When Lakshmi arrives at the last sentence, she squeezes Diana’s hand. “This is ... Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You didn’t know about this? This crime?”
“I have no idea what this is about.”
“What about these ‘others’ Tom mentions? He says”—Lakshmi releases Diana’s hand and points to the letter—“they may come into your life? What does that mean?”
“Another thing I don’t understand.”
“No one’s come by the house or work? Or sent a letter or package? Or called you?”
“No to all of that,” Diana says, “but now that you ask, I didn’t check the landline. I never give that number out, though, so I doubt anyone’s called there.”
“You have a landline?” Lakshmi looks at her quizzically, head tilted to the side.
“We got it when we moved in; it came with the internet. The telemarketer calls and hang-ups got so bad last year that I turned off the ringer.” Diana sips her chai. “He hid the letter for me to find; did you catch that? I don’t understand any of this.”
“Where did you find the letter?”
“In a time capsule from 2012 that the kids and I opened two days ago. The letter was written in 2014, sometime after he was diagnosed in May and before he died that September.”
Lakshmi sits back, staring at Diana. “I have no idea what to say.”
“I did some research at work yesterday and again today. I didn’t find anything useful.” Diana pulls out her laptop. “I thought maybe you could help me. Two heads are better than one and all that.”
“Yes, of course, I’ll help you. Whatever you need.” Lakshmi bites her lip. “Diana, he’s not asking you to sort this. You don’t have to do this.”
“But I do. I need to be prepared in case those people come looking for me. Imagine you discovered a letter like this from Ramesh. Would you put it away somewhere and forget about it?”
Lakshmi tugs at her braid. “I probably wouldn’t be able to let it go.”
“Why wouldn’t you ignore it?”
“Because I love him.”
“Andbecause you’d have to understand why he didn’t tell you about this before.” The next part is hard to say out loud. Diana forces herself to meet Lakshmi’s gaze, instead of looking away. “There’s another reason, too. The kids were there when I found the letter. I wouldn’t let them see it, of course, but Duncan looked for it. I guess I hadn’t hidden it well enough. I never thought he’d go through my room.”
Lakshmi gasps. “He read it?”
Diana nods. “So I can’t ignore it, even if I might want to. He misses Tom so much, and if I don’t figure this out, his feelings about his father could become confused or twisted. He could grow to resent Tom because he kept a secret like this. I can’t let that happen.”
“Of course you can’t,” Lakshmi says, standing up from the table. “I think we need the wine after all.”
Diana offers a small smile. “Maybe we do.”
While Lakshmi rounds up the bottle and glasses, Diana turns on her laptop. She enters her password, JUNE30, Tom’s birthday. A five-year-old photo of her family on a hike in the Berkshires fills the screen. A pigtailed Phoebe sits on Tom’s shoulders; Diana and Duncan stand on either side, offering half-hearted grins.
Why did she selectthisphoto as her screensaver? It hadn’t been a happy day; that hike, in fact, had been a disaster.
That summer, Diana’s parents had rented a bungalow on a small lake near Stockbridge for their vacation and planned to spend two weeks attending classical music concerts, visiting museums, and watching the sunrise from the dock behind the house. They invited Diana, Tom, and the kids for a long weekend, and Diana agreed without consulting Tom. He’d been withdrawn and unreachable for weeks. A relaxing time away, Diana had decided, was exactly what they all needed.
Tom, however, was unwilling to embrace a few lazy days on the lake and mapped out that hike for the four of them, confident the kids would be able to keep up. “They can handle it,” he said when she protested. “The exercise will be good for them.”
They spoke in biting whispers, the house too small for privacy. A heat wave had rolled through the area, and the bungalow, which had appeared so charming in its online posting, was suffocating with its tiny windows and lack of air-conditioning.
Arguments between Diana and Tom were rare; she could count on one hand the number of times they’d fought. Typically, Diana capitulated when Tom’s position became unyielding, her desire for peace overriding her need to be right or to win. She gave in quickly and often,falling into this habit early on, somehow intuiting that her adaptability was a necessary ingredient in their relationship.
