Chapter Twenty-Six
Duncan lopes down the stairs clad in a Red Sox sweatshirt and jeans. “I’m ready,” he says to Diana and her father as he stuffs his feet into his sneakers, laces untied.
“We’re going to pick up Evan and Noah and head into Fenway,” Francis says. “We should make it in time for the first pitch.”
Diana couldn’t have dreamed there was more her already hands-on father could do for her kids, but once Francis heard about the call from Duncan’s basketball coach, he managed to find new ways to be involved.
Over the past week, he helped Duncan with his history project on the electoral college, taught him how to fix the dishwasher, and planned this night out at the Red Sox game. It’s been good for both of them.
As they drive away, Diana remains on the threshold, scanning the street for strangers and inhaling the lush scent of early spring.
Around her, the neighborhood settles into evening.
She hears Lakshmi and Ramesh talking through an open window, neighborhood kids yelling to one another on the playground across the street, and a dog barking off in the distance.
She remembers the time she chaperoned Duncan’s fourth-grade field trip to the Museum of Science.
At the reptile exhibit, they learned how snakes shed their skins, leaving the old one behind, slithering off into the sun as a new version of themselves.
Diana recognizes a change is up ahead: her own new skin.
Ever since she returned from Vermont, she’s felt different, as if looking into Tom’s past has shifted the direction of her future.
This excites her, this unexplored possibility. It scares her, too.
When she hears Phoebe call her name, Diana reluctantly closes the door and returns to the kitchen, where preparations for a girls-only Family Dinner are underway. Her daughter balances on a stool, watching Vivian make pesto. Phoebe’s cheek is healing nicely, the angry red scrape fading each day.
Diana pours apple juice and uncorks a bottle of chenin blanc, looking up when she hears the front door open. “A stealthy arrival. I didn’t hear your car.”
“I rode my bike. Needed the exercise,” Andrea says. “How can I help?”
“Set the table, please,” The General answers for Diana. “We’ll be ready to eat soon.”
“She really does like to tell us what to do,” Andrea mutters to Diana. “I’ll get right on it, Mom,” she says to Vivian, pulling the silverware from the drawer.
After dinner, as Vivian contends with Phoebe’s bedtime routine, Diana kneels in front of the fireplace, adding newspaper, kindling, and a large log to the hearth. This is the last of the fires she’ll make until autumn arrives, and she wants the blaze to last.
The fireplace was what sold them on the house. “We’ll sit in front of it with our kids,” Tom said. Duncan wasn’t conceived yet, but the idea of him was on their minds. “Movie nights, Christmases, birthdays. All here.”
“I’ve never built a fire,” Diana said. She saw the rest of her life taking shape in that house, and she was left breathless, like she was free-falling off a cliff.
“I’ll do it,” Tom said. “I’ll take care of it, of us.” And he had, for as long as he could.
After his diagnosis, he taught her how to use the snowblower, light the boiler, and check for ice dams—chores for which he had been responsible.
One of the last duties he passed on was the fireplace, and together, one early-summer evening, they built a fire.
Diana learned to open the flue, check for squirrels stuck in the chimney, and clean out the grate.
Tom was patient throughout the lesson. She cried the whole time, barely listening, imagining herself throwing the poker through the window in frustration.
As the wood catches fire, Diana closes the mesh safety screen and moves to the sofa.
Andrea leans against her, and Diana inhales the scent of her sister’s lemongrass shampoo.
Andrea takes her left hand and rubs the empty spot on Diana’s ring finger.
“This still okay?” she whispers. Diana’s mother and sister immediately noticed the missing rings, each looking at her with the same worried forehead crinkle, each checking in several times since she returned from Vermont to make sure she didn’t regret the decision.
“Yes, Andie, it is.” Diana slides her arm around her sister, and the only sound in the room is the ticking of the clock on the mantel.
Vivian enters the living room a few minutes later.
“I don’t know how Phoebe did it, but she convinced me to read three books, despite my firm declaration I had a limit of two.
” She lowers onto the leather chair next to the fireplace.
“Diana, how was your visit with Tom’s family? You haven’t talked much about it.”
“Chris and I went snowshoeing,” Diana says, electing not to tell her mother and sister what else she and Chris did. “It was good to spend time with Teresa and Brian, and Teresa passed on Tom’s childhood photo album.”
She fantasizes what it would be like to tell her mother and sister about the letter.
She sees herself stand up, walk into the office, open the bottom desk drawer, and pull out the fireproof box, where she placed the letter after Duncan’s discovery and the intruder’s unwelcome visit.
Diana imagines unlocking the box with the gold key hidden in the jar of paper clips on top of the desk, removing Tom’s letter, and handing it to her mother.
“Diana?” her mother asks. “Are you okay?”
Diana decides to plunge ahead although the outcome is uncertain. “Remember that letter Phoebe mentioned a few weeks ago at Family Dinner? The one Tom wrote me before he died? It wasn’t a love letter, and it’s the real reason I went to Vermont.”
Andrea sits up, her feet hitting the floor. “That was weeks ago,” she says. “You’ve kept this from us all this time? What does it say?”
“It’s complicated.” Diana returns to the fireplace to select another log from the brass bin under the window.
“Loss is complicated, sweetheart,” Vivian says.
“When my mother died, I found the immediate months after were focused on planning the funeral, cleaning out her house, and dealing with paperwork. It took some time for me to be able to articulate what it meant for me to no longer have her in my life. Maybe that’s where you are?
And why you didn’t mention this letter sooner? ”
“That’s some of it.” Diana recognizes the relief in her mother’s eyes: problem identified and solution offered.
“What about the letter?” Andrea asks. “What does it say?”
“You don’t have to tell us, if you don’t want to,” Vivian says. “If it’s difficult for you, I mean.”
“You already know about it,” Diana says, heading toward the office. “You might as well read it.”
After Vivian skims the letter, she hands it to Andrea, who, in her eagerness, nearly snatches it from her mother’s hands. Andrea finishes the letter in record time, and her reaction includes several exclamations of “you’re making this up” and “this is bullshit.”
Before their questions begin, Diana tells them the rest of the story: the time capsule, her late-night internet searches, Lakshmi’s help, her meeting with Jonathan and the missing money, her fact-finding trip to the Hamilton Star, the visit to the O’Connor farm, the additional pieces of the story Chris knew all along, and her journey to Nashua to look for Jessica.
Vivian scoots to the edge of her chair and points to the letter. “Diana, I’m most concerned about these people he mentions. Have you noticed anything strange? Maybe you should go to the police.”
The car driving by late at night. The intruder. The missing key and photo. The phone calls. Those incidents will only alarm her mother and Andrea, and calling the police will make this whole situation more complicated. “We’re good, Mom. You don’t need to worry.”
Vivian nods and shifts back in her chair.
“You told Lakshmi about this before you told us? And Jonathan?” Andrea asks. “Lakshmi, I understand, but not Jonathan. I’m kind of pissed about that.”
“I thought I should get a legal opinion, that’s all.”
“He and Lily ghosted you after Tom died. He doesn’t have your back.”
“Tom trusted him. I can trust him, too.”
“Is he going to tell Lily about this?”
Diana considers her sister’s question. “He promised to keep this confidential. I assume he won’t tell Lily, but I didn’t ask that specifically.”
“I never liked her,” Andrea says, her voice bitter. “She’s shallow and materialistic.”
“Andrea,” Vivian interrupts, “this isn’t the time to discuss Lily Hobart.”
“Fine.” Andrea reads the letter again, her fingers bending the page, making Diana twitch. “But Tom was on a lot of pain meds in those last days. Maybe it’s not true. Maybe it was a hallucination.”
If she hadn’t met Grace or talked to Chris, Diana might have agreed with Andrea, but she’s learned too much to discount Tom’s message.
Andrea continues, “On the other hand, chalking this up to pain meds is a kind response. It could be Tom was an asshole. Leaving you this letter to find like that? It’s a sucker punch. Cruel, even.”
“Andrea!” Vivian says.
“He wasn’t a cruel person,” Diana says, pained she has to defend Tom. “You know that.”
“Do I?” Andrea waves the letter in the air, pointing to the longest paragraph. “What’s all this crap about this being your fault? It’s ridiculous.”
The passage in question has kept Diana awake nearly every night since she found the letter.
The words are among the worst: If we had been different people, or maybe if our relationship had been different, I might have told you all this sooner.
I tried, but I wasn’t sure how you’d react.
Would you have been disappointed in me? Or angry?
How could you trust me for lying to you for our entire relationship?
For so long, I blamed you for my inability to come clean.
I saw you as the obstacle to being truthful when it clearly was me. I’m sorry for so much.