Chapter Five #2
Duncan sniffs. “Where do you think he is?”
This isn’t the first time Duncan has asked this question.
A few weeks before he died, Tom was having a good day, so Diana set him up in the backyard, on a chaise under the shade from their beech tree.
Despite the eighty-degree temperature, she wrapped him in a blanket and put on his head the straw sun hat with a lavender ribbon she wore to the beach.
“I look like a farmer,” Tom said, as she straightened the blanket around him.
“Not at all, love. In fact, you’re wearing the latest in vacation sun hat fashion. No self-respecting farmer would wear this to toil in the fields.” Diana bent down under the brim to kiss him, her lips gentle against his.
As Tom touched her cheek, Duncan burst out of the house, the Boston Globe sports section in hand. “Can I sit with you?”
“Sure, buddy,” Tom replied, patting the edge of the chaise. “Like my hat?”
“That hat is dumb.”
“Duncan!” Diana said. They were all tentative around Tom, around each other, too. They chose their words carefully, didn’t criticize or make noise, and didn’t think beyond the next few minutes.
“You should wear mine.” Duncan settled his Celtics ball cap on Tom’s head, tossing the straw hat to Diana. “Better, right?”
“Much better. Thanks.” Tom looked at Diana with a faint smirk.
“I’ll get you two a snack.” Diana paused on the top of the deck stairs to watch Duncan and Tom huddle over the newspaper, already oblivious to her.
Increasingly, she could see they were getting closer to the end, and that she and the kids weren’t ready.
She worried Tom sitting outside would confuse Duncan and Phoebe.
They might believe he was improving; they might hope he’d make it.
In the kitchen, Diana poured two glasses of lemonade and placed four of her mother’s chocolate chip cookies on a plate. They were Tom’s favorite, though he ate so little. She returned outside, but the conversation between Duncan and Tom froze her on the other side of the tree.
“You feeling good today? Maybe better than yesterday?” Duncan’s questions for his father were full of longing.
“Duncan, I’m not going to get better,” Tom said, softly, so softly. “I love you, buddy. More than anything else.”
“Even more than basketball?”
“Even more than basketball.”
Duncan sobbed, the first time since Tom’s diagnosis, and a stinging pain filled Diana’s chest. She wavered, the tray shifting in her hands, and the lemonade spilled, drenching the cookies.
Tom held Duncan to his chest. The more Duncan shook, the tighter Tom’s arms grew around him, until Duncan quieted, Tom’s mouth at his ear murmuring words Diana couldn’t hear.
Eventually, Duncan sat up, wiping his hand across his face. “What happens? After, I mean.”
“I’m not sure. But I’ll be with you. You can talk to me. I’ll listen, though I won’t be able to respond.” Tom took Duncan’s hand in his. “I will always, always love you. That doesn’t change because you can’t see me. I promise.”
Standing on the basketball court with Duncan now, Diana remembers how people said the acute pain she and the kids experienced when Tom first died would dissipate. It would get easier, everyone said. She’s still waiting.
“I’d like to believe your dad is somewhere good, where he can shoot hoops and watch Star Wars. Maybe he’s still with us, listening and hoping we won’t be this sad for too much longer. Maybe he’s here on this basketball court with us. No matter where he is, he loves us.”
“This sucks,” Duncan says, pulling away from her to stand on his own.
He gestures in the direction of his basketball, hidden in the shadowy snow piles along the court.
“Dad gave that ball to me for my sixth birthday. I loved it so much I slept with it next to my bed. That Paul Pierce poster I have in my room? Dad gave it to me, too. I have all this stuff he gave me—but I don’t have him. What the hell, Mom?”
Diana lets “hell” go by without comment. “The weeks after your dad died, I walked around our house taking an inventory of our possessions, like our books and his CD collection and the snowblower. These objects were here, all around us. And your dad wasn’t. I was so mad about that.
“I was especially furious about a bottle of hot sauce. Your dad used it only once. Too spicy, he said, even for him. I found it in the back of the fridge. It made me so angry. I thought about driving the car over it but was afraid I’d puncture the tires.
Instead, I put it in a Ziploc bag and smashed it to pieces with the hammer one night after you and Phoebe went to bed. ”
Duncan stares at her, his mouth hanging open.
“I was better after. Only a little bit, though.” Diana never planned to tell anyone that story, especially not Duncan.
“Does this mean I can break something?” Duncan offers Diana a small grin, and she understands she was right to open up.
“If smashing a bottle of hot sauce will make you feel better, then yes. Ask me first, though, so we can keep you safe.” Diana smooths his sandy-colored hair back from his face and holds his chin in her hands. “I appreciate you shared all of this with me, honey. Thank you.”
“Mom, that letter . . . What does it mean? What did Dad do? Who’s coming for you?”
Diana feels a rush of fear. This can’t be one of those times she says or does the wrong thing.
“This letter,” she begins. “It could all be a misunderstanding.” Diana wants to believe this, and she wants Duncan to as well.
So many emotions—sorrow, anger, and confusion—ripple across his face. “How am I supposed to remember him, or try to remember him, if he was someone else?” Duncan asks, kicking at the ground, pebbles ricocheting across the court.
How am I supposed to remember him if he was someone else? The words burrow into Diana, staking their claim on her memories of Tom. She wants to be alone, to hide in her room and scream into her pillow.
Instead, because her son needs her, she offers Duncan the assurance they both crave. “I’ll figure it out. Make some phone calls, do some research. But Duncan, this has to stay between us.”
“I can help.” He squares his shoulders in a movement that could have been cloned from Tom.
“No, this letter is my responsibility. Your job is to go to school, do your homework, and play basketball. It may take me a while to sort this, so you have to be patient. You’re staying out of it.
No discussion. And we’ll keep this between you and me, for now.
No talking about it with anyone else. No worrying Grandma or Grandpa, or Uncle Evan and Aunt Andie.
Deal?” She holds out her hand, and he shakes it.
“Good,” Diana says, swaying on her feet. She mentally adds a large glass of wine to her to-do list for the evening. “Let’s go in. It’s chilly, and your sister’s by herself. I don’t want her to be frightened if she wakes up alone.”
“I have to get my ball.” Duncan runs to the far side of the court. He picks up the basketball Tom gave him, and because he can’t help himself, he pivots and tosses the ball up to the hoop.
Swish.
He catches it before it hits the ground and returns to Diana, taking her hand in his.