Chapter Three #2
Hearing the water run upstairs, Diana wraps a paper towel around the sandwich, leaving the jam and peanut butter jars on the counter.
No food or coffee for her; she’ll eat later, whenever she can find the time.
She removes Phoebe’s lunch box from the refrigerator, stuffs it into her backpack, and glances at the microwave clock: 7:53 a.m.
“Phoebe?” Diana paces at the foot of the stairs, clutching the sandwich and Phoebe’s backpack. She shouldn’t yell at Phoebe; it isn’t her daughter’s fault they’re late, but can’t the kid move faster?
“Phoebe!” This time Diana shrieks, a sound that, as it comes out, rattles her. Her agitation is really about Tom’s letter, but she can’t calm herself. She can’t let go of the feeling that a grenade has been thrown into her life, sabotaging the order and control she’s carefully built.
Phoebe appears at the top of the stairs, still in her nightgown. “I’m coming.”
“Why aren’t you dressed?” Diana places the backpack and sandwich on the bottom step and runs up the stairs. She pushes Phoebe down the hall and into her bedroom, undressing her as they go. “I can’t believe you, Phoebe Francesca Morgan! We’re in a rush. Come on!”
Not even the deployment of her full name motivates Phoebe. She stands naked in front of Diana, listless and looking down.
Diana pulls Phoebe’s purple sweatshirt over her head, handling her daughter as if she’s a toddler again, stymied by armholes and buttons.
She yanks Phoebe’s left arm through the shirt, then her right.
She turns back from picking up the rest of Phoebe’s clothes to find that her daughter is crying, tears silently falling.
“Oh, baby.” Diana drops to her knees.
“Why are you yelling at me? Why are you mad at me?” Phoebe sniffles out the words, wiping her face.
“We overslept, and I can’t be late today.
I have a meeting I’m leading, and it starts in”—Diana looks at her watch—“thirty-two minutes. I still need to deliver you next door and get to work. It’s not a lot of time.
I really can’t be late. So I’m stressed out, and that makes me yell.
” Her face is hot with the shame of losing control.
Phoebe lets Diana slide on her underwear, socks, and leggings. When she’s dressed, Diana hugs her. “I love you, Phoebe. I’m really sorry I’m a grump today.”
“I love you, too, Mama.”
Diana kisses Phoebe’s cheek and stands up. “Can we go?”
“I didn’t brush my hair.” Phoebe tugs at the knots tying up her hair, a crown of chaos atop her head.
Diana again checks her watch. No time. “We’ll ask Lakshmi to brush it for you, okay?
” She picks up Phoebe, something she rarely does now that her daughter is nine, and carries her downstairs, where they pull on their coats and zip up their boots.
Handing Phoebe her sandwich, Diana picks up their bags and opens the front door: 8:01 a.m.
Sunlight reflects off the snow covering the front yard, and a trail of Duncan’s footsteps leads to the curb.
Diana and Phoebe hurry across the small strip of land separating their house from Lakshmi and Mira’s.
Phoebe is silent until Mira opens her door, squealing her name.
Phoebe greets her friend with a squeal of her own and skips inside.
“Would you mind trying to get out the knots in Phoebe’s hair?” Diana drops Phoebe’s backpack inside the door as Lakshmi steps up to the threshold in bare feet with a roomy WBUR fleece on her slender frame. “I’m afraid it’s a mess. Sorry.”
“Of course.”
Diana waves a relieved thank-you and turns to go.
“Diana, have you had any coffee? Breakfast?”
Diana stops on the bottom step. “Not yet.”
“One second.” Lakshmi disappears inside, the door left ajar. Diana watches the second hand on her watch click forward: 8:04 a.m. If she drives fast enough, she’ll have time to print out the meeting agendas before the other attendees arrive.
“Here,” Lakshmi says when she returns. She hands Diana a travel mug and banana, a perceptive look in her warm brown eyes. “Coffee, with extra milk, the way you like it. Eat the banana, Diana. Don’t throw it in the bottom of your bag and forget about it.”
“Thank you, thank you.” Blowing Lakshmi a kiss, Diana rushes off to her minivan and into the busy morning traffic.
She arrives at Alcott Memorial Library with a few minutes to spare, sliding into her reserved space in the far end of the parking lot.
Leaning her head against the steering wheel, Diana takes several steadying breaths.
Her anxiety today reminds her of the early days after Tom’s death.
Back then, everything—a clogged toilet, an oil change for the car, the tax bill—sent her into a panic, wrapping around her like a heavy blanket in a heat wave.
She sits up and flips open the visor to check herself in the mirror.
In the morning light, her face is blotchy and drawn.
I look like I overslept, and I forgot to put on deodorant.
Dammit. Diana picks up her purse from the passenger seat.
I’ll set three alarms for tomorrow. And I won’t think about the letter for the rest of the day, she vows, opening her door into the biting cold.