“I rode my bike. Needed the exercise,” Andrea says. “How can I help?”
“Set the table, please,” The General answers for Diana. “We’ll be ready to eat soon.”
“She really does like to tell us what to do,” Andrea mutters to Diana. “I’ll get right on it, Mom,” she says to Vivian, pulling the silverware from the drawer.
After dinner, as Vivian contends with Phoebe’s bedtime routine, Diana kneels in front of the fireplace, adding newspaper, kindling, and a large log to the hearth. This is the last of the fires she’ll make until autumn arrives, and she wants the blaze to last.
The fireplace was what sold them on the house. “We’ll sit in front of it with our kids,” Tom said. Duncan wasn’t conceived yet, but the idea of him was on their minds. “Movie nights, Christmases, birthdays. All here.”
“I’ve never built a fire,” Diana said. She saw the rest of her life taking shape in that house, and she was left breathless, like she was free-falling off a cliff.
“I’ll do it,” Tom said. “I’ll take care of it, of us.” And he had, for as long as he could.
After his diagnosis, he taught her how to use the snowblower, light the boiler, and check for ice dams—chores for which he had been responsible. One of the last duties he passed on was the fireplace, and together, one early-summer evening, they built a fire. Diana learned to open the flue, check for squirrels stuck in the chimney, and clean out the grate. Tom was patient throughout the lesson. She cried the whole time, barely listening, imagining herself throwing the poker through the window in frustration.
As the wood catches fire, Diana closes the mesh safety screen and moves to the sofa. Andrea leans against her, and Diana inhales the scent of her sister’s lemongrass shampoo. Andrea takes her left hand and rubs the empty spot on Diana’s ring finger. “This still okay?” she whispers. Diana’s mother and sister immediately noticed the missing rings, each looking at her with the same worried forehead crinkle, each checking in several times since she returned from Vermont to make sure she didn’t regret the decision.
“Yes, Andie, it is.” Diana slides her arm around her sister, and the only sound in the room is the ticking of the clock on the mantel.
Vivian enters the living room a few minutes later. “I don’t know how Phoebe did it, but she convinced me to read three books, despite my firm declaration I had a limit of two.” She lowers onto the leather chair next to the fireplace. “Diana, how was your visit with Tom’s family? You haven’t talked much about it.”
“Chris and I went snowshoeing,” Diana says, electing not to tell her mother and sister what else she and Chris did. “It was good to spend time with Teresa and Brian, and Teresa passed on Tom’s childhood photo album.”
She fantasizes what it would be like to tell her mother and sister about the letter. She sees herself stand up, walk into the office, open the bottom desk drawer, and pull out the fireproof box, where she placed the letter after Duncan’s discovery and the intruder’s unwelcome visit. Diana imagines unlocking the box with the gold key hidden in the jarof paper clips on top of the desk, removing Tom’s letter, and handing it to her mother.
“Diana?” her mother asks. “Are you okay?”
Diana decides to plunge ahead although the outcome is uncertain. “Remember that letter Phoebe mentioned a few weeks ago at Family Dinner? The one Tom wrote me before he died? It wasn’t a love letter, and it’s the real reason I went to Vermont.”
Andrea sits up, her feet hitting the floor. “That was weeks ago,” she says. “You’ve kept this from us all this time? What does it say?”
“It’s complicated.” Diana returns to the fireplace to select another log from the brass bin under the window.
“Lossiscomplicated, sweetheart,” Vivian says. “When my mother died, I found the immediate months after were focused on planning the funeral, cleaning out her house, and dealing with paperwork. It took some time for me to be able to articulate what it meant for me to no longer have her in my life. Maybe that’s where you are? And why you didn’t mention this letter sooner?”
“That’s some of it.” Diana recognizes the relief in her mother’s eyes: problem identified and solution offered.
“What about the letter?” Andrea asks. “What does it say?”
“You don’t have to tell us, if you don’t want to,” Vivian says. “If it’s difficult for you, I mean.”
“You already know about it,” Diana says, heading toward the office. “You might as well read it.”
After Vivian skims the letter, she hands it to Andrea, who, in her eagerness, nearly snatches it from her mother’s hands. Andrea finishes the letter in record time, and her reaction includes several exclamations of “you’re making this up” and “this is bullshit.”
Before their questions begin, Diana tells them the rest of the story: the time capsule, her late-night internet searches, Lakshmi’s help, hermeeting with Jonathan and the missing money, her fact-finding trip to theHamilton Star, the visit to the O’Connor farm, the additional pieces of the story Chris knew all along, and her journey to Nashua to look for Jessica.
Vivian scoots to the edge of her chair and points to the letter. “Diana, I’m most concerned about these people he mentions. Have you noticed anything strange? Maybe you should go to the police.”
The car driving by late at night. The intruder. The missing key and photo. The phone calls. Those incidents will only alarm her mother and Andrea, and calling the police will make this whole situation more complicated. “We’re good, Mom. You don’t need to worry.”
Vivian nods and shifts back in her chair.
“You told Lakshmi about this before you told us? And Jonathan?” Andrea asks. “Lakshmi, I understand, but not Jonathan. I’m kind of pissed about that.”
“I thought I should get a legal opinion, that’s all.”
“He and Lily ghosted you after Tom died. He doesn’t have your back.”
