The Summer of Lost Letters: Chapters 21–28

by Hannah Reynolds
Needing to get away from her small town in western Massachusetts, seventeen-year-old Abigail Schoenberg decides to take a summer job in Nantucket to find out more about what her grandmother was like when she was young and in love with a mysterious man.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–3, Chapters 4–9, Chapters 10–14, Chapters 15–20, Chapters 21–28
40 words 7 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. untenable
    incapable of being defended or justified
    We’d fallen asleep in his room, because the idea of separating from him, even to sleep, had seemed untenable.
  2. concise
    expressing much in few words
    I googled German census records, and found more information than I’d expected, but no concise search engine—mostly places I could pay for in order to download census results from different towns.
  3. propagate
    multiply through reproduction
    How the hell did we manage to propagate the species?
  4. mercurial
    liable to sudden unpredictable change
    I watched intently as the three dots danced on my screen, willing them to resolve into words, desperate as a seer trying to interpret signals before a mercurial king.
  5. bemused
    deeply absorbed in thought
    We approached the ship, tilting our heads to consider it, an island of bemused silence in the midst of chaotic noise.
  6. intersperse
    place between or among
    Gelt-like gold coins lay scattered around the base of the ship, interspersed with plastic gems.
  7. poised
    in full control of your faculties
    Did everyone, no matter how poised, feel as alone and vulnerable and insignificant as I did when facing the ocean?
  8. undercurrent
    a feeling or tendency that is not explicitly expressed
    “Wait until I tell you what happened to Cinderella’s stepsisters and Snow White’s stepmother.” I tapped his chest. “Disney churns out the sanitized versions. There’s always undercurrents of violence and tragedy.”
  9. imposing
    impressive in appearance
    I shot him a quick text—I’ll be in the gardens!—and headed around back, preferring nature to the imposing gray beauty.
  10. manifest
    reveal its presence or make an appearance
    I knew the energy she spoke about, the spear of light striking through a person, magnetic as an iron rod. I saw it in Stella, where it manifested as exuberant extraversion, and in my best friend, Niko, whose sharp wit gathered people close.
  11. exuberant
    joyously unrestrained
    I knew the energy she spoke about, the spear of light striking through a person, magnetic as an iron rod. I saw it in Stella, where it manifested as exuberant extraversion, and in my best friend, Niko, whose sharp wit gathered people close.
  12. exude
    make apparent by one's mood or behavior
    These were the moving centers of a party, the people who exuded energy instead of drinking it.
  13. myriad
    a large indefinite number
    She smiled, the corners of her mouth held up by a myriad of emotions.
  14. intermittently
    in a manner of stopping and starting at irregular intervals
    I checked my email intermittently, in case the records had arrived from the Holtzman House.
  15. painstaking
    characterized by extreme care and great effort
    In painstaking German, crafted mostly through Google Translate, I wrote to the organization through which I’d downloaded the censuses to see if they had any related paperwork.
  16. cul de sac
    a street with only one way in or out
    We drove along a road I’d never been on, passing land with massive dark houses, and parked along an empty lawn in the center of a cul-de-sac.
  17. lackadaisical
    lacking spirit or liveliness
    Even this late, the air was hot and humid, a lackadaisical breeze barely stirring the heavy air.
  18. implore
    beg or request earnestly and urgently
    He tugged me closer, his tone imploring. “Please. I have to go. And it’s my last night on the island before I leave for Boston. I want to spend it with you.”
  19. palpable
    capable of being perceived
    A palpable joy and delight in summer traveled like a current between guests.
  20. seersucker
    a light puckered fabric that is usually striped
    Noah was still talking with people halfway across the lawn, laughing with two men in seersucker.
  21. immaculate
    free from stain or blemish
    I hadn’t seen his grandmother yet tonight, but now she glided out of the crowd toward us, immaculate in a blue gown, her white hair blown out.
  22. tawny
    having the color of tanned leather
    Tawny sunlight stretched in long lines across the gazebo’s floor.
  23. moot
    of no legal significance, as having been previously decided
    By Boston—I thought it was a moot point. It didn’t matter.
  24. bearing
    a person's manner or way of conducting himself or herself
    “If you’ll excuse us,” she said to the pair, her bearing regal.
  25. bleak
    offering little or no hope
    His hair was tousled, by his fingers or the wind, his expression bleak. “You’re not leaving?”
  26. tendril
    something long, light, slender, and often curling
    Instead, I started to uproot my emotions, pulling back each tendril I’d wrapped tightly around Noah.
  27. cadence
    a recurrent rhythmical series
    When I waited for Jane’s breath to fall into the rhythmic cadence of sleep so I could sob with Sad Elephant in my arms, I didn’t wonder.
  28. brash
    offensively bold
    She must have been well-intentioned to have taken her job, but mostly I remember her as having a brash accent, square jaw, and little patience.
  29. wizened
    lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness
    Past those trees wizened by salt and sea, past the Portuguese hydrangeas.
  30. salve
    preserve from damage or harm
    Mom’s presence salved the deep, constant hurt pulsing through me.
  31. irrefutable
    impossible to deny or disprove
    “One of the other tests says to rub sandpaper over it.”
    “We don’t have sandpaper,” Mom said (irrefutable Mom logic).
  32. effusive
    extravagantly demonstrative
    Every time my thoughts drifted to Noah, her words pulled me back, making us laugh until our sides hurt. A deep, effusive love filled me. She drove me mad, of course. But she was the best mom in the whole world.
  33. discretionary
    not earmarked; available for use as needed
    “I think it’d be better spent on education or your IRA, but a discretionary amount for something fun makes sense.”
  34. restitution
    a sum of money paid in compensation for loss or injury
    It’s possible for the families to get restitution or the return of their property.
  35. cosset
    treat with excessive indulgence
    She was loved and cossetted and happy, but when she was four years old, her family had to send her away for her own safety.
  36. catamaran
    a sailboat with two parallel hulls held together by a deck
    Mom and I stood by the rail of the Hy-Line catamaran, watching Nantucket shrink into the distance, until it disappeared into the brilliant blue sea.
  37. visceral
    coming from deep inward feelings rather than from reasoning
    I’d inherited my messiness from her; Dad kept his email at inbox zero (Mom’s currently numbered close to ten thousand unread messages, which caused Dad visceral pain).
  38. diaspora
    the dispersion of something that was originally localized
    When your people lived in a diaspora, that was what you did, whether in 1940s Europe and America, or sixteenth-century Spain and Morocco. You looked after your own.
  39. exploit
    use or manipulate to one's advantage
    I wrote a killer college application essay and didn’t even feel too guilty about exploiting my family history to get it.
  40. gainsay
    take exception to
    But maybe giving it to Helen felt right to Mom. And I wouldn’t gainsay her, even if I didn’t understand.
Created on Sat Mar 09 09:58:40 EST 2024 (updated Mon Mar 11 10:31:39 EDT 2024)

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