Chapters (47)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- Epigraphs
- Prologue
- Part One
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- Part Two
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Newsletter Sign-up
Maureen looked at her watch and frowned. “I want to hear all about this later. But Ann, I can already tell you’re a remarkable young woman. I’m sure you have a lot to teach my boys about generosity of spirit.”
She gave Ann a quick hug. Ann liked how Mrs. Shaw made her feel validated and special.
“I’m so pleased we found you!” We. “What a gift you are.”
Ann looked around the breezy home and wondered what it would be like to be a Shaw instead of a Gordon. Ever since Michael had moved in with them, she thought a lot about what it was like to enter other people’s families.
THREE
Poppy
Poppy woke to an unusually silent house. She didn’t need to look at a clock to know she’d slept in; she could tell by the dusty light streaming in through the old wood blinds. She’d always slept her hardest and best on the Cape, as if she were double-sealed in her dreams under the perfect weight of her great-grandmother’s handmade quilts. She loved to sleep, loved the heaviness of it, the ability to lose herself. She’d dreamt that her teeth were falling out, although she hadn’t realized it until a stranger, a nondescript nine-year-old boy in a hunting cap, opened his palm and showed them to her. They’d crumbled, and looked like piles of sand.
She saw Ann’s empty bed and wished she were around so she could ask her sister what she thought the dream meant. Poppy consulted the dream dictionary she kept under her pillow: it said teeth are used to bite, tear, gnaw. Losing your teeth in a dream represents a fear that you are losing power. If her teeth had dissolved to sand, she’d never get her power back.
She found her mother sitting in the living room with her twisted ankle propped on the hope chest. She’d tripped on a lobster trap on the pier a few days earlier, and seemed perfectly happy to have an excuse to take it easy for a while. On the table next to her were a stack of plastic-covered library books, a cup of tea, and the stationery she used to write to her friends and relatives back home. Her mother loved to stay in touch with everyone she knew. She had a million friends: other teachers, her former students, parishioners at the Unitarian church, the old lady down the street she made meals for, her book group, and the feminists who joined the potluck salon she hosted in their house once a month. Back home, everyone in town knew Poppy as Connie’s daughter. But here on the Cape, her mother retreated into a more private, less social life. Wellfleet was a place where she could nurture her introverted self, as if storing energy for the social whirlwind that waited for her upon their return.