Chapter Thirty-Four
Instead of returning home, where she’d be surrounded by the reminders of her marriage—the photos, Tom’s closet full of clothes, their bed—Diana finds herself at Alcott Pond.
When the kids were younger, she and Tom used to take walks here, pushing Phoebe in the stroller while Duncan waddled along, stopping every few feet to examine an iridescent bug or yelp at the chipmunks.
As she circles the pond, Diana’s mind crowds with images, as if a camera captured Jessica’s story in a series of rapid-fire snapshots: summer’s nighttime constellations, a scuffed leather saddle, the burning barn against the night sky, ripples of water across the pond’s surface, Tom’s car speeding away from the farm.
On an empty bench next to a blooming lilac bush, the air filled with its sweet, floral scent, she sits down and unzips her boots. She removes her feet, wet with perspiration, a blister already forming on her left heel.
Finally, Diana has uncovered what Tom did.
He killed Carson and never held himself accountable, nor did he tell the truth to the authorities.
He started the fire that resulted in William’s death, Grace’s injuries, and the destruction of the O’Connors’ dream.
His choice to abandon William and Grace that night, to wait for dawn without calling for help, and to ask his mother to lie for him were also part of his guilt.
He slept with Jessica and had a child with her. He stole to support his lover and fund her recovery.
Before all this, Diana would have said Tom was dedicated, focused, hardworking, honest. Now? A murderer. A liar. A cheat. She could add her mother’s “complicated” and her sister’s “cruel.” “Secretive,” too.
Diana might have expected to need time to decide what to do next, but her path appears clearly before her, as if it has been waiting for her all along.
She will keep Tom’s truth to herself, telling no one, not Grace or her family, not Chris, not even Lakshmi, who so kindly helped her on her search.
The burden of who Tom was will be hers alone. Or, at least, hers and Jessica’s.
But Duncan is different. Her son—their son—deserves some slice of this story, enough to satisfy his curiosity, yet not so much as to irrevocably harm him.
As for the police, at its best, a visit to the Hamilton police department would be perfunctory: an update to a long-ago closed case file.
At its worst, the police could investigate Jessica.
While she gave Diana the distinct impression any punishment meted out by the justice system would pale in comparison to what she’s put herself through all these years, Diana isn’t interested in exposing Jessica to law enforcement.
It’s then, when she thinks of Jessica’s efforts to make amends, Diana realizes Tom was looking for absolution at the end.
That last night he was conscious, Tom asked Diana to sit on the deck with him.
It was one of those perfect summer nights: a slight breeze, crickets chirping in the distance, fireflies dancing through the twilight.
A half-moon hovered on the horizon, waiting in the spreading darkness for its turn.
Duncan and Phoebe were at Diana’s parents’ for a sleepover.
They had carefully hugged their father before they left.
No one knew it was the last goodbye, though now Diana understands Tom had already decided it was time to go.
Diana stretched out next to him on the chaise, her head resting lightly on his chest. “What do you remember about our wedding?”
“I remember the whole day. Every second.”
“Tom, come on.” Diana was compelled to hear his answer, the need thrumming inside her. She would be, far too soon, facing years without him. Carrying his memories would help her to keep going, to ground herself in what was, so what could have been didn’t become all she thought about.
“I definitely remember your mom’s friend, the one who got very drunk and cornered us on the dance floor.”
“She kept telling us to ‘have babies, have babies right away!’” Diana laughed. “She was willing to explain how to make those babies if we wanted.”
“We didn’t need her help, did we?” Tom asked.
She looked up to find him staring at her, as if he were memorizing her angles, her skin, the way her hair fell around her shoulders. She responded by kissing him tentatively, and then with more urgency. She slid her arms around him, and the kiss was both endless and not enough.
“Diana, this life we have . . . It’s fantastic, extraordinary. I—”
“Shhh, Tom.”
“Let me say this.” He swallowed, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. “I could have been a better person. I’ve let down so many people, including you. Forgive me. I never meant for it to happen. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I promise it’s all okay.” Diana wondered if it was normal for those who were dying to worry their loved ones were angry at them for getting sick and leaving.
She poured a glass of water from a carafe on the table and helped him drink, his profile outlined by the light shining through the French doors.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Diana took the glass from his hands and kissed him. “I love you, too.”
They lay together on the chaise, Diana dozing off next to him. When she woke, Tom was staring overhead at the Milky Way. “I need help getting up.”
“Yes, of course,” she said with a jerk of awareness.
Once, helping him—his broad, strong body—would have crushed her, his weight pushing her down. That night, he was light, barely there, stumbling at the door, needing Diana to catch him.
“I’ll sleep here.” Tom gestured to the hospital bed the hospice nurse had arranged in the office. Before, he had refused to stay there, painfully climbing the stairs to their bedroom every night with Diana by his side.
This was different. Final.
She helped him into the bed, taking off his shoes and baseball cap and tucking a blanket around his chest. She gave him another sip of water and a painkiller, and he put his hand on her arm.
“Stay with me.”
“Give me a minute to get ready.”
Tom closed his eyes, falling asleep before she left the room.
Diana staggered into the kitchen and leaned against the wall. She bit her fist and slid to the floor. She heard a moan.
Is it Tom? Does he need me?
No, she understood—the moan had come from her; she was making that noise.
She grabbed her phone from the counter and texted Andrea. I think this is it, she typed, her fingers hovering over the keys.
She looked at the message for an agonizing moment before deleting it, her finger hesitantly pressing the backspace until the screen was blank.
She made herself return to the office and climb into bed next to Tom. He didn’t stir.
Diana cradled him in her arms, listening to his slow heartbeat and feeling the all-consuming reach of grief surround her.
Sometime in the dark of the night, when even the stars disappeared, the silence in between each of Tom’s breaths extended an impossibly long time. Diana pressed her cheek against his and counted each of his inhales and exhales, until they stopped, and she was alone.
I could have been a better person. I’ve let down so many people, including you. Forgive me. I never meant for it to happen. I’m so sorry.
Even at the end, he’d tried to tell her. He had wanted her to know.
She thinks of that list she started on the drive back from Vermont: What Would I Say to Tom? Some revisions are needed, she decides.
I love you.
I miss you. I always will.
Minutes or even an hour later, as sweat pools along her hairline, Diana feels the last ties to Tom’s burden slip away.
She rubs her toes against the feathery green grass and watches a blue jay fly overhead. The sun makes her skin tender and hot to the touch.
She feels completely alive.
And remarkably, unexpectedly calm.
She lifts her phone out of her purse and shifts her attention to the present. She begins by sending a text to Andrea: How about you, Evan a woman who understands that, while her grief and pain may always be silent and persistent companions, they need not define her life.
If she’s learned anything from meeting Jessica and Grace and uncovering Tom’s secrets, it’s that she has a choice in who she becomes.
She can, like that snake at the science museum, become a new, changed version of herself.
She can heal and maybe, someday, forgive.
Responses arrive within seconds: a thumbs-up emoji from Lakshmi, followed by a short note (What happened with Jessica?
!?!); a formal missive from her mother, replete with proper punctuation and grammar (Your father and I would be delighted to join you.
We’ll be home closer to 5 p.m.); and when Andrea’s text comes, the swoosh tugs at Diana’s heart (Yes to dinner. Can’t wait. Love you.).
As her lips spread in a grateful smile, Diana zips her feet back into her boots and starts toward home.
The barbecue is precisely what Diana hoped it would be: The kids run around the yard, screeching and shooting one another with water guns; her father and Ramesh take over grilling duties; Evan mixes gin and tonics; Lakshmi entertains her mother with stories about her painting students; and Diana and Andrea reconcile.
It’s simple: Andrea walks through the front door, salsa and chips in her hands, and bursts into tears.
Diana wraps her arms around her sister, and they each whisper apologies.
In the middle of their reunion, Evan takes the snacks from Andrea’s grip and sends them outside with the kids, while the other adults disappear into the kitchen to give the sisters privacy.
When Diana and Andrea reappear into the bustle of their loved ones, Diana notices how relieved their parents look.
Lakshmi asks to talk to Diana next, and they find a quiet space in front of the French doors, the children munching on chips on the other side, leaving crumbs for the waiting birds. Lakshmi hands Diana a small package wrapped in a paisley scarf. “For you.”
“A painting?” Diana rubs the grooves of a wooden frame through the silk.
She unties the knot in the corner, and the scarf falls away, landing at her feet in a radiant pile.
The painting is of Tom, dressed in a white shirt, standing against a sapphire-colored sky.
An invisible wind blows wisps of hair around his head, giving him the illusion of flight, of lightness, of otherworldliness. “Oh, Lax.”
“Do you like it? Is it too much?”
“It’s perfect. I didn’t know you were painting him.”
“Remember that piece I was working on of Ramesh?”
Diana summons that night, two days after she found Tom’s letter, when she sought out Lakshmi for help. She tastes Lakshmi’s sweet and spicy chai as she recalls the canvas in progress on her friend’s easel. Was it only three months ago?
“Something about it wasn’t working. One day, Ram looked at it and noticed it looked nothing like him, but so much like Tom. It all fell together after that.”
“The sky—”
“The Cape, the last vacation you took.”
“I love it. He would have loved it, too. Though he would have made a crack about how young you made him. No gray hair or wrinkles.”
“This is how I remember him.”
How I remember him, Diana thinks. That’s it. How I choose to remember him is up to me. Wordlessly, she embraces Lakshmi, the painting tight in her hand.