ChapterOne
Autumn 1998
The Copperfield House’s interior remained precisely the same after Bernard Copperfield was sent to prison. Photographs of Quentin, Alana, Julia, and Ella from many stages of babyhood, childhood, and awkward pre-teen and teenager eras adorned the fireplace and the walkways. A calendar continued to hang in the kitchen with February 1997’s picture of a snowman on a Nantucket beach. Holidays came and went without any holiday decorations to acknowledge the passing seasons. It was eerie, or so Ella’s friends told her when they came over. It was as though she lived in a haunted house.
Eighteen-year-old Ella carried a bag of groceries through the foyer, careful not to step on the floorboard that creaked. Upstairs, the television Greta had moved to the bedroom she now slept in alone produced a soft hum. It was rare that Greta ever left that bedroom. Ella could count on one hand the number of times they’d eaten meals together at the kitchen table. The dining room, of course, had been abandoned, as it had been the natural meeting place for the entirety of the Copperfield Family, plus any artists, writers, or musicians who spent time at The Copperfield House’s artist residency.
Just as she always did, Ella had shopped for enough groceries to keep herself and her mother alive for another week. Greta hadn’t set foot outside the bounds of The Copperfield House since Bernard’s trial. It was clear that Greta was a prisoner, just as much as Bernard was.
Ella lined up the groceries on the counter: orange juice, milk, a box of cereal, dry pasta, pasta sauce, slices of cheese, a loaf of bread, and mayonnaise. Once upon a time, the kitchen at The Copperfield House had been well-stocked with French cooking essentials. Garlic bulbs had been found in every nook and cranny. A permanent bowl of oranges had sat on the counter. Fine French wine had always been available for a quick pour. Unfortunately, Ella was no cook. Her talents were music-based only. Naturally, there had been a great deal of cereal in the past year and a half. Ella had no intentions of fixing that.
“Hello?” A beautiful yet very soft voice breezed in from the foyer.
Ella leaped to the doorway to find her best friend and bandmate, Stephanie. Stephanie loosened her backpack from her shoulder and eyed the thick dust that lined the baby grand piano.
“Hey, girl. Perfect timing. I just got back from the store,” Ella said, beckoning Stephanie into the kitchen.
Stephanie entered and lifted herself up on the counter so that she could swing her legs. “Mr. Jenkins was looking for you after school.”
“Oh?” Ella had raced out of last period to hit up the grocery store.
“Yeah. I told him you’d left already. He asked me to tell you to come and find him tomorrow,” Stephanie explained.
Ella groaned as she opened the fridge and placed the milk and orange juice on the shelf within the door. “He’s sent three letters home with me for Greta to sign.”
“Has she seen them?”
“No way. I wouldn’t do that to Greta. I learned how to do her signature years ago,” Ella explained.
“Maybe he caught on to you,” Stephanie said.
“God, I hope not. I mean, come on. Am I really going to need to do Calculus when the band gets famous?” Ella asked.
Stephanie wrinkled her nose. There was always hesitation in their conversation when Ella talked about pushing their band into the big leagues. Ella wasn’t sure where that came from. To her, becoming a musician was the only way forward. On top of it all, her family was basically dead in the water. She hadn’t heard from either of her sisters nor her brother in many months. There was no way on earth she would stick around Nantucket, waiting for something to happen to her. She was ready to go out there and make it happen for herself.
There was the sound of someone creaking up the front porch steps. Ella stepped out of the kitchen to watch as the mailman retreated, adjusting his mailbag across his shoulder. In the kitchen, Stephanie flicked on the local radio station, which played 1998’s song of the summer, “Cruel Summer,” by Ace of Base. Now that it was October, summer seemed so far out of reach. Even the memories were foggy now.
The mailman had left three bills— the phone bill, the television bill, and the heating bill. Because Ella now had Greta’s signature down pat, she often took care of these things with a flourish of Greta’s name at the bottom of a check book.
Beneath these three bills sat another envelope that was smaller, with sharper corners. Ella flipped it over to discover Bernard Copperfield’s beautiful handwriting. In the center, he’d written:
The Copperfield House.
Ella’s heart thudded powerfully against her ribcage. It was almost too easy to imagine him in his prison clothing, the fabric of his sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he looped “The Copperfield House” across the envelope. This was the seventh letter he’d sent since he’d been sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. The first three had sent Greta into a downhill spiral of an ominous depression (one far worse than her typical “eat and sleep in front of the television” stasis). Since then, Ella had done her best to hide the letters— usually not opening them herself.
Back in the kitchen, Stephanie poured herself a bowl of cereal and chatted about another member of their band. Brenda played bass and had recently gotten into a tiff with another girl in school because they liked the same boy. Ella wasn’t entirely sure what the deal with this guy was. To her, he seemed like just another Kurt Cobain wannabe with a messy haircut and ratty jeans.
“But Brenda is depressed,” Stephanie said as she dug through the cereal to find the little bits of marshmallow. “Today, she talked about this gig in a dive bar in NYC. Her brother invited her there this weekend, maybe even to play bass in his band. But she thinks she’s too sad.”
Ella’s ears lifted. “A gig?”
Stephanie shrugged. “I mean, you and I both know that Brenda isn’t the greatest bass player in the world. But she isn’t bad or anything. She can hold a beat. That’s sometimes all a band really needs.”
“But we should all go,” Ella heard herself say. Her voice was a bit tenser than she’d expected it to be. “I mean, the gigs around Nantucket are lame in comparison to anything in New York City.”
“Sure.”
“And if Brenda’s brother knows the other bands involved, then we could probably get a slot,” Ella continued, speaking quickly.