The Cousins

Milly Story-Takahashi meets her mother, Allison, for dinner. Milly and her mother have a strained relationship, and Milly feels she will never measure up to her mother’s expectations. Her mother tells her that Milly’s wealthy grandmother, whom she is named after, Mildred Story, has written Milly a letter, despite having no contact with her granddaughter her entire life. When Allison was a college student years ago, Mildred sent her and her brothers a message that read, “You know what you did,” then cut them off “both financially and personally” (21) and refused to talk to or see her children again. Allison claims to have no idea what her mother meant by this cryptic message. Milly reads the letter, which is an invitation to come work for her grandmother’s resort for the summer on Gull Cove Island. Mildred’s letter states that she wants to connect with her estranged grandchildren after all these years, and she has also invited Milly’s cousins, Aubrey and Jonah. Although Milly admits to childhood fantasies of meeting her grandmother and going on shopping sprees with her, she doesn’t want to go and resents her grandmother for being absent all these years. Allison, eager to reconnect with her mother and worried that “[they] might not get another chance” (26), promises to give Milly her diamond necklace if she goes: the very same necklace that her mother gave her when she turned 17.