Her son isDuncan William.
In the weeks before the baby was born, she and Tom bantered names back and forth, Diana set on Lachlan or Aiden. Maybe Miles. Tom was unconvinced.
“How about William Duncan?” he said one night as they walked home from getting ice cream, Diana’s craving for mint chocolate chip having established a nightly ritual they both enjoyed.
“You don’t want to name the baby after your dad?” Diana asked, licking ice cream from the corner of her mouth.
“Gary?” Tom wrinkled his nose. “I can’t imagine that as a baby name.”
“In that case, what about Duncan William?” Diana said. “I like that better.”
Tom stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “You asked about my dad; what about yours? Would he be hurt if the baby isn’t named after him?”
“Francis would be better as a middle name.” Diana finished off her cone with a triumphant crunch. “We can reserve it for baby number two.”
“Planning ahead, are you?” Tom smiled. “I like it.”
“So it’s settled: Duncan William, if it’s a boy.” Diana smiled back, satisfied. “We should come up with a girl’s name, to be safe, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s a boy.”
“I bet you’re right.” Tom took her hand in his and didn’t let go until they walked through their front door.
He never explained the significance of that name. Another secret.
“Goddammit, Tom,” Diana says, smacking her hand against the mattress. “That’s myson.” Quaking with anger, her fingers tighten into a fist, and she punches the mattress, leaving a dent behind. Her muscles clench as she continues pounding, yanking the sheet off from the corner. Each slam rings through her like a scream. “My son.”
She hits the mattress until her arm muscles spasm. Exhausted, she falls back against the pillow, tears sliding down her cheeks and pooling on her neck.
Why had hedeceivedher?
What if hehadleft the letter out of spite?
What if the love they shared was thereallie?
Diana keeps her body rigid for several minutes, until the idea Tom didn’t love her, had wanted to hurt her, disappears into that place inside her where she keeps the hardest of things. Then she sinks into the mattress and waits for morning.
Chapter Fifteen
Hours later, Diana stands in Aunt Teresa and Uncle Brian’s kitchen looking for coffee. Chris wants to get an early start for snowshoeing, an invitation Diana agreed to last night after her second glass of bourbon. She needs caffeine to be able to participate in the adventure he’s planned. As she searches through the cabinets, Teresa enters the room, her slippers shuffling against the tile floor.
“I was coming to start breakfast, but you beat me to it,” Teresa says sleepily, flipping on the overhead light. As if reading Diana’s mind, Teresa opens a cupboard next to the stove and selects a bag of organic beans. “Let me do this.”
The kitchen fills with the angry protest of the coffee grinder and the heavenly scent of coffee. “Any chance you have Tylenol?” Diana asks. “I have a killer headache.”
Teresa points to a cabinet across the room. “Get me some, too? I don’t usually drink bourbon.”
Inside the cabinet Diana finds a photo taped to the door. Chris and Tom, dressed in orange hunting jackets, standing in front of a woodpile. The image is blurry, but their smiles make Diana grin in response.
Teresa steps behind her. “That was taken when the boys were around fifteen. They were supposed to go hunting with Brian, but they goofed around so much he got frustrated and left without them. They thought they were so clever. Brian wasn’t having it. He grounded Chris for being rude. Tom, as I recall, talked his mother out of anypunishment. ‘I wasn’t being disrespectful to Uncle Brian,’ he argued. ‘I was exercising my right to bear, or not bear, arms.’” Teresa chuckles. “It was a ridiculous argument, but Martha could never say no to Tom, especially not after Gary died.”
Diana removes the bottle of Tylenol and selects pills for herself and Teresa. “I’ve never heard that story before.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t have.”
“Why do you say that?” Diana asks.
Teresa pours them each water in the tumblers from last night. “We didn’t see you much up here, did we? Only that one visit. When Brian and I visited you and Tom for the kids’ christenings or for Easter, it was always so busy that there wasn’t enough time to share stories. And I doubt Tom talked much about his past.”
“What do you mean?” Diana asks, dread inching down her spine. “Why wouldn’t Tom talk about the past?”
