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of exuded a smug perfume of superiority.
    Helen had always liked Worth’s family. But she could never be like them. She remembered the time, ten years before, when she told them at Family Meeting she would like to run an art gallery on the island. They’d reacted as if she’d suggested boiling puppies. Wheelwrights were bankers! Their bank had been founded in 1878 by Worth’s great-grandfather. Once simply named The Fourth Bank of Boston, over the years it had changed names and added owners and directors. Worth was co-CEO, sharing duties with his old friend Lew Lowry and Grace’s husband, Kellogg. Grace had chosen to remain in the background, running their home but always keeping informed. The bank was the hub of the Wheelwrights’ lives. No Wheelwright did anything as frivolous as run an art gallery.
    “Well, I think you’re all stuffy and unimaginative,” Worth had told the others at that Family Meeting. “Helen’s got a great eye for artand she’s a wonder at networking. I’ll stake her the start-up money personally, and I’ll bet you I get it all back and more.”
    Helen had been pleased that her husband had championed her, but after that meeting she lost her momentum. Even then she was aware that her children were breaking away from the Wheelwright traditions, and she didn’t want to seem to be widening the breach. And perhaps she didn’t want to risk failure; perhaps that was a small part of her decision.
    Now a small bolt of pain forked through Helen’s head. Could it be nervous tension? Because she was headed for another season on the island?
    She focused on her engagement calendar. When her three children grew up and left home, Helen had joined several volunteer organizations, helping with church fairs, volunteering in libraries both in Boston and on the island, and tutoring students in English as a Second Language. All this work brought her great pleasure, a sense of accomplishment, and—she could never admit this to anyone—a kind of self-awareness she hadn’t even realized she was missing.
    In July the Nantucket library would hold a book sale. She was co-chair. She was also in charge of the auction of the needlepoint quilt for the church. But she wasn’t worried about these responsibilities. She had them well in hand. Her volunteer work was not the cause of her headaches.
    Helen closed her calendar and allowed herself to admit the truth.
    For the first time ever, she was dreading the two months at the summer house. Dreading being around Worth’s sister and her perfect family. Helen’s own children seemed so feckless in comparison.
    All three of Grace’s children had made good marriages with people from Nona’s circle. Mandy and Claus had presented Nona with two healthy great-grandchildren. Mandy and Mellie’s husbands both held prominent positions at the bank.
    But Helen and Worth’s children showed no interest in banking. They were, at the best, eccentric and at the worst—well, the worst didn’t bear considering.
    Charlotte, the eldest child, had tried working at the bank. Charlotte adored her father and wanted to please him. She had put inthree years before suddenly handing in her notice. At the next Family Meeting, she’d surprised them all with her naïve little scheme for an organic garden. Helen sympathized with Charlotte, who was trying to save the world, as Worth secretly joked, one head of lettuce at a time. And she thought Charlotte appreciated the fact that the family were all being supportive of her oddball endeavor. Well, they were all comfortable with Charlotte in an oddball endeavor. Charlotte’s enthusiasms were always genuine and passionate but seldom long-lasting. The family could indulge Charlotte one more time. She’d settle down eventually—she was their best hope for being what the family would consider normal. Perhaps she would return to the bank.
    Oliver, Helen’s second-born and secretly her most beloved child, would never work at the bank. Staggeringly