Chapter Sixteen
The O’Connor farm is so hidden from the street Diana almost misses it.
A shiny red “For Sale” sign is her only indication a home is nearby.
A photo of a real estate agent with perfect teeth peers out from the bottom of the sign as it swings in a slight breeze.
Open House Today, reads a placard affixed across the top.
Diana stops her car in front of the sign. For sale? Another surprise in an unending list of surprises.
She’s supposed to be on her way back from the store.
She offered to restock Aunt Teresa and Uncle Brian’s wine after it was depleted during last night’s dinner party.
Really, she wanted an excuse to get out of the house, away from the awkwardness caused by her questions about Carson Roy and the O’Connors.
If Chris and Teresa won’t open up, maybe there’s information here. While Diana isn’t interested in getting arrested for snooping around someone’s private property, an open house is an invitation to come inside, isn’t it?
She considers leaving, returning to Aunt Teresa and Uncle Brian’s to uncork the bottle of merlot in her trunk and drink away all her questions about Tom, but Duncan’s words come back to her: How am I supposed to remember him if he was someone else?
Diana presses on the gas and turns onto the property. The winter has left deep grooves in the gravel driveway, and her tires grind against the stones, the sound reverberating in her head. Her palms are wet, and under her arms, a cold sweat spreads.
On her left is a dense forest of birch trees, naked in the afternoon light.
To the right, the branches of a willow tree reach nearly to the ground.
She slows the car to a crawl, following the drive around a bend.
The house, painted white with a covered porch and smoke puffing out from a brick chimney, backs up against an expansive yard rimmed by a slight hill where apple trees stand at attention, forming a barrier against the wild Vermont land beyond.
Diana parks at the rear of the driveway, next to a silver Mercedes and a yellow Volvo station wagon.
She steps from the car, slinging her purse across her chest. Can she find Tom here?
Are bits of him left in this place? That’s why she came: to see whether the O’Connor farm offers answers or some remaining echo of her husband.
She shuffles across the cold, unyielding ground to the remains of a circular paddock.
Only a portion of the fence remains, and its rotted wood indicates years of neglect.
Diana grips the brittle railing as the wind glides across her face and through her hair.
The air feels wet; more precipitation will come later.
She inhales, letting her lungs fill with the chilled air.
The back door swings open, and a coiffed, middle-aged woman emerges from the house. Dressed in a navy-blue pantsuit and striped blouse, she marches to the Mercedes and takes a box from the back seat. As she closes the door, she notices Diana standing in the yard.
“Are you here for the open house?” the woman calls.
Unprepared for another person’s questions, though Diana’s brain tells her a simple yes is all that’s required, she panics. She looks around the backyard, stalling for time, trying to come up with an answer.
“It’s okay that you’re early,” the woman says. “I’m ready for you.”
Diana lets go of the fence. As she approaches the house, the woman tucks the box under her arm and sticks out her hand, a gold bracelet sliding down her wrist.
“Stacy Sousa. I’m the agent representing the seller.
Welcome.” She shakes Diana’s hand, and Diana recognizes her from the photo on the for-sale sign.
“Let’s go inside.” Stacy turns back to the house, talking to Diana over her shoulder.
“Did you have any trouble finding the place? It’s secluded, isn’t it? Like an oasis.”
“Yes . . . I mean no. I used the GPS on my phone.”
“Those apps are a godsend. What did we ever do without them?” Stacy holds open the porch door for Diana as she leads the way inside.
A generous mudroom flows into the kitchen, where a fire crackles in the stone hearth. Above the mantel hangs a large seascape of a lone boat tossed over storm-driven waves, the horizon dark and menacing.
“This is the kitchen,” Stacy announces unnecessarily, dumping her box next to a plate of sugar cookies on the rectangular table. She removes the listing brochures and sign-in sheet from her box. With a gesture, she invites Diana to the table.
Diana scribbles her name, the signature messy and difficult to read, and picks up a brochure.
Stacy glances at the sheet. “Donna, is it? Have you been looking long for a place?”
Donna it is. It’s a needless deceit, but one that steadies Diana. She stands in front of the fireplace, warming her hands and examining the seascape. The painting is sad: the moment before a terrible event happens. “My search is very recent.”
“You’re welcome to look around.” Stacy gestures to a doorway in the far corner of the room, then turns back to her brochures, spreading them out across the table.
“Before I forget: The owner is home. Wasn’t feeling well.
Nothing contagious, nothing you need to worry about.
She’s in the sunporch. Won’t bother you at all.
I thought it best to continue since we did so much advertising. Hope you don’t mind.”
Diana trips over the threshold and grabs the wall to keep from falling. She didn’t expect to meet Grace O’Connor today, and she finds herself frozen, uncertain whether she should proceed or come up with another plan.
Stacy looks up eagerly from her spot at the table. “Yes, Donna? Do you have a question?”
“No, no question.” Suddenly hot, Diana unbuttons her coat and loosens her scarf. Everything will be fine, she thinks, fanning herself with the brochure and moving away from Stacy Sousa and her efficient real estate instincts. I came all this way for answers. Now’s not the time to waver.
Diana enters a large hallway with a set of stairs in the middle and walks through the closest door.
A bare desk sits under a window of wavy glass, and a tan love seat covered in chintz pillows occupies the far corner.
The bookshelves are what prompt her to cross the room; all the way to the ceiling they go.
Diana trails her fingers along the spines of the books.
Ward, García Márquez, Woolf, Thoreau, Atwood, Didion.
The books are neat and dust-free and clearly have some kind of organization to their placement Diana can’t decipher.
Perhaps by how much the reader loves them—that’s her favorite system.
One shelf is dedicated to Bibles: King James, Coverdale, Inclusive, Modern English, and several others; another to animal husbandry, with a focus on horses; and yet another is filled with manuals about wildflowers and apple-growing techniques.
Diana returns to the hallway, where a woven, L-shaped basket rests on the two bottom stairs.
Her grandmother used one of these. It’s a catchall for items that need to go upstairs.
Diana hasn’t seen one in years, not since her grandmother passed away when she was in middle school.
Inside is a set of knitting needles and a copy of National Geographic magazine.
She’s curious why Stacy Sousa hasn’t squirreled the basket away somewhere.
She climbs the stairs, her hand trailing up the banister.
The wall to her left is covered in photographs.
Some are old, black-and-white portraits of serious-looking men and women, children standing frozen at their side.
In the center hangs a large picture of a young woman in a gold, glass-less frame.
She sits astride a brown horse in front of a red barn, its doors open to a paddock.
In another photo, several people crowd together on the house’s front porch.
Is the couple in the back the O’Connors?
The others, an older woman and a teenage girl with curly hair, are a mystery.
On the end, though, leaning against the porch railing, a baseball cap pulled down across his eyes, is Tom.
Diana recognizes the slant of the shoulders, the long legs. She sees this boy in Duncan every day.
She stares at the photo—why has all this been unknown to her?—until she hears the kitchen door open and close. Stacy Sousa loudly offers greetings. Someone else answers. Diana isn’t the only visitor to this open house.
She hastens up the stairs and into the empty hallway.
She passes sparsely furnished bedrooms, stopping at what she guesses to be Grace’s room.
A bed covered in a pink, quilted satin comforter is positioned under two windows overlooking the backyard.
An Impressionistic painting of a riderless horse galloping through a forest, the sky luminous with morning light, hangs across the room.
On either side of the bed are Shaker-style tables.
One holds a glass lamp, a digital clock, and a pile of books; the other is bare.
On the dresser is a black-and-white photo of a young man in a suit and tie, a younger version of the man whose obituary Diana found while reviewing the archives at the Hamilton Star.
William Duncan O’Connor. Other personal items have been cleared away so that people like Diana—trespassers—can envision living here, so they aren’t distracted by someone else’s life.
What would strangers say about her bedroom?
Would her too-big bed and closet still filled with Tom’s clothes say “widow”? “Lonely”? “Grief-stricken”?
“I have to get out of here,” Diana says. As she walks down the staircase, she notices the steps here squeak like the ones she has at home.
At the bottom, standing next to the basket, Diana pauses. Stacy Sousa and the new arrivals are still in the kitchen, blocking her exit.