“You don’t deserve a nice dinner?” A tinge of pink appears on Chris’s cheeks. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? You missed me, is that it? Couldn’t stay away?”
Diana smiles. How kind he is. Handsome, too. She’s always known this, of course, but there’s something different about him this visit. She can’t quite put her finger on what it is.
Chris clears his throat, and Diana realizes she’s been staring at him. She shifts her eyes to her wineglass, trailing her fingers down its stem. “I went to visit Grace O’Connor,” she begins. “She told me about Tom, or at least the Tom she knew from thirty-five years ago.”
“Why did you need to talk to her? Tom hadn’t mentioned her or Mr. O’Connor in years. At least not to me.”
Diana removes Tom’s letter from her purse hanging off the back of her chair. “You might want to read this and listen to what I’ve learned.”
As Chris reads, Diana downs her wine. He’s quiet, but midway through, he inhales sharply, and his eyes flare. When he’s finished, his face is grim.
She begins with the time capsule, mentions the money missing from Tom’s law practice, and moves back all the way to the fire and the O’Connors. Chris doesn’t say anything while she talks, nor does he ask any questions.
When Diana finishes, the food on her plate is cold, while an empty plate sits in front of Chris. His appetite wasn’t interrupted by her truth-telling; in fact, he had seconds. “Why aren’t you upset?” she asks.
“I knew pieces of this story.” He says the words with compassion, but they slice through her. “I suppose if I wanted to look close enough, I could have figured out the rest, but I never did.”
“Why didn’t you?” Diana asks, though Grace already told her the answer:Sometimes, not looking too closely is the only way to get through a terrible time.
“Tom didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Why didn’t youmakehim talk?”
“If Tom had wanted to open up, I would have listened. He knew that.”
“Are you sure?”
Chris’s eyes narrow. “You don’t think he knew I was there for him?”
“We both loved him, and yet he didn’t tell either of us. He didn’t tell Jonathan. We were all people he trusted, yet he kept this part of himself hidden. He shared his darkest secret in this letter for me to find after he’s gone. That doesn’t read as trust to me, this from-the-grave mea culpa.”
“His mother knew. Mine did, too.”
Chris’s words slam into her chest, sparking and crackling, as if they’re alive. She reminds herself to breathe.
“I’ll tell you what I know, if that’s what you want.” Chris meets Diana’s eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Diana shouts. “Iwantto know. Ihaveto know.” She slams her hand against the table, and the plates shift along the smooth wood. The tears are hot against her cheeks,and she’s furious for losing her composure, furious all over again that she found the letter in the first place.
“This was a long time ago,” he says softly.
“It’s not long ago anymore. This letter makes Tom’s past my present. Maybe my future, too,” she says, hugging her arms around her chest. “Tell me.”
Settling back in his chair, Chris runs his hand in his hair, and the ends stand up in front. “Everything was changing that summer,” he says. “Tom and I were getting ready to leave for college, and each day felt both too fast and incredibly slow. Work took up most of our time. I washed dishes at the diner in town. Tom was at the O’Connors’ farm. We barely saw one another.
“A few days after the fire, Tom and Aunt Martha loaded his stuff into her truck and said they were going to head out early to college. They wanted to take a leisurely drive to North Carolina. He seemed distracted. I thought it was the jitters about leaving home and starting college. I had them, too, although I was only going up to UVM. This was before texting, FaceTime, and even email, remember?”
Diana thinks back to her years at college, when she stayed in touch with friends and family through late-night phone calls, the cord of the telephone curling around her hands as she sat in her cinder-block-lined dorm room.
“Tom and I didn’t really connect those first months away. We called but never caught one another. At Christmas, he went on a service project. Aunt Martha was so proud of him that no one was upset that he hadn’t come home.”
“A service project? Where?” As soon as Diana asks the question, she knows it isn’t relevant; those aren’t the details that will explain what happened the night of the fire.
“Alabama, maybe? Or Texas? I wasn’t really paying attention. Becca and I were together, and we spent most of that break in Burlington. That first Christmas set a pattern. Whenever Tom had time off and could come home, he didn’t. More service projects followed. Internships.Study abroad. He was never here.” Chris empties the wine bottle into his glass. “Want me to open another one?”
Diana holds up her hand, impatient. “I’ve had enough.”
“I probably have, too,” Chris says, though he drinks anyway. “The Christmas after Aunt Martha died, Tom again said he wasn’t coming home for the holidays. This was maybe six or seven years after the fire. I made some smart remark about how he was too good for us. My mom said I was wrong; it was best, she said, if Tom didn’t come home at all.”
