Chapter Twenty-One
Diana has frequented Sully’s since she was a child.
Located down the street from the library, Sully’s was always a greasy dive, famous for its bacon-and-sausage breakfast sandwich, until ten years ago, when Sully retired to Fort Myers to watch the Red Sox spring training, and his daughter Stephanie, Diana’s high school classmate, took over.
Stephanie added kale salads and fruit smoothies to the menu and upgraded the Sanka-like coffee to fair trade beans from South America.
Despite the changes, Sully’s remains the go-to spot in town.
When Diana enters the crowded café, she greets Stephanie and compliments her new electric-blue hair, the latest in a string of ever-changing coiffure colors.
After placing a lunch order for herself and Duncan and picking up a large coffee, Diana sits at an empty table in the corner.
Thanks to Sully’s seven-foot-tall, leafy ficus tree on one side and Stephanie’s prized Italian espresso machine on the other, the booth has the benefit of being insulated from other customers, a fact Diana realizes is important since she’s here to talk to her son.
She’s early to meet Duncan, and he’s likely taking his time.
She could use the extra few minutes to settle herself.
Diana didn’t accomplish anything at work this morning.
The trip to Hamilton and the prospect of having to explain it—or at least part of it—to Duncan distracted her, making concentrating on library matters impossible.
Plus, his basketball coach called earlier with upsetting news that she has to discuss with him.
Diana’s phone buzzes, and when she checks the screen, she finds a message from Chris. Hi—I wanted to make sure you got home safely. She wonders how long he spent on those ten words.
She reads and rereads Chris’s text, remembering his sawdust scent and the feeling of his skin against hers, how comfortable she was with him—never once worrying about the softness of her belly or her stretch marks.
Her cheeks flush as she thinks about how easily her body responded to his, how longed for Chris made her feel.
Diana always saw Tom as her great, once-in-a-lifetime love. That she can delight in another man is astonishing. Strange, too. It’s as if she’s woken up with wings and suddenly can fly. She’s not sure she recognizes herself.
Chris texts again. This time he sends a photo of a sunrise peaking over Hamilton. Saw this beauty on my way to work this morning. Made me think of you.
Diana smiles, and a wave of incandescent happiness sweeps over her.
She toys with several possible responses, and after too much deliberation, chooses to go with direct: We don’t have sunrises like that in Alcott.
Drive was fine—no traffic. Thanks for checking in.
She hits Send before she overthinks her response and places her phone face down on the table.
She’s blowing on her coffee when she hears the beep of another text, and in her haste to see if this new message is from Chris, she knocks over her drink, and a puddle of much-needed caffeine pools across the table.
Oh, this is going to be a problem, Diana thinks, grabbing napkins from the dispenser on the counter. A list presents itself—What Am I Going to Do About Chris?—and she’s grateful for a way to sort through this particular challenge.
I don’t have to do anything. It was just sex. Great sex.
He’s my husband’s cousin, which makes him my cousin, too?
This is definitely a moral gray area.
I like him.
Liking him doesn’t mean I have to have a relationship with him.
I’m not ready for a relationship.
I shouldn’t tell anyone about this.
She tosses the sodden napkins into a nearby trash can and returns to the table. She flips over her phone to a pang of disappointment. The new text is from Jonathan, not Chris. Do you have time to talk today? Or tomorrow? I have something I want to discuss with you.
She’s still frustrated by Jonathan’s response to Tom’s letter—I’d let this all go and move on—and isn’t up to talking to him right now. When she sees Duncan enter Sully’s, Diana slides the phone back into her pocket without answering.
As Duncan walks the perimeter of the café, Diana switches to mom mode and takes in her son. What joy it is to see him like this, independent and separate, yet part of her. Part of Tom, too.
She hopes Duncan’s anger toward her has worn away during the shortened school day, but it’s clear it hasn’t when he throws down his backpack and falls onto the bench without speaking. He slumps against the window, tapping on his phone.
Diana assesses her approach. Should she dish back some of the anger he clearly has for her? Play it cool and calm? Cry? She’s never thought of manipulation as a tool in her parenting arsenal. Cajoling and persuading, yes, but not manipulation.
She decides to proceed with calm and honesty, the hardest of the options before her. “Grandma told me you were upset last night. She said it had to do with the computer. You want to tell me what happened?”
He stops tapping and makes eye contact for the first time since he walked through the door. “Grandma told you that?”
“Of course she did. She was worried and knew that I needed to know what’s going on with you.”
Before Duncan replies, Stephanie approaches with their food. “Roast beef panini and strawberry smoothie for you, Duncan. Chef’s salad for Diana. Enjoy.”
Duncan opens the bag of potato chips that accompanies his sandwich, the plastic wrapping squelching as he pulls apart the sides. He stuffs the chips in his mouth, crunching loudly and staring at Diana.
“You need to know what’s going on with me?” Duncan says in between swallows. “What about what’s going on with you and Dad’s letter? You haven’t told me anything. You’ve been looking into this, Mom. I saw your search history.”
Diana senses the pressure of his need for answers; it’s a burden that can’t be put down, a hunger that can’t be sated.
She’s somewhat managed that need within herself by searching for those answers, but Duncan hasn’t had the benefit of doing something to understand Tom’s final message.
Instead, he’s waited for her to offer an explanation, and she has yet to come through for him.
Duncan will be disappointed when she tells him that her time in Hamilton left her no closer to the truth, only with more questions.
“I’ll explain what’s going on after you drop the attitude.” Diana rubs berry-flavored Chapstick, from a tube she borrowed from Phoebe’s backpack, off the rim of her mug. “Attacking me isn’t going to get you information, nor is it going to make either of us feel better.”
“Sorry,” he says, his cheeks turning red. He balls up the empty chip bag and drops it on the table.
Diana picks up the chips and looks inside. “I can’t believe you didn’t leave any for me, not even one.”
He smirks and picks up his sandwich. “You’re too slow.”
“Definitely not as fast as you.”
She watches him eat. He needs a haircut, and his arms are too long for his shirt.
Every day he changes, and she doesn’t notice.
Too close, too distracted. That’s how Tom managed to never tell me, she realizes, an electric shock of awareness running through her.
I saw only a slice of him, never his whole self.
“Mom?”
This is one of those moments Duncan will always remember, and Diana wills herself not to let him down.
She shares only the essential facts, hewing as close as possible to the truth: Tom may have been involved in a fire—the details of which are unclear.
Two men died, and a woman was injured. She doesn’t talk about the horses, the barn turning to ash, or the impact of William’s loss on Grace.
She definitely avoids telling him about the person who broke into their house and her now constant worry that she and the kids are unsafe.
Duncan holds it together at first. But William’s and Carson’s deaths, even with her lack of detail, make his chin quiver and his eyes glass over.
She scoots around the bench, and he crumples against her. His tears drip onto her chest, her hands still his fists. “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay,” she says into his ear. He smells like coconut and sunshine; her mother must have forced sunblock on him that morning.
It was a mistake to come here. The others she shared Tom’s story with had been in private when they heard the news. None of them is a child, none of them is Tom’s son. She’s messed this up.
At that moment, Stephanie peeks around the corner, coffeepot in hand, her blue ponytail bobbing up and down.
She sees Duncan in Diana’s arms and leaves, only to return seconds later sliding an oversize armchair across the floor.
She positions it next to the ficus, hiding them from curious customers.
Diana bends her head in a silent thank-you.
A few minutes pass before Duncan sits up, wiping his eyes. “What’s next?”
“‘What’s next?’ That’s the first thing you say to me? ‘What’s next?’” No parenting handbook she ever read prepared her for this conversation. “You don’t want to disagree with me and tell me I must be wrong about what your father did?”
“Why would you lie to me?”
Someday, Duncan will understand how easy it is to deceive, Diana thinks. How people use half-truths to protect themselves. Maybe then he’ll look back and realize how screwed up it was Tom left that letter.
“I have to find Jessica, your dad’s friend from that time.” She doesn’t explain how they were involved. Sex and drugs are topics for another day; death is enough for today. “Or I could stop here, and we can put all of this behind us.”
“You can’t stop, Mom. You need to find this Jessica person.”
“It’s not going to be easy.”
“You tell me the hard stuff is worth it. Don’t give up and all that. Well, you can’t either,” Duncan says. “I bet a private detective could find her. You can have my allowance to hire one, if it’s too expensive.”
“A private detective? We don’t have to do that.” Diana pushes his hair off his face. “You keep your allowance. Aren’t you saving up for a new Celtics jersey?”
“Maybe Grandma and Grandpa will get it for me for my birthday. It doesn’t matter. Figuring this out is way more important.”
What a burden her son carries because of Tom. Because of her, too. “I’ll find her. Please don’t worry about it,” she adds, though she knows he’ll worry. In that way, he resembles her more than Tom.
He shrugs and sucks on the straw in his smoothie until only ice remains. He picks up his sandwich and is about to take a bite when Diana changes the subject.
“Your coach called me today.”
“He did?”
“You’re not turning in your homework, and you’ve been goofing off at practice. He wanted to give me a heads-up. Duncan, if this continues, you’re going to lose your cocaptain position, and you could be cut from the team.”
Duncan lowers the sandwich to his plate.
“Our deal was that you’d focus on school, right? And I’d take care of the rest?” Diana places her hand over his and squeezes. “I asked him to give you time to improve, and he agreed.”
It hadn’t taken much to convince the coach to give Duncan another chance. All she had to say was “grief” and “missing his dad,” and the coach had done everything possible to end the call. Sometimes, the loss card did work in their favor.
“You have two weeks to get back on track,” she continues. “Two weeks, okay?”
“Okay,” he croaks. He swipes a lone tear from under his left eye and attacks his sandwich. As she finishes her coffee, she promises herself she’ll check in more regularly on his homework.
When only a lime-green pickle remains on Duncan’s plate, he lowers his voice and leans over to her. “Mom? We shouldn’t tell Phoebe about any of this.”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Did you tell Grandma and Grandpa?”
“Not yet. I’ll share this with them when the time is right.”
Will he resent her for telling him all this? Is this too much for him to carry? Like those stories she heard in that support group had been too much for her?
Maybe she’ll ask him when this is over, when Duncan is grown, if she should have told him a different story about his father, not the truth.