Page 45 of Lost Dreams

Rather than dig in, Lorelei decided to ask the only essential question, “Are you happy, sweetheart?”

Aurora grinned. “I don’t know what to do with how happy I am.”

Lorelei capped the lipstick and rubbed her lips together. She sensed goodness in Aurora’s heart. She sensed that this time, everything would be all right.

That night, the grand piano was set up in the entryway between the inner dining room and the veranda, where numerous hotel guests were dining for the evening. It was a gorgeous evening, with pink clouds hanging heavily overhead and the ocean rolling forward slowly, its waves crashing on the sand. Lorelei was waiting in the hallway, watching people eat Roberto’s food. She heard people gushing about it. They asked one another why the food was so much better than it had been during the rest of their stay. Lorelei’s heart swelled with pride.

When Francesca deemed it was time, she signaled to Lorelei to come out and play. Lorelei stepped out, raising her chin, and walked toward the grand piano. A few diners spotted her, and she heard her name whispered across the hall. It reminded her of being twenty-one again, with her artistic life rushing out before her. She’d felt unstoppable. Maybe she could feel that way again.

It felt incredible that Lorelei had been able to memorize so many of her old pieces again. It was as though Rachmaninoff and Debussy lived in her fingers. It was as though Ravel and Bach remained in her heart, waiting to flow forth again. For more than two hours, Lorelei played. She forgot where she was. She forgot about the diners, listening and eating. She forgot about Aurora, who was sitting in the corner with Kenny, rapt with her mother’s performance. She even forgot about Roberto, who frequently took breaks from his cooking duties to stand outside the kitchen and watch his wife. This was the woman he’d fallen in love with. She’d been there all along.

When Lorelei had run out of pieces to perform, she stopped, stood, and bowed. Every diner across the veranda and into the hotel bar exploded with applause. For weeks, they would talk about it, and many of them would google Lorelei Whitmore’s name and discover that she wasn’t just some woman on the piano. Once upon a time, she’d been the biggest up-and-comer in the classical music world. People had paid big money to go see her.

His duties in the kitchen finished for the night, Roberto hurried over to her and kissed her, right there in front of everyone. Lorelei’s heart exploded with joy, and she laughed as they walked out onto the veranda together to take in some air. Her legs shook, maybe from all the adrenaline. And then, she spotted Benjamin and Francesca, her gorgeous parents, waiting for her at the corner table, waving her over. They’d already ordered a bottle of champagne, for the four of them to share in celebration.

As they sat and clinked their glasses, Lorelei was reminded of that long-ago night when she’d met Roberto, when she’d been introduced as the rising star in music, and he’d been the rising star in the Roman culinary scene. That night, they’d taken a leap toward love and held on to one another for dear life, against all odds.

23

The night that Lorelei Whitmore performed for the White Oak Lodge, Aurora and Kenny were seated in the corner, feasting on Roberto’s delicious Italian fare—pasta and chicken seasoned with oregano and sun-dried tomatoes. Throughout each of Lorelei’s prepared pieces, Aurora was speechless, frequently glancing at Kenny to make sure what she was experiencing was real. How had her mother hidden this away for so long?

Under his breath, Kenny said, “Your parents are insanely talented. But I guess I should have guessed that. You’re their daughter, after all.”

Aurora didn’t want to admit that for many years, as her father’s restaurants had failed and her mother had hidden herself away, helping her father and not doing much else, Aurora hadn’t thought much of them. She saw how wrong she was now.

When Lorelei’s performance was over, and the applause had died away, Aurora’s hands ached from clapping so hard. As conversations began again around her, she laughed, throwing her head back, and watched as her mother and father went to join her grandparents. Kenny poured what was left of the red wine into both of their glasses, then pressed a kiss onto her cheek. “I love the way you support your mother,” Kenny said.

Aurora gazed at him. Since they’d gotten together, Kenny had told her the specifics of his mother’s death and the harrowing weight of it on his chest. He’d opened his heart to her, and she’d in turn opened her heart to him, telling him about Sebastian and Nico and all the ways she’d felt she’d failed herself and others over the years. He’d told her, “We’re at the beginning of our story. Nothing else matters anymore. The past can be rewritten. The past can be thrown away.”

Now, they finished their drinks and floated through the veranda, which was lit up with fairy lights and lanterns, and followed the trail down to the beach, where many of Aurora’s cousins were seated around a bonfire, gushing about Lorelei’s music. Gwen was there, throwing her arms around as she spoke, as though she’d never had a broken bone at all. She waved, and Aurora sat beside her, grinning.

Gwen remembered Kenny from the night of her accident and said hello to him, blushing. Aurora wondered if Gwen thought Kenny was kind of cute.

“How’s the arm?” Kenny asked.

“Like new,” Gwen said. “But I kept the cast. It’s a work of art.”

“Yeah, but it smells,” her brother Conor said, wrinkling his nose.

Everyone laughed. Aurora put her head on Kenny’s shoulder, and he kissed the top of her head. Here and now, as the Nantucket Sound lapped on the sand and her American cousins cackled and chatted, Aurora felt about a million miles away from Rome. She wondered when—if ever—she’d get back there. She wondered if she’d still feel connected to it when she did.

But she wasn’t ready to think about going back to Italy, not even for a visit. Now that she and Kenny were together, they had no interest in spending any time apart.

Their schedule was tightly wound up in one another’s.

When Aurora painted in the evenings, Kenny worked on his scripts, or wrote in his journal, or read books he thought would help his art, or studied various films that he wanted to emulate when he finally made his own. Often, he asked for Aurora’s advice, and she asked his, so much so that they began to operate more like a single artistic unit. They couldn’t do anything without asking the other. It felt beautiful. Aurora also realized how lonely she’d felt for years—at least since Sebastian’s accident, if not before.

It felt delirious not to be alone anymore.

It felt delirious to make art that she truly believed in.

By mid-August, Aurora had made nearly twelve thousand dollars from her paintings alone. She had an offer from many agents, who wanted to show her work to their ritzy art collector clients. It meant she needed a proper studio so that she could work. It meant she needed to move out of her little room at the White Oak Lodge.

But she didn’t want to go far.

“Do you think I should ask Kenny to move in with me?” she asked Lorelei one afternoon. They were walking through the historic downtown neighborhood of Nantucket, viewing apartments and studios big enough for Aurora and her dreams.

Lorelei considered this and traced a hand down Aurora’s hair. “What do you think?”