After the phone call with her mother, Diana slides back into bed with Chris. They make love again, this time with an intensity that makes Diana already regret having to leave in the morning.
Afterward, she lies in his arms, her head next to his on the pillow. “Nowthatwas great,” he says, his lips on hers as his fingers trace circles across her thighs.
“Better than great,” she murmurs before falling into a dreamless sleep.
Diana wakes before dawn, the alarm on her phone beeping insistently. She tiptoes out of Chris’s bedroom. He follows, pulling on his boxers again. “Do you want me to make you coffee or breakfast before you go?”
“No, thanks,” Diana says, looking for her clothes. “I’ll stop somewhere.” She finds her underwear first, in the hallway.
“Can I ask a favor?” Chris says as she hooks on her bra, his eyes lingering on her chest.
Diana’s skin warms under his attention, and she reluctantly pulls on her sweater. “Yes,” she says, uncertain what she’s agreeing to, but they’re in a precarious place. Their relationship—Dalliance? Affair? She’s not sure what to call it—can be easy or very, very difficult. She already has enough problems in her life; she’d much prefer easy.
“If you have other questions about Tom, come to me. I promise I’ll help in any way I can. My mom was upset after your questions, and I’d like to leave her and my dad out of this.”
As much as she would love to get Teresa and Brian to talk to her, Diana would ask the same to protect her parents. “Okay,” she agrees, yanking on her jeans. “But there is someone else.”
“Who? They’re all dead,” he says, grimacing. “Everyone else you could talk to is gone.”
“Remember Jessica?” Diana locates one of her socks under the dining table and another, oddly enough, under the sofa. “The O’Connors’ niece? She might have the answers I need. I have her address in New Hampshire.”
“You know, I met her.”
Diana stills. “What was she like?”
“A few times that summer, she came into the diner with Tom. I wasn’t supposed to leave the kitchen, so I’d say hello and go back to work. They’d sit at the counter and get something to eat. I thought she was a casual friend, maybe a summer fling. No one of consequence in his life,” says Chris, running his hand through his sleep-tousled hair. “I don’t think I ever asked any questions about her.”
Would Diana have uncovered all this sooner had she asked Tom different questions? Or been more observant?
She stuffs her feet into her boots and grabs her coat. “Why did you tell me all of this? You didn’t have to.”
Chris collects her purse from the dining room chair. “For years, I was angry about Tom’s distance from our family. I need to let go of that.” He hands the purse to Diana and tucks her hair behind her ears. “And that letter? He said hurtful things in it. I can’t fathom what it felt like to read it. I want to help.”
He kisses her, and his sawdust and cotton scent lingers. She’ll smell him on her skin all the way home.
“Thank you,” he says with a mischievous grin, “for agreatnight.”
Diana’s body pulls toward Chris. She wants to drag him down the hall and tumble back into his bed. She should tell him last night can’t happen again, but she finds that those words aren’t what she wants to say. “I’m happy about being with you”—Chris’s hands tighten on her waist—“though I’m not sure what comes next.”
“We’ll see each other again.” Chris smiles. “And who knows?”
“And who knows,” she agrees, kissing him goodbye.
The sun rises in Diana’s rearview mirror as she crosses the border into Massachusetts. Swallowing bitter rest-stop coffee she picked up outsideHamilton, she increases her speed past the posted limit. She is nervous to see Duncan and uncertain what to say about her trip to Hamilton.
A list, naturally, would be helpful. This habit of hers is becoming increasingly useful in sifting through these questions about Tom. Distracting, too.Not distracting, distancing. It allows me to stay removed, maybe only a fraction of an inch, but that gap is there,she thinks.That may not be good for me, but I can’t give it up—at least, not yet.
“What will the list be today, Diana?” In the quiet of the car, she carries on a conversation with herself, not caring what drivers passing her by might think. “All the mistakes I’ve made? What a mess of a parent I am? Chris?”
What Would I Say to Tom?
Ah, there it is. What would she say if he were sitting in the seat next to her?
It’s good to see you.
He’s there, in the corner of her eye. The Tom she remembers: vibrant with health, his skin golden, his hair curling around his ears. She wants to touch him, to smell him again.
I miss you so much.
