Moby-Dick has a first-person narrator. It was Ishmael’s voice my grandmother remembered. It didn’t matter where Nana started reading, or where she stopped. She didn’t remember where she’d stopped, or where she’d started the day before; she knew the story. She remembered all of Moby-Dick. Nana knew everything Ishmael said, and exactly how Ishmael was supposed to say it.

The young nurse at River Bend knew only that my grandmother’s old eyes got tired from her constant reading, especially in the winter months, when there were no golfers and Nana read and reread her Moby-Dick day and night. For Nana, the winter was one day long; it had happened overnight and would newly arrive, again, every tomorrow, but her old eyes knew how long winters were in New Hampshire. “Oh, look, it snowed last night—enough to discourage the cowardly golfers,” my grandmother would say every winter morning.

The young nurse, Emmanuelle, was from one of New Hampshire’s French Canadian families; she spoke no French, only English. In the early going in Moby-Dick, Nana needed to correct Emmanuelle’s pronunciation. “It’s Queequeg,” my grandmother told the intrepid Emmanuelle. “Keep your eye on the cannibal, dear—Queequeg is important. He’s not just any harpooner; Queequeg isn’t a Christian,” Nana forewarned the young nurse, who (fearlessly) began reading Moby-Dick at the beginning.

I happened to encounter Emmanuelle when she was discouraged and in tears—this was following her mispronunciations in Chapter 32, the “Cetology” chapter.

“No one needs to know the names of ‘the leviathanic brotherhood’—my grandmother won’t know if you skip chapters like that,” I told the young nurse. I forewarned her not to read Chapter 92, the “Ambergris” chapter—knowing that whale vomit, and everything to do with “the inglorious bowels of a sick whale,” was distracting and not what was important.

It was not just Queequeg’s name that caused trouble for young Emmanuelle; the stalwart girl had been chastised by my grandmother for mispronouncing “Tashtego” and “Daggoo,” and Nana never failed to remind Emmanuelle that Queequeg is a savage (not a Christian) for a very good reason. “And there’s his coffin,” Nana revealed to the young nurse. “Please don’t forget about Queequeg’s coffin!”

Poor Emmanuelle; the nurse had read no farther than the end of Chapter 40, the “Midnight, Forecastle” chapter. It was commendable how the young nurse had devoted herself to reading all of Moby-Dick, but she would not get to Queequeg’s coffin before Chapter 110. I didn’t want to tell Emmanuelle that my grandmother might have spoiled the story by spilling the beans about the coffin too soon. When I was visiting Nana, I took over the reading from Emmanuelle—not necessarily where the dutiful nurse had stopped reading. Nana never remembered where you stopped reading, and wherever you started Moby-Dick, Mildred Brewster knew exactly where she was in the story. What my grandmother didn’t know was where she was in her own story.