Page 44 of Nantucket Dreams
“It’s calledNantucket Dreams,” Harlow explained with a flip of her hair. “It’s about the trials and successes of the woman of Nantucket Island, mostly from the 1800s.”
“Wow,” Jeremy said, impressed. When he’d been seventeen, he’d basically just partied with his friends on the beach and hit football practice, on repeat.
“We’re going to perform it for the Fourth of July Festival!” Sarah announced, her smile bright. “Our director just told us today that we’re in.”
“Seriously?” Jeremy was flabbergasted.When was the last time Sarah had demonstrated any excitement for anything at all? When was the last time she’d been able to stand upright without needing a break five minutes later?
“Yes, Dad. Why would we lie about a feminist production?” Sarah was no more or less sarcastic than before, though.
“I’m just so excited to see it. Can I watch an advanced production? Right here on my back lawn?”
“No way,” Sarah replied, giggling. “You have to wait along with everyone else.”
Jeremy puffed out his cheeks. He had so many questions. How had they gotten involved in this? His eyes scanned across the lawn to discover that the picnic table was laden with snacks— fruits, bags of chips, squares of cheese, and even some bread.Had Sarah eaten some of that?
“Dad…” Sarah nagged. “We need to get back to rehearsal. We only have a few weeks to put everything together, and we really need to nail these characters. I mean, they did so much for us as women. We want to honor them.”
Jeremy saluted his daughter, stepping back toward the shadows of the house. He could have run forty-seven miles, his strength coming purely from his happiness.
Jeremy grabbed a snack from the kitchen, then headed into his at-home office, which was cluttered yet useable. As he sat at his desk, an email pinged in from Jane, who’d decided to forward the message from Julia Copperfield. Based on his interaction with Sarah alone, he decided to go ahead and read it.
Jeremy half-remembered that Julia had been a bit “wordy” back in high school. You could feel it in the way she’d written the email, using words bigger than Jeremy had seen in ages and softly pleading with him for his assistance. “It would mean the world to me if you’d help us,” that kind of thing.
Jeremy groaned, cracked his knuckles, and set to work on a response.
Precision is important. As I said previously, these processes can take a good while. We need specific dates, reasons for your inquiry, and the desired amount of time the filings will remain in your possession. As a reminder, these files do not belong to you. They belong to the state.
He wanted to add:Keep your family as far away from me as you can.
But obviously, he couldn’t camouflage that as anything related to his career.
Regardless, Jeremy wasn’t willing to make things easy for the Copperfield women. Perhaps they thought it was still the nineties when the Copperfield family basically ran the island. They were called the “lucky ones,” the family you felt honored to be near, to be involved with. Jeremy, too, had felt that way during his rocky yet sometimes beautiful relationship with Alana. He’d looked up to Quentin as a brother; he’d thought Bernard was the biggest genius he’d ever met.
But he had to shove those thoughts to the side.
They didn’t matter any longer. And it was time for the Copperfield women to make peace with that.