Ella and Greta stood in the foyer for a moment, watching as Aurora grew smaller and smaller down that long white hallway, returning to whatever life existed on the other side of that ominous door. It was hard for Ella to imagine what it was really like in a facility like this, beyond what she’d seen in movies. But the light returning to Aurora’s eyes was proof that it was doing something. Something good.
* * *
At two-thirty on the Fourth of July, Alana put on a short play with her group of thespian teenage girls— all of whom had learned a great deal from her over the past year. Some of them had decided to pursue acting or playwriting in university and had gotten into prestigious schools based on Alana’s letters of recommendation.
Like last year, the play was written by Greta Copperfield, but unlike last year, the play was brand-new, a celebration of Greta’s newfound wave of inspiration. The Copperfield Family and the artists in residency gathered on the beach to watch the performance, all leaning forward to listen to the lines, which were difficult to hear due to the waves and winds. Still, everyone came away with a good feeling about what Greta had created, each standing up for round after round of applause. Greta blushed continually for the rest of the day, clearly grateful to have heard her words expressed with such honesty on stage like that. “Next week, the girls are going to perform it downtown,” Alana said proudly, her eyes flashing.
Immediately after the performance, Ella got a call from her band manager with news: there were eight confirmed tour dates set and many more on the horizon. In the midst of her family, she shrieked and threw her arms around Will, then announced the big news.
“Eight confirmed dates in eight different cities!” Greta laughed and shook her head. “I don’t know how you kids have that kind of energy.”
“It remains to be seen if we still do,” Will said.
“I guess that means we’ll have fewer people in The Copperfield House,” Greta said sadly, eyeing the beautiful Victorian with nostalgia. “Especially after all the kids go back to college.”
Laura, Danny, Scarlet, and Ivy were all off to college that fall, with Scarlet recently deciding to return to university after dropping out of her senior year the previous January. Quentin and Catherine would miss her— but Scarlet was resolute. She’d gone through too much not to get her degree. This meant that Anna and James were the only “grandchildren” who would be around, a fact that probably devastated James, although he’d already made plenty of friends on the island.
After the theater performance, Greta led everyone to the porch for a barbecue and conversation. She urged them to discuss the play to give her feedback, but everyone just gushed about it until she waved her hand and said, “All right. Everyone can have extra helpings of dinner!”
For whatever reason, during the days after their wedding, Ella didn’t want to be away from Will for long. She held his hand whenever she could, sat next to him for every meal, and kissed him frequently, calling herself a teenager. Will was ecstatic about it. When she apologized, he said, “Keep it up.”
That night, as fireworks exploded through an inky black sky, Ella and Will held one another, gazing out across the ocean, wordless. Ella was shivery with expectation for their next tour, imagining outfits she wanted to wear and guitar solos she wanted to perform.
Down on the beach, some of the Copperfield teenagers had made a bonfire, and eventually, the elder Copperfields walked out to join them. Scarlet was perfecting a marshmallow for a s’more, concentrating hard to make sure it was a perfect, soft brown. Her little brother, James, made fun of her, then said that marshmallows were better burnt, anyway.
“You want a s’more?” Will asked Ella.
Ella nodded, watching as Will pierced two marshmallows with a roasting stick and placed it delicately next to Scarlet’s, imitating her.
“Copycat,” Scarlet said, her eyes catching the light from the fire.
“I respect your process!” Will joked.
Quentin appeared a moment later, carrying a beer. He looked more rugged than he ever had on television, his beard thick and his face a bit rounder— perhaps because he didn’t spend hundreds of hours in the gym any longer. For the previous few months, he’d worked on documentaries about Nantucket with Scarlet, and Ella knew Quentin would miss his partner-in-crime a great deal.
Ella had the strangest feeling in her gut, one that acknowledged that everything had to change, no matter what, even when it broke her heart. That was the nature of time.
They were just lucky that the previous year of changes had led them back to one another. They’d led them back to The Copperfield House – the only place they truly belonged in the world.
