“You’re skipping emails again,” he observed, linking one arm with mine. In a flash, Maggie was on my other side, and they began encouraging me toward the Cottage’s doors with enough force that I didn’t have time to even grab a glass of proffered champagne.

As I hunched forward and powered through into the two-storied central hall, I noted new details, things Susie had replaced or repaired. Yet my eyes stubbornly sought out what remained from the time we’d lived here. The floor was still marble, black-and-white checkered, the walls dappled limestone. The plaster bust of Teddy Roosevelt—a one-time guest of The Land and, overall, representative of the other problematic individuals who slept here—still kept lookout from its fluted marble base in the alcove under the grand, curving stone staircase. On one side of us, wide arched doorways still led to the mirrored dining room. On the other, one could glimpse the library with its carved oak bookcases and massive fireplace.

“Don’t tell Susie,” Archer whispered to me, tracking my gaze, “but I snuck in some books she’d definitely call socialist propaganda.” This was followed by a chuckle and Cheshire cat grin. “I just want her to be giving a tour, showing off, and see Bernie Sanders staring at her from a spine.”

I glanced at my brother, fastidiously avoiding everyone we passed. “When do you even do this? In the dark of night?”

“I’m always in and out of the Cottage, especially when I need a Hope and J.P. detox,” he explained. “Besides, Susie has better snacks.”

In the back of the house was the expansive living room, once the ballroom, with ceiling fresco, angels and cherubs. More waiters with trays of canapés held open sets of French doors to the veranda. As we got closer to the green-and-white striped canopy that extended from the back of the Cottage, the unmistakable sounds of a Newport party reached us. The clinking glass, the twinkling music, the inflated laughter.

One of Susie’s guests, then another, noticed our approach in a little cascade. All well-heeled, in Jazz Age regalia. Some Al Capones. Many Gatsbys. There were fur stoles. Expensive wigs. There was someone wearing a very short, beaded dress and a long train made entirely of feathers. A few raised their glasses, others tossed me wan smiles. A few ignored me completely.

But guests fell around Maggie in a happy, sloppy embrace, exclaiming, marveling, congratulating. She clutched my hand for as long as she was able before, with one final look and entreaty to have fun, Cassie, okay?, she was pried away from my side.

“There she is!” My mother’s voice landed with a thud. Hope Coventry-Gilford, all hundred pounds of her, had gone full Party City: elbow-length gloves, beads, sequins, a feather in her hair—and stoplight red, no less. “Cassie, why do you look so tired? And where is your costume?”