Chapter Fourteen
Diana’s prior visit to Hamilton was a two-day trip when she and Tom were first engaged.
She had wanted to go sooner but worried about inflaming his grief over his parents’ deaths, so she shied away from pressuring him.
Her parents, however, especially her father, found it strange she hadn’t been to Tom’s hometown or met his extended family beyond Chris.
“Why haven’t you gone to Hamilton?” Francis asked.
He’d canceled a client meeting and driven into Boston to, as he described it, “talk some sense” into her.
They met for lunch at a bistro on Newbury Street.
“If you’re going to build a life with this man, you should meet his family.
You can’t be introduced for the first time on your wedding day.
Your family matters in your relationship. His does, too.”
Diana trusted her father’s advice but had been nervous to talk to Tom. “I want to see where you grew up,” she said the following night over dinner, twisting spaghetti around her fork and avoiding his eyes. “I want to know everything about you. Can’t we visit at least once?”
Tom was quiet for a long time, so long she almost told him to forget about it. “Fine,” he finally said, his face paler than usual. He called his aunt and uncle that night and made arrangements. They went up the next weekend.
Now, driving the streets of Hamilton, Diana realizes Tom never dissuaded her from believing that his reluctance to visit Hamilton was related to anything other than the loss of his parents.
He encouraged that perception, in fact. He filled their visit with memories of them, putting his parents at the center of nearly every conversation, leaving little space for much else.
Hoping to organize her thoughts, Diana begins a list: What Do I Remember from That Visit?
Tension. Tom was tense the whole time we were in Hamilton.
He showed me the parking lot where his father taught him to ride a bike.
We visited his parents’ graves, and he put flowers on their headstones.
He never mentioned the O’Connors, the fire, or Carson Roy.
No one did.
She stops her list when she reaches Chris’s home.
During one of his annual visits to Alcott, Chris drew an outline of the porch he’d designed for his cabin, his pencil scratching across the page.
The addition took shape on the blank paper as he explained it would be where he’d sit to drink his coffee in the morning and watch the sunset each evening.
After the porch, Chris turned his attention to building a barn on a crest to the left of the house.
She finds him there, leaning over a metal workbench, sandpaper in hand, his arms in motion.
She’s startled by how much he’s like Tom—a dark-haired version of her husband.
Tom is in the outline of Chris’s sinewy muscles under his shirt, the way his jeans hug his hips, and the broad planes of his cheekbones.
In the past, he and Tom joked about their resemblance, but Diana could never see it.
Now, the similarities between the real man in front of her and the memory of her dead husband are uncanny.
This is the closest, outside of being with Duncan, she’ll ever get to Tom, and she’s nervous. Thrilled, too.
“Diana,” Chris says, looking up from his work. He drops the sandpaper and removes his safety goggles. There’s an indentation around his eyes, a bruise left by the goggles, and Diana stuffs her hands in her pockets to avoid running her fingers along those marks.
“How are you? The kids?” Chris’s unshaven chin scrapes against her skin as he kisses her cheek, and all she can think about is how he smells like sawdust.
“Duncan and Phoebe?”
“Yes, Duncan and Phoebe,” Chris says, laughing. “You have other kids I haven’t met?”
Diana blushes, embarrassed by her attraction to Chris.
“They’re okay.” Maybe in the past she was reserved with Chris since their connection was through Tom, not independent of him.
She shared only the positive side of her life, the same way she did with her family.
She doesn’t want to pretend anymore. “We’re all still hurting. ”
Chris’s voice quiets. “I still can’t believe he’s gone.”
“Me either.”
He drags two wooden stools across the concrete floor. He sits on one and gestures for Diana to take the other. “While I’m glad you came for a visit, I wish you’d brought them.”
“Next time,” Diana says, climbing onto the stool as its uneven legs rock. “What are you making?”
“An Adirondack chair for my porch.”
“Only one?”
“I only need one,” Chris says, shrugging. “Duncan still playing basketball?”
“You can’t get the ball out of his hands. Want to see him in action?”
She and Chris hunch over her phone as she shares a grainy clip of Duncan practicing layups on the court across the street from their house.
“He’s got good form,” Chris observes.
“Definitely inherited from Tom.”
“There was this game when we were in the tenth grade; Tom made a basket right before the buzzer.” Chris grins.
“I remember it all: the way the ball flew through the air, the screams when it made it through the net, the excitement when everyone realized we’d won.
The team hoisted Tom on their shoulders and carried him around the gym, yelling his name. It was amazing.”
“I’ve heard that story before,” Diana says, thankful the memory Chris shared isn’t a surprise. “But I like hearing it again.”
Chris’s phone beeps. “My mother,” he says, checking the screen, “is asking if you’ve arrived. We should probably get to their house, or I’ll never hear the end of how I made you late for dinner.”
Diana hops off the stool. “You don’t mind I’m staying with them? They have more room, and I thought it would be easier.”
“No problem.” Chris lifts his coat from a hook by the door and turns off the overhead light as they step outside. “My mom’s a better cook anyway.”
Six cars are parked in front of Uncle Brian and Aunt Teresa’s when Diana follows Chris’s truck up the driveway. He meets her as she exits her car. “Half of Hamilton must be here tonight,” he jokes. “My mother does not shy away from a chance to entertain.”
Diana takes a bouquet of lilies for Teresa from the trunk. She also has a bottle of bourbon for Brian. Chris suggested it when she texted him for gift ideas.
“She told me they had dinner plans when we talked about me coming up this weekend,” Diana says, as she shuts the trunk. “Glad I stopped at your place first, though. It gave me a quieter arrival.”
An early-April snowfall crunches underfoot as Diana and Chris walk to the house. “What’s it like to be here?” Chris asks.
“Strange,” she whispers. “I wish Tom was with me. Then again, I wish that every day.”
Aunt Teresa stands in the doorway. Before any hellos are shared, she hugs Diana.
The lilies crush between them, their sickly-sweet smell filling Diana’s nose.
With her gray hair piled on her head, Teresa barely comes up to Diana’s chin.
The embrace goes on longer than expected, and Diana understands Teresa is hugging Tom, too.
When Teresa eventually lets go, Diana hands Tom’s aunt the flowers. “Thank you for having me.”
“Lilies, my favorite.” Aunt Teresa dips her face into the fragrant blossoms, and her hazel eyes, so similar to Chris’s, shine. “Come,” she says. “Brian wants to say hello.” Chris and Diana pile their coats on an overstuffed rack in the corner and follow her down the hall.
The aromatic scents of cumin and cayenne greet them in the warm kitchen.
Two women chat by the table, as one slices red peppers and the other pours juice for a group of waiting children.
Aunt Teresa introduces Diana to her guests and moves into the dining room, where she makes room amid the cutlery and cloth napkins for Diana’s lilies.
Chris grabs a beer from a cooler in the corner.
“My son gets a drink before he greets me,” calls out Brian. “Where are your manners, Christopher?”
The room erupts into laughter and banter Diana can’t follow.
She’s disoriented; she remembers Uncle Brian and Aunt Teresa’s house from her previous visit, but the sounds and smells are different now.
The room is too full of people, and yet she’s painfully aware of the empty space at her side where Tom should be.
Standing still will only increase her nerves, so Diana threads her way around the kitchen, forcing herself to greet one person after another, including a stocky man wearing a Bernie Sanders sweatshirt who vigorously shakes her hand and asks if she’s registered to vote.
When she manages to break away, Diana makes a straight line for Brian.
Tall like Chris but with silver-streaked hair, Uncle Brian commands dinner preparations from his spot in front of the stove.
He stirs the peppers into the simmering pot of chili as he kisses Diana’s cheek.
She puts the bourbon in its gray velvet bag on the counter next to him.
“For me?” Brian asks. He unwraps the bottle and examines the label. “Now we have a celebration.”
More guests enter the house, and Diana is swept into the dining room.
She forgets the name of each new person she meets as soon as they are introduced, with the exception of Kara Marquis from the Hamilton Star, who smiles shyly and takes a seat on the other end of the table.
These new friends bring home-brewed beer and chocolate cupcakes, and none of them mention Tom.
There are no expressions of sympathy or inquiries about her well-being, and Diana finds relief in this normalcy.