Everyone knew about this except for me,Diana thinks.
“My mom said Tom had been at the O’Connors’ the night of the fire. When he came home the next morning, he wouldn’t tell Aunt Martha what happened. He did ask her to say, if the police came around, that he’d been home with her. She agreed, though she was frustrated he wouldn’t tell her why.”
“So hewasat the farm that night.” This is the first piece of information that directly links Tom to the fire. Everything before this moment could have been explained away. But not this.
“The police chief and Aunt Martha were old friends, so he told her about the investigation,” Chris says. “He mentioned a cigarette started the fire before it was released to the public. That was when Aunt Martha decided Tom needed some distance from Hamilton. Even though the chief had pinned this on Carson, Aunt Martha didn’t want anyone to look closely at Tom. She knew he smoked—she nagged him about it all the time—and she was suspicious. Or frightened. Probably both. She begged my mom not to tell this to anyone, not even my dad. My mom didn’t talk about it until after Aunt Martha died.”
“If this secret was so important, why did your mom tell you? Why didn’t she keep it to herself?” Diana’s brain is sluggish and filled with questions.
“My mom said I needed to know, that I couldn’t say anything to anyone. Maybe this insight would help me find a way to reconnect with Tom. Strangely enough, it did. I called him up, and it was like no time had passed. This was all before you two met.”
“Did you ever ask him about the fire or Carson or the O’Connors?”
Chris shakes his head. “I tried. He always changed the subject. Once, he even told me to shut up and back off. So I did. Our lives were so different. I guess I didn’t want to lose what we had.”
“What about your mom and Martha? Why did Martha tell your mom? I’m not following all of this.”
“You know Aunt Martha had heart failure? She needed a transplant but was too sick to qualify for one. She told my mom all of this before she died, when it was clear she didn’t have much time left. My mom and Aunt Martha were best friends since childhood, practically real sisters. My mom was a second mother to Tom, like Aunt Martha was for me. I guess Aunt Martha didn’t want Tom to be alone in this and hoped my mom would support him.”
Deathbed confessions are a tradition in this family,thinks Diana, though she’s glad she has the good sense to keep this comment to herself.
Chris continues, “Aunt Martha didn’t tell Tom how bad her illness was. My mom had enough of that and called him up. Tom was in law school. My mom said he had to get his ass to the hospital to be with his mother. She was the one who told him his mother was dying. He was sitting at Aunt Martha’s bedside when my mom arrived at the hospital the next morning. Aunt Martha passed away four days later.”
“What about Carson?”
“I haven’t thought about Carson Roy in years.” Chris tips his chair back onto its rear legs. “We played Little League together. He was a good shortstop. By high school, he was high all the time.”
“And Tom was friends with him.” Diana is having a hard time concealing her annoyance with the pace by which this story is unfolding and that the answers aren’t immediately available.That’s how this secret stayed hidden,she realizes.If it was easy to see, I might have noticed something a long time ago.
“Were they friends?” Chris again rubs his hands through his hair. “Are people friends with their dealers? Maybe?”
“Dealer?”
“Carson was Alcott High’s resident drug dealer. Pot. Cocaine. Pills. It’s a miracle he never got arrested. I still can’t figure out how he managed that.”
Diana stares at Chris. Did she mishear him? Did he say “dealer”?
“Tom never talked about high school?” Chris asks.
“He told me he played basketball, that’s about it.”
“Tom was a big partier. Occasionally I joined him, but getting high and trying every kind of illegal drug out there wasn’t my thing. During the school year, his partying was only on the weekends. Since our grades were good and we managed to avoid real trouble, our parents gave us a lot of leeway. Aunt Martha wasn’t really on top of him, anyway. Those days, she worked two jobs, trying to save up for his college. More and more during our senior year, it was a mystery where Tom was or what he was up to. It was like whatever he was doing, he knew I wouldn’t approve, so he cut me out.”
The room starts to whirl, and Diana’s vision fogs. Wheezing, she bends down and puts her head between her knees.
Chris is around the table in an instant, crouching by her head. “What’s happening?”
“He ... he didn’t tell me any of this,” she says, the words coming out in a staccato beat between gasps. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Let me get you water.” Chris runs into the kitchen and returns with a glass filled to the brim. “Can you sit up?”
Diana slowly raises her head and sips the tepid water Chris offers her. The room is still again, but his words echo.Tom was a big partier. Occasionally I joined him, but getting high and trying every kind of illegal drug out there wasn’t my thing.
“I don’t know why he didn’t tell you,” Chris says. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”
Diana is lining up the pieces of this story, one by one. “Tom said coming home to Hamilton was painful, which is why we stayed away. I thought this place held too many bad memories for him.” She snorts. “I guess I was right.”
“Diana—”
