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The Gibson Foundation held their conference at a seaside hotel. The weather was exceptional—mideighties but not too humid, giant puffy clouds in the sky. Ethan and my dad’s talk would be at four, two hours before the dinner and keynote speech by the foundation’s chairman, Mr. Charles Gibson. It would be a full day of talks devoted to the sciences. Nantucket’s status as a summer destination made the foundation lean into Frederick Gibson’s tenuous connection with the island, and people from all over had come.

I’d asked my dad about the grant the day before, when we were watching TV in his tiny apartment over dumplings. “Is this grant important? The one from the Gibson Foundation.”

“It would certainly help.”

“What do you think about the foundation itself?”

He smiled wryly, paused, then said, “They’re very generous with their grants.”

Sounded a lot like If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. “What about the chairman? Do you know him? He’s the one looking at your grant?”

“There’s a whole committee,” Dad said. “But yes, he has final say. He…Well, he’s very proud of his foundation. It’s very well-respected. And I think for some people, it’s fun, to get to make a big speech and give out awards.”

I narrowed my eyes. Dad was being very circumspect. “Do you hate him? Is he the worst?”

Dad laughed. “No. No, he’s fine. I think he’s perhaps—less interested in knowledge for knowledge’s sake, and more interested in the foundation for prestige. Which is—differently than I think.”

Cool. So we hated him.

But it also sounded like Dad wanted this grant, and like Mr. Charles Gibson might not be an altruistic science dude who would immediately be on my side if I brought up Andrea Darrel. If I wanted to be a good daughter—if I wanted Dad to be able to focus on writing instead of taking tutoring gigs and teaching summer school—I shouldn’t make it difficult for Dad to get this grant. Maybe I let this go. It was a hundred years ago, and Andrea and Frederick were both dead. Was bringing this up worth ticking off Charles Gibson and ruining Dad’s chance at this grant or future ones? Was righting a wrong in the past worth taking away something real and tangible in the present?

But thinking about letting go of this made the walls of my stomach squeeze toward my midline. It made a difference to everyone ever who hadn’t received the credit they deserved. It wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have to choose.

Ethan knocked on my door at nine o’clock the morning of the conference and didn’t wait for an answer before bursting inside. “How do I look?”

I’d never seen him nervous before. I’d also never seen him dressed so sharply, in a blue suit and skinny tie. “Really nice.”

He let out a breath of relief. “Thanks.”

“How are you feeling? Ready?”

Ethan dropped to sit on the foot of my bed. “For all my family to stare at me with the expectation I’m going to mess up any minute? God no.”

“They won’t be thinking that. They’re going to be proud of you.”

“Yeah.” He sounded skeptical. “Should we head out?”

I stifled a laugh, waving at my state of undress—my tank top and shorts. “I’m not exactly ready.”

“Right.” He bounced his hand off his forehead. “I’m a dummy. In my defense, you look great.”

I laughed. “Give me ten and I’ll be down.”

I took twenty because I decided to wrest my hair into a gentle twist and braid it over one shoulder. I’d selected my outfit ages ago, an old favorite I’d thrifted back home: a black dress with golden stars embellished on it. I had earrings to match, and I’d saved a silky golden strip of ribbon from a present I’d once received and now wore it as a headband.

It wasn’t often you got a Cinderella-at-the-top-of-the-stairs moment. I hadn’t at prom, where I’d gone with my friends, or for any school dances. I’d never stood at the top of any stairs, someone’s face craned toward me, washed over by amazement.

“Wow,” Ethan said, standing in the foyer and gazing up at me on the second-floor balcony. “You look amazing.”

I grinned down at him. “Thanks.”

“Maybe we should skip this whole thing and stay home?” Ethan asked hopefully, stepping forward and sliding his hands around my waist as I reached the bottom of the stairs.

I gave him a quick peck and slipped away. “Not a chance.”

Ethan tapped his fingers nervously against the wheel as he drove, his whole body vibrating with tension. I placed my hand on his arm, trying to offer some amount of comfort. When we arrived at the resort hosting the conference, Ethan turned the engine off but kept his hands on the wheel, breathing deeply.

“You’re going to do great,” I told him.

He straightened his jacket and his tie. “Yes. Okay.” He gave me a lopsided smile. “But if I need to run, will you be my getaway driver?”

“Yes. But you’re not going to need to run.”

We found the check-in stand, where a sea of laminated nametags greeted us. We put on ours. Ethan looked like he might throw up and kept tugging at the cuffs of his sleeves and taking deep breaths. I took his hand, and he didn’t let go.

People streamed through the venue, dressed in blazers and ironed pants and sheath dresses, and lanyards for all. They crowded around coffee kiosks and strode purposefully down the halls. I didn’t see anyone close to our age, and I felt very young and even a little silly in my star-spangled dress. “Wow,” I said. “Kind of a lot.”

“Yeah.” Ethan tugged at his tie. “Not that many people will be at my talk, right?”

I squeezed his hand. “I’m sure it’ll be great.”

“Should we find your dad?” Ethan still sounded unsure of himself.

Honestly, I felt the same. I pulled out my phone. “Definitely.”

Dad was in the speakers’ green room, which turned out to be a large conference room with round tables in the center and a long rectangular table at the front, covered with snacks, coffee, tea, and easily transportable fruit.

“You made it!” Dad said, beaming up at us from his table, where he was chatting with two women and a man.

“Hi,” Ethan said, then couldn’t manage anything else.

“This is my daughter, Jordan.” Dad said. “And my assistant, Ethan.”

The man’s gaze lit up, raking over Ethan’s appearance. “Ethan—Barbanel, is it?”

Ethan’s usual buoyancy cooled in the way all members of his family seemed to when anyone got too excited by their last name. “Nice to meet you.”

“This is Charles Gibson,” Dad said, and both Ethan and I straightened. I looked closer at the man. He was older than Dad but younger than my grandparents, with a thick shock of gray hair and bright blue eyes. Was there anything of Frederick about him, any resemblance in appearance or spirit?

“I hear you’ll be talking about our founder, my great-grandfather. The one who brought us all here,” the man—Mr. Gibson—said to Ethan.

“Yes, sir,” Ethan said. His gaze flicked to me. But I could hold my tongue. I wouldn’t say anything, not here, not now. No matter how much I wanted to.

And I really wanted to. Who brought us all here? Well, my dude, it wasn’t your umpteenth grandpa. If he’d wanted something cool on his résumé, he could have put in the effort like the rest of us.

“If you’ll excuse us,” Ethan said, like the calm, well-trained person he’d been brought up to be, “there’s a panel we wanted to see.”

A few hours later, Ethan and I headed to the conference room where he and Dad would give their talk. It wasn’t very large, with space for about eighty people, but I thought that was better than a giant room with only a trickle of audience.

Ethan and I took seats in the first row as Dad and a conference organizer fiddled with the projector and microphone. Ethan was fidgeting, and about an hour ago he’d almost entirely stopped talking. I ran my hand up and down his shoulder. “You’re going to do great.”

“I’m terrified. Is it normal to be this terrified? I feel like my tie is trying to strangle me.”

“Then take it off. No one’s going to care if you’re wearing a tie. And yes, I think it is. Stage fright.”

“Okay, well, it feels like I’m the first person who’s ever experienced this in the entire world.” He bent in half, placing his head on his knees. His voice came out muffled. “I am a child.”

I laughed and placed my hand on the back of his head, twining my fingers through his thick, glossy curls. “You’re nervous, it’s normal. But you know this stuff backward and forward. You could riff on Gibson even if you hadn’t written everything down.”

“You hate Gibson. You think he’s a shitty person.”

I pressed my lips together to muffle another laugh. “Maybe. But that doesn’t mean your research is shitty. And I suppose shitty people are capable of also contributing to science.”

He groaned slightly and straightened. When I started to move my hand back to my lap, he caught it and pulled it into his. His eyes met mine. “My family is going to think I’m ridiculous.”

“No, they won’t. They’re going to be super proud of you.”

He opened his mouth, but before he got any words out, we heard his mother behind us. “Ethan! There you are!”

We turned. The room had started to fill as people took seats in ones and twos. Now a whole wave of people entered. The Barbanels had arrived.

“Maybe you should’ve given a pre-talk just to them,” I whispered to Ethan as they poured in, aunts and uncles and cousins and, in the middle, both Helen and Edward Barbanel, matriarch and patriarch.

“I’m going to be sick,” he whispered back.

“Ethan Barbanel. You are a badass, adventurous, brilliant person. You can handle your family.”

“Nope,” he groaned. “I can’t.”

“Then look at me,” I said, and he did, his eyes wide and scared. “During the talk, you look at me, you tell me what’s going on, and don’t think about anything else. Imagine we’re sitting on the roof walk or at the beach. And you’re telling me a story.”

He nodded, and the panic started to leave his body. “Okay. I can do that.” He brightened. “Give me a kiss for good luck?”

I leveled him with a look. “Maybe after. If you’re lucky.”

His expression turned speculative. “Isn’t one tip for feeling comfortable picturing the audience in their underwear?”

I stuck my tongue out. “Feel free. But while you might get me, you’re also going to get your grandparents.”

His laugh turned to a wince, and then his family descended upon us in a cloud of well-wishes and advice.

For someone not participating in the talk or doing any speaking whatsoever, I felt abnormally nervous when the clock struck four and the audience quieted down. At the front of the room, Dad and Ethan sat in two plastic chairs like the ones for the audience, their nameplates and water bottles on the table in front of them. They were joined by one of the women Dad had been talking to in the green room, who clicked her microphone on and nodded to someone in the back, who hit the lights.

Polite applause rippled through the room, and the woman smiled. “Thank you, everyone. I’m Farah Irfan, and I’m pleased to be joined by Tony Edelman, author of Mapping the Atlantic: A History of American Maritime Cartography. His other publications include articles in The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, and more. Let’s all welcome him—”

The room applauded again. Dad waited for it to die down, then leaned toward his mic. “Thanks, Farah. Thanks for having me. I’m so glad to be here, and to get a chance to share some of my research. I’ve spent this summer working on my second book, and today I’m going to talk about…”

After years of giving talks, Dad had perfected it, and thank god—in the beginning he’d been as nervous as Ethan, and when Dad was nervous, I was nervous. Now Dad was a pro, timing his water sips for when he knew the audience would laugh or need a moment to process his stories. His body was relaxed, and he never once glanced at his notes.

Ethan, on the other hand, sat stiffly at Dad’s side. He kept still save one hand drumming against his thigh, and his eyes were unfocused, as though internally going over his own words.

And then Dad said, “To talk about Frederick Gibson himself, we have my assistant, Ethan Barbanel—a student at the University of Chicago.”

“Hi,” Ethan said into the microphone, his voice breaking. He’d leaned too close and feedback cracked through the room. He jerked back, eyes widening.

And then they found me.

I smiled encouragingly, even though now I felt like I might be sick.

Ethan visibly took a deep breath—one of my yoga breaths—and let it out. “Hi,” he tried again. “I’m Ethan Barbanel, and I’m excited to talk to you today about Frederick Gibson’s work for the US Coast Survey.”

It went fantastically. He was, for all he’d been so nervous, a good speaker. He landed a few jokes, and when the audience laughed he relaxed. Sometimes he sped up too much when he got excited, but when his gaze landed on me—as it often did—he seemed to remember to take a breath, a sip of water, and slow down.

When he finished, Ethan let out a long breath and attention switched to my dad, who picked up with an unexpectedly humorous anecdote about getting lost while trying to use a homemade compass. I kept watching Ethan, who’d sat back in his chair. The tension seemed to finally drain out of him, his stiff shoulders relaxing. He met my gaze and beamed.

Afterward, the usual post-talk shenanigans occurred; most of the audience filed out, while a few approached my father—and the Barbanels descended on Ethan. “My sweet little boychik,” Ethan’s mother said, kissing him on his forehead. “Look how well you did! We’re so proud.”

“Good job,” his father said, and Ethan smiled so broadly I thought I might cry.

I stood a little way off, grinning as Ethan’s family peppered him with praise. Finally he broke free. “I’ll see you at the keynote speech,” he said when they tried to pull him back. “I’ll see you soon!”

Then he swept past me, my grabbing my hand along the way. “Come on.”

I tossed a look behind us. “What—don’t you want to be with your family—”

He pulled me outside, to a quiet hotel courtyard. Riotous hydrangeas bloomed, the air heady with their perfume, and a fountain splashed and burbled. He pushed me against the gray-shingled wall and kissed me, a long, searing kiss that left me melting into his body. I looped my arms around his neck and hung on for dear life, my knees no longer working, held up by the wall and Ethan’s body.

He pulled away. “Sorry. Sorry, I know you don’t want anything public—”

“No, I’m sorry.” I pulled him back. “I’m sorry I’ve been so scared. God, Ethan, I want you so much. I want this. I want us. I do trust you, you know. We don’t need to be secretive. We can tell people.”

“Really?” He perked up. “You’re sure? You’re not just overwhelmed by hormones? Because I could totally stop kissing you if you need to think about it more clearly.”

“Don’t you dare.”

He pressed a kiss to the base of my neck. “Thank god.”

And then we were kissing again, our lips pressed together, my arms twined around his neck, and I liked this boy. I felt good about this. I wanted him, only him. I wanted us. The sea and the sky. The horizon.

For dinner, we joined my father, Ethan’s parents and grandparents, and Cora at one of the white-clothed tables set up on a stretch of lawn. Cora, it’d turned out, had always planned to attend the conference, though she’d told me earlier in the week she hadn’t submitted a grant proposal. “None of my research fit. Next year, maybe,” she’d said. “The grant committee likes a Nantucket connection.”

The rest of the Barbanels had absconded. Shockingly, hanging out at a conference wasn’t the highlight of their summer. But, I thought with a glance at Ethan, who sat at my side, talking earnestly with his grandfather, it might have been the highlight of mine. I couldn’t stop smiling, didn’t want to stop smiling. I had been so scared this wouldn’t work, that I made the wrong calls and choose the wrong boys, and Ethan would be like the rest. But Ethan wasn’t like them; Ethan wasn’t like anyone but Ethan. He was goofy and ridiculous and loud and sweet and soft-hearted. And a little arrogant and ridiculously hot, but hey, I couldn’t completely go against type. And I didn’t want to. I wanted Ethan.

We held hands under the table, hidden in the cloth falling over our laps. I beamed at Ethan, at everyone, and so did he.

“It’s impressive, everything you two have done,” Ethan’s dad said as the waiters poured water and wine and served tiny plates of salad covered in sheets of parmesan. “I didn’t realize the level of research involved.”

No?I wanted to say archly, but I let Dad take that one, diving with excitement into a description of the work necessary for his latest chapter, concerning the invention of the stern-post rudder during the Han dynasty and its introduction to and impact on worldwide technology.

I hoped Ethan’s family would be more appreciative of how hard Ethan worked after hearing about Dad’s extensive levels of research.

As the salad plates were cleared and servers started their elaborate dance of delivering the main courses, I noticed Charles Gibson, the chairman of the foundation, circulating throughout the tables. Eventually, he reached ours, bracing his hands against the corners of Cora’s chair as he paused. “How we all doing tonight?”

I didn’t like the way he smirked down at Cora or the way his gaze narrowed in on the Barbanels as Dad made introductions around the table.

“You must be so proud of your grandson,” he said, and I didn’t think it an exaggeration to call his tone ingratiating. “I know I am. It’s rare people realize my great-grandfather was a scientist in his own right. We’d love to see more work about his contributions.”

I resisted rolling my eyes, glancing over at Ethan to see his response—but he was drinking it in. Which, okay, made sense. He’d been so nervous about this talk, and he’d worked so hard on it. He deserved praise. Even if I wasn’t convinced Frederick Gibson did.

“If you’ll excuse me,” the modern Mr. Gibson said, after a few more comments to the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Barbanel and to Ethan’s parents. “It’s time for my speech.”

Charles Gibson climbed to the low stage. Behind him, twinkle lights sparkled. The audience quieted down, covertly digging into their entrées. “Welcome, everyone, to the eighty-ninth annual gathering of the Gibson Foundation.” He paused for a round of applause. “I’m excited to introduce our newest initiatives and members, but first, the announcement we’ve been teasing for the last few weeks…As you know, my family’s foundation has been a proud supporter of the sciences for over a hundred years, and we’re delighted to fund so many deserving causes. We support innovation in all stages, but I have a special spot in my heart for those who accidentally stumble into their life’s work. And so I’m particularly proud to announce the Frederick Gibson Award, a new award for early career scientists.”

The applause was enthusiastic, and I joined in, muddled as I felt. On one hand, it was great the Gibson Foundation would be sponsoring more research. On the other hand—

“As you may be aware, the Gibson Foundation was founded by my great-grandfather, Frederick Gibson, who is famous for his discovery of Gibson’s comet—which we’ll all enjoy viewing in a few weeks. But he began his career in coastal surveying and only pivoted in his late thirties after accidentally discovering a comet.”

On the other hand, I didn’t exactly love the story being furthered here.

“Frederick was the third son of a rather demanding family, who didn’t think he’d amount to much.” The chairman allowed himself a small chuckle. “But he was fascinated by the stars, and so he set himself to work learning everything he could about them. He took astronomy classes here on Nantucket, and often in the evenings, he’d go outside to look at the sky. His hard work and research paid off: Within a few years, he’d accomplished something few others had. He’d discovered a comet.”

My hands closed in small fists beneath the table, but I made myself breathe deeply. It wasn’t like the chairman knew Frederick Gibson had been a liar; he thought the story he was telling was true. Besides, it wasn’t like I had hard-core proof yet, either.

“The discovery of the comet and the fame that came alongside it changed Frederick’s life. Instead of a normal career, Frederick was catapulted into an extraordinary stratum of scientific society at the time, and could make the connections necessary to launch this foundation, which has helped encourage and support research to this day. He is a sterling example of the way passionate new researchers can make a difference in the world, and we hope others will follow in his example.”

Despite myself, I let out a disgusted snort. It would have been nice if Andrea had been launched into an extraordinary strata, if more women had her footsteps to follow in.

Dad looked at me. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing.” I flattened my hands against my knees. Ethan shook his head warningly. Keep it together, Jordan.

Onstage, Charles Gibson wasn’t done. “In fact, I’m excited to announce that next year, during the ninetieth annual gathering of the Gibson Foundation, we’ll be giving a retrospective of the man himself. Let’s all raise a glass to the new Frederick Gibson Award—and to Frederick Gibson himself!”

Everyone did, but it was beyond me to join in. In fact, my mouth dropped open, and I stared at Charles onstage. “Are you kidding me?”

“Jordan, are you okay?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, I’m okay. It’s just—” I snapped my mouth shut, glancing again at Ethan.

“Just what?” Ethan’s mom asked.

Everyone was looking at me so expectantly, except Ethan, who gave me a searching look. But—it wouldn’t hurt to mention it here. It wasn’t like Charles Gibson could hear me, so it wouldn’t get in the way of any grants. I wasn’t making a big deal of this publicly, just at our dinner table. “Gibson didn’t discover the comet.”

Ethan closed his eyes.

I suddenly had the attention of the entire table, from Dad and Cora to Ethan’s parents and grandparents. “Excuse me?” Cora said.

Oops. After the words had burst out of me, I felt halfway deflated. “I mean, I’m ninety percent sure he didn’t. So this whole thing, holding up Frederick Gibson like some kind of hero”—I waved at the stage, where Charles Gibson was still talking—“feels like a farce.”

Helen Barbanel was perhaps the only person not regarding me with shock. Instead, she cut into her moussaka. “I, for one, hate farces. Very tedious. How does this one go?”

Beneath the table, Ethan took my hand and squeezed. I shot him a grateful look, then turned to everyone else. “I’ve been researching this woman, Andrea Darrel. She was an astronomer in the early nineteen hundreds.” I looked at Dad and Cora. “One of the Harvard Computers. She helped Annie Cannon teach astronomy classes, and Gibson took one. They fell in love.” I took a deep breath. “I think Andrea Darrel discovered the comet, not Frederick Gibson.”

Everyone stared at me, then the table burst out in a babble of questions.

“You read this in her diaries?” Cora asked. She sounded like she believed me. “She wrote it down?”

I winced. “Uh—close. But it could be…more conclusive.”

“Jordan figured out that Andrea Darrel wrote the position of the comet in her diary the day before Gibson filed the discovery with Harvard,” Ethan said. “And the next day, she wrote how furious she was with Gibson.”

A murmur went around the table. Everyone looked at each other, then started talking, too loudly and quickly for me to keep track of what they were saying. A few people at neighboring tables glanced over.

Then, in a dose of excruciating bad luck, Charles Gibson’s speech ended to a rousing round of applause. We had to pause to join in, to wait as Gibson smiled and said goodbye several times and walked offstage. He shook a few hands as the applause continued, but did he keep looking at—us?

Oh no. He was coming toward us now, too.

“Hello, again.” Gibson couldn’t keep the curtness out of his tone, despite the smile plastered on his face. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him. If he’d glanced over, he’d probably noticed we weren’t paying any attention, and we might even have caused a small disturbance. “What’s the excitement over here? More exciting than my speech, I could tell.” He forced a chuckle.

I should have made something up. I should have said we were playing a rousing game of, I don’t know, Scattergories. But I didn’t, and it turned out Ethan’s grandmother was an agent of chaos. Helen Barbanel nodded at me. “This young lady says your ancestor stole the comet discovery from a young woman.”

Wow. Damn. She really laid it out there.

Gibson froze, then slowly turned to me. “Excuse me?”

I wanted to sink into the floor. Oh no. Oh no, this is what I hadn’t wanted to do. I hadn’t wanted to call Frederick Gibson out, not yet, not until I had proof and the grants were settled and I could frame this exactly the way I wanted.

But also—

Frederick Gibson did steal Andrea Darrel’s discovery. And male scientists had gotten away with taking credit from their female colleagues for way too long.

“I’m not trying to insult anyone,” I said. “But I’ve been reading these old diaries and, well, yeah. It looks like this woman, Andrea Darrel, found the comet first.”

“She says so? In her diaries?”

“Well—she doesn’t exactly say it.” I swallowed. “Not explicitly. But she wrote down the comet’s position first.”

Gibson smiled pityingly. “Even if she did, part of being the first discoverer is filing the correct paperwork.”

“Right, I get that. But I don’t think they each independently discovered it. She was his girlfriend. I think he stole her work.”

“His girlfriend!” Charles Gibson laughed, as though this fact undermined the others. “Maybe she wanted him to get the credit.”

Oh my god. Who would ever think that?“Uh, no. She was really proud of women’s achievements. And she was really mad at him after.”

He raised his brows. “And she says she was mad because of this?”

“Well, no,” I admitted, frustrated. “But the timing works out.”

“Maybe she was mad because they broke up,” Gibson said. “After all, he didn’t marry an astronomer.”

“No!” I said. “Like I said, it was the same date as when he filed for the discovery. That’s when she was mad.”

But I could see the way he was looking at me, the way I was afraid Dad would be looking at me, and the rest of the table too, though I was too mortified to look at them. Like I was spinning mountains out of molehills. Coming to ridiculous conclusions.

“I can see you’re very passionate about this.” Gibson’s voice dripped with condescension. “But it seems like you have a theory, and you’re trying to find proof to fit into it.”

“I’m not.” I stared at my lap. “Or, at least, I think there’s enough evidence we should consider the possibility. I’m trying to figure out the truth.”

“I think the truth,” Gibson said firmly, “is what happened: my great-grandfather discovered a comet. We’d have heard about it in the past hundred years if he hadn’t. You’re spinning yourself a fairy tale.”

Heat burned in my cheeks and swelled up in my stomach and chest, like great bellows washed anger and embarrassment through me. I tried to swallow it down, but it was too much, too explosive, and it rushed out of me in a swell of loud, angry words. “You’re hearing about it now. I’m trying to tell you. And I don’t think it sounds like a fairy tale to think a guy might have taken credit for a woman’s discovery. I think it’s pretty fucking common.”

Oops. Shouldn’t have sworn.

Mr. Gibson stared at me, then smiled, and it dripped poison. “If you’re going to make accusations like this, young lady, you need evidence.” He glanced at my father. “And I have to say, it’s very poor manners to do this here.”

I pushed to my feet, my chair skittering loudly backward in the pool of silence that had spread around us. “Don’t make this about my dad.”

Gibson let out a sour laugh. “Sweetie, relax. No need to get emotional.”

My chest felt like an overinflated balloon about to burst, and I was afraid that when I did, I would collapse. I didn’t know what to do next, didn’t know how to face anyone after making such a big scene.

So I didn’t. “Excuse me,” I said tightly, and I turned on my heel and walked out.