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The Copperfield Sisters exchanged glances.
“We haven’t seen him since you left,” Julia finally admitted. “I think it’s all been overwhelming for him.”
“I was afraid of that,” Quentin said. “But Julia, book sales have rocketed. You must be excited.”
“Yeah.” Julia didn’t sound as though she was in any way pleased about the monetary development. “People want to engage with the enormous story he told while he was in prison. Many readers are finding reflections of their own regrets and sorrows within the text. And more than that, people are writing the publishing house, talking about how they’re coming around to the idea of rekindling their relationships with their own parents or siblings, all because of our story.”
“Are you serious?” Quentin sounded flabbergasted.
“The fact that Dad might have had a hand in bringing so many families back together has to be the best part,” Ella breathed.
Deep in the back of her mind, a small voice whispered:and now, your family is back together, too.Will had hardly left Ella’s side since the night of the Nantucket Film Festival.
What everyone said was true. The fact that Bernard, this innocent man, had lost so much time with his loved ones was proof that you needed to cling to the ones you loved all the more. Already, Ella and Will had lost so much time; they couldn’t afford to lose another second.
Later that week, Bernard was invited to hold a reading of his novel at the small downtown Nantucket Bookshop. News of this invitation went through the proper channels: from Stephanie to Ella, to Julia, and finally, to Bernard himself. Bernard “hummed and hawed” about the decision for a number of days before he eventually told Julia, “Why the heck not?”
Saturday, October 15th, was the day of the reading. That morning, Ella awoke before her sisters, Will, and Danny and padded downstairs to a sun-filled kitchen to find her father and mother seated across from one another at the kitchen table, a large folder placed between them. Neither of them spoke. It had been weeks since Ella had seen her father and mother together, and the sight made her freeze in the kitchen doorway with her heart in her throat. Their faces were etched with anxiety.
“Ella. Will you please sit down?” Greta found her voice and gestured toward the chair between them.
Ella wobbled to the chair, wanting to rub the sleep from her eyes yet resisting it. As she sat, Greta spread her wrinkled hands across the folder, exhaled all the air from her lungs, and said, “Your father and I hired a private investigator to track down the whereabouts of Joni Blackwood.”
It was as though Greta had slipped a knife through Ella’s chest. Ella gaped at her, realizing, suddenly, that Greta and Bernard had decided, yet again, to go behind her back, to know more about her reality than she’d ever known herself. This time, however, Ella felt too tired to be sad. They’d been through too much.
Slowly, Greta flipped open the first page of the folder to show several photographs, all of which featured a woman in her twenties and early thirties. In the photographs, Joni was dressed in all manner of “hippie garb,” her sleeves flourishing as she spoke about something that seemed important to her, a guitar across her lap or attached to her neck. Each photograph illustrated the dramatic brilliance and tragedy of a woman who just simply hadn’t been ready for Ella. Perhaps she never would have been ready for Ella. Could Ella really demonize her for that?
Greta’s hand shook as she revealed a copy of a newspaper printout, which she placed wordlessly in front of Ella.
OBITUARY for JONI BLACKWOOD: During the afternoon of October 7, 1987, Joni Blackwood passed away in her beautiful home in Laurel Canyon. She is survived in death by her dog, Felix, and many friends, who will miss her soul and her songs terribly. God bless you, Joni!
Ella’s heart dropped to the base of her stomach. She read and reread the obituary, feeling as though she looked at it from a great distance, as though her body was disconnected from her mind.
Suddenly, Bernard’s hand stretched over her wrist. Ella lifted her eyes to meet his.
“We cannot apologize enough for never telling you about this beautiful soul,” he said, his voice low. “Ella, I’m so, so sorry for keeping this from you. It has eaten me up inside for forty-two years.”
“And me.” Greta reached across the table and took Ella’s other wrist. “I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself.”
Ella blinked back tears, stirring in confusion. For a solid minute, she stared into the mysterious yet familiar face of Joni Blackwood, wondering how she might have died, if she’d ever been in love, or if she’d ever thought of her daughter so far across the continent.
“The private investigator discovered one last thing,” Greta whispered as she lifted the folder to reveal a vinyl beneath. The cover of the vinyl featured Joni Blackwood in another hippie dress, seated on a wooden swing with her legs pointed beautifully into the air. The album was called:
Joni Blackwood’s “Songs for Forgotten Lovers”
“The private investigator said that very few of these albums remain,” Greta continued softly.
“It’s incredible that he was able to track it down,” Bernard affirmed. “She died not long after it was released, which stopped production in its tracks.”
“There was talk that she would be somebody in the folk scene,” Greta said. “Which makes sense to us.”
“She was a unique talent,” Bernard continued, his eyes glistening. “Your talent would have made her so proud, Ella. Your musicality and the fame that came later make so much sense.”
“But they’re also uniquely yours,” Greta reminded her. “You are a different kind of musician.”
Greta and Bernard’s old record player sat in the library, newly connected to a set of old-fashioned speakers that Julia had found in a Copperfield House closet. Danny, Will, and Laura had played records on the record player over the last weekend, going through Bernard and Greta’s old collection for many hours as an October rain had pattered across the windowpanes.
Now, Ella, Greta, and Bernard sat around the record player and listened as, in some impossible era, Joni Blackwood strummed through the first guitar chords of a song that seemed to come straight from her soul.
