“My son gets a drink before he greets me,” calls out Brian. “Where are your manners, Christopher?”
The room erupts into laughter and banter Diana can’t follow. She’s disoriented; she remembers Uncle Brian and Aunt Teresa’s house from her previous visit, but the sounds and smells are different now. The room is too full of people, and yet she’s painfully aware of the empty space at her side where Tom should be.
Standing still will only increase her nerves, so Diana threads her way around the kitchen, forcing herself to greet one person after another, including a stocky man wearing a Bernie Sanders sweatshirt who vigorously shakes her hand and asks if she’s registered to vote. When she manages to break away, Diana makes a straight line for Brian.
Tall like Chris but with silver-streaked hair, Uncle Brian commands dinner preparations from his spot in front of the stove. He stirs the peppers into the simmering pot of chili as he kisses Diana’s cheek. She puts the bourbon in its gray velvet bag on the counter next to him. “For me?” Brian asks. He unwraps the bottle and examines the label. “Now we have a celebration.”
More guests enter the house, and Diana is swept into the dining room. She forgets the name of each new person she meets as soon as they are introduced, with the exception of Kara Marquis from theHamilton Star, who smiles shyly and takes a seat on the other end of the table. These new friends bring home-brewed beer and chocolatecupcakes, and none of them mention Tom. There are no expressions of sympathy or inquiries about her well-being, and Diana finds relief in this normalcy.
The dinner that follows is raucous, voices competing to be heard, one-liners and puns thrown back and forth. Diana spends the meal listening to the Bernie Sanders fan, who has much to say about local skiing conditions and the increasing interest in the area from out-of-state tourists. She nods along to his monologue, as she drinks the multiple glasses of wine Uncle Brian pours for her and watches the other guests through the candlelight.
Before she knows it, the evening is over, and sleepy children are hustled into the dark for their parents to drive them home through the starlit night. The dining room table’s lace tablecloth is covered in chili stains and cornbread crumbs, and chocolate icing is smeared across abandoned dessert plates. Empty wine bottles gather on the sideboard. Etiquette tells Diana she should aid in the cleanup, but it’s been a long time since she felt this relaxed, and she’s loath to move.
“Teresa!” Brian yells, a little drunk.
“What do you need, my love?” Teresa asks, returning from the kitchen. She dries her hands on her apron and looks at him, half with irritation and half with the sated look of a hostess whose dinner has gone off well.
“Sit and drink this bourbon Diana brought.” Brian’s voice is gruff, and his eyes are full of mischief. He holds out his hand to his wife. “Come.”
Teresa stoops so her face is level with his. Brian places his hands on her hips and kisses her. Their embrace breaks apart only when she giggles.
“You two,” Chris says. He grabs for the bourbon, but his father nabs it first.
“Fifty-three years of marriage, Christopher, is a precious gift,” Brian says. He opens the bottle and sniffs. With a delighted smile, he poursthe amber-colored liquor into four etched tumblers and nudges them across the table.
“What shall we toast?” Teresa says.
“Diana, of course,” Brian says. “It’s been a long time since you’ve crossed our door, and we love that you’re here.”
Chris and Teresa echo Brian, raising their glasses to Diana.
“To Tom,” Chris says, meeting Diana’s eyes. The bourbon hits the back of her throat, sweet and woody, as Teresa and Brian repeat Tom’s name.
Brian leans over to Teresa. “A toast to my love,” he says, as they clink their glasses. They hold their heads together, Brian whispering into Teresa’s ear. Teresa blushes and swats his arm.
Diana managed to keep thoughts of Tom away while she sat surrounded by his family and their friends. Now, envy rises up. Fifty-three years of marriage. She’ll never have that.
She lifts her glass. “To Teresa and Brian.”
Aunt Teresa and Uncle Brian’s guest room, above their garage, has white walls and pale-blue carpeting. Two sets of bunk beds sit in the corners, and a queen platform bed rests in the center under a large skylight. “Like being in a tree house,” Diana says when Teresa escorts her to the room, both unsteady on their feet. “Like we’re above the world.”
The view outside, overlooking the snow-covered backyard dotted with evergreens, does give the impression of flying, of being disconnected from the earth.
“Sleep well, Diana,” Teresa says, closing the door behind her.
As she settles into bed for the night, Diana’s thoughts drift to her visit to theHamilton Star. A nagging feeling presses at the center of all she learned today. She’s missing something. What is it?
She rolls over and takes her phone from the bedside table. She checks the app that controls her new doorbell camera and is grateful tosee her empty front porch, no intruders in sight. She next sorts through the day, beginning with her arrival at theStar. She relives meeting Kara and opening that first box, reading the newspapers, and discovering the stories about the fire. Diana scrolls through the pictures she took in the newspaper’s conference room: a photo of the ashy shell of the O’Connor barn, the fire chief’s statement that Carson Roy was responsible for the fire, William O’Connor’s obituary.
Or, more precisely, William Duncan O’Connor’s obituary.
It comes to her then, so forcefully she sits up in bed, choking.
Duncan.
William Duncan O’Connor.
That’s it:William Duncan.
