“Mom, Mom!”
Diana groans and rolls over.
“Mom?”
She opens her raw and sticky eyes to Duncan standing next to her bed, wearing his parka and carrying his sneakers, a worried look on his face.
“Hey, honey.”
Too much wine last night,she thinks, her tongue darting around her dry mouth.And not enough sleep.
“Mom, it’s 7:36. Aren’t you supposed to be up for work by now?” Duncan turns the bedside clock around so the red numbers blink in Diana’s line of sight. She’s overslept by more than an hour. She pushes off the covers and sits up so fast she feels a sloshing in her head, as if her brain is swimming the breaststroke in her skull.
“Dammit, I have an 8:30 meeting. Where’s your sister?”
“Sleeping.”
“Okay, I got this.” Diana forces a smile. “Thanks for waking me up.” She heads toward the bathroom, calves still aching from yesterday’s run. “You better get going. You don’t need to be late, too.”
“Mom?” Duncan doesn’t move from his spot next to the bed. “What did Dad’s letter say?”
The letter,she thinks, looking at her bedside table. She stashed it in the top drawer only hours earlier.Phoebe might forget about it, but Duncan never would.
“He wanted me to tell you he loved you.” Diana grasps the doorknob for support. “And that the three of us were the best part of his life.”
She can’t tell Duncan all of it. She didn’t fall asleep until after 4:00 a.m., imagining what Tom did that was so bad he couldn’t tell her about it when he was alive.
Duncan purses his lips into a stiff line. She wants to wrap her arms around him, but she’s learned to wait for him to let her in.
“Can I read it?”
“The letter was for me. I’ve told you what he wanted me to share.”
Duncan twists his sneakers in his hands, the laces swaying.
“You should get going. We can talk about this later.”
“Uncle Evan’s taking me to that basketball clinic tonight. I’ll be home late.”
Since Tom’s death, Diana’s brother-in-law, Evan, has stepped in to help with Duncan, driving him to out-of-town games and taking him to buy new basketball shoes when, thanks to a substantial growth spurt, his old pair became too small. The irony, Andrea pointed out, was that Evan hadn’t known a bank shot from a fast break when Tom died. He learned, though, studying basketball websites to find ways to engage Duncan in shop talk during their drives from games in one eastern Massachusetts town to the next. It was one of many ways Diana’s family built a safety net underneath her and her kids.
“We’ll talk tomorrow then,” Diana says. “I love you. Have a good day at school.”
Duncan slips out of her room without responding. She listens to the stairs creak under his feet and the front door open and close before moving into the bathroom.
Tom still hovers on the edge of her thoughts. Diana’s dream was so vivid she can still feel his body against hers, and the sensation makes her off kilter and jumpy.
Oversleeping doesn’t help either. She planned to get up early to prepare for her meeting with the library’s communications team, but that’s not going to happen. She’ll have to wing it.
After relieving her bladder and washing her face, Diana brushes her teeth, the bristles scraping against her gums, blood staining her toothbrush. She steps into the shower and trembles under the cold water, scrubbing away last night’s run and forcing herself awake.
Toweling off, Diana avoids glancing at herself in the mirror, certain if she does, she’ll see the deepening grooves in her forehead and the web of fine lines under her eyes. She’s seen a worn version of herself for months. Sometimes, when she remembers how she was before—more vibrant, more hopeful—she cries.
Back in her room, Diana checks the clock: 7:41 a.m. There isn’t time to do much with her shoulder-length, wavy hair, other than sticking it in a ponytail. She opens her closet, avoiding looking to the left, where Tom’s clothes still hang. Her mother used to urge her to clear out his belongings, but Diana said no every time Vivian brought it up. Eventually she stopped asking.
As if she’s aware Diana is thinking about her, Diana’s phone rings, and her mother’s face appears on the screen. Diana debates silencing the call, but Vivian will only call again and again until she answers.
“Mom, I’m running late for work. I can’t talk,” Diana says. She puts the phone on speaker and rips the dry-cleaning bag off a pair of black wool pants and a beige cashmere sweater. She has no idea whenher mother took her clothes to the dry cleaner and placed them in her closet, though she appreciates the help.
