Diana pulls out Tom’s flannel robe and the blue L.L. Bean fleece he wore on winter weekends, along with the cashmere sweater from their first official date. She puts aside his ties for Duncan and a law school sweatshirt for Phoebe. “The rest goes.”
She and Andrea get to work, speaking only when Andrea has a question about an item. It will take a while for the free-for-all of sisterhood to return; eventually, they will find their rhythm again, though it will be different between them. Andrea has grown too accustomed to being the one who has it together, the one who “fixes” Diana’s life.
My life doesn’t need fixing,Diana thinks.Or at least, not the kind of fixing anyone can do except for me.
Andrea opens a new bag for Tom’s baseball caps. Diana rescues his favorite Red Sox cap for the keep pile, along with his last pair of running sneakers.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Andrea says. “We got a letter from Noah’s teacher. She’s putting together a time capsule for the kids to open when they graduate high school. Could parents please contribute a letter for their child? Can you believe it? The last thing this family needs is another time capsule.” Chuckling, she adds the bag to the growing pile in the corner of the room.
Diana offers a small smile. “Even though my experience with time capsules has been”—she pauses to find the right word—“unconventional, that doesn’t mean they’re bad. It’s quite a nice idea.”
“‘Unconventional’ is an understatement. More like ‘screwed up.’”
Diana pulls Duncan’s baseball bat from under her bed and leans it in the corner by the door so she’ll remember to put it back in the downstairs closet. “You should write the letter, Andie. Include a photo of the kids from earlier today, playing in the yard. It will be good to remember.”
It’s past midnight when everyone finally departs. The light under Duncan’s door tells Diana he’s still awake, and when she enters his bedroom, she finds him propped up against the headboard, watching the door. She sits next to him, and the mattress shifts with her weight. She hands him the photo she found in the trash of himself and Tom on the basketball court. She’s taped it together; strips of cellophane crisscross their bodies. Their faces are intact, but the basketball is lost in the gash across the middle. “I thought you’d want this back.”
He carefully holds the photo in his palm. “You found Jessica, didn’t you?”
“I met her while you and Phoebe went fishing with Grandma and Grandpa.”
“And?” His tone is so eager, so trusting. “What did she say about Dad?”
Diana taps the rings hanging around her neck. Tom should have told her the truth years ago. If he had, Duncan wouldn’t be part of this story now. She’ll never be able to forgive him for that. “Many years ago, your father made a terrible mistake. He could never move past it, but we’re not going to hold on to it anymore.”
Duncan listens as she recounts an abridged telling of Tom’s role in the fire, deliberately omitting his culpability in Carson’s death. She can’t do that to her son.
When she finishes, he drops his head on her shoulder, and they sit quietly, holding hands. Diana is curious how he’s matching this new vision of Tom with his memories of his father, but she doesn’t ask. Maybe later she will.
Duncan breaks their silence with the phrase they’ll think a thousand times, at birthdays and basketball games, on special occasions and ordinary days. “I miss him.”
“Me too.” She understands that Duncan will revisit the story she’s told him again and again. Probably for the rest of his life. “Remember that your dad loved you. He was so proud to be your father.”
“I love him, too.” His voice is drowsy, and soon, Duncan’s deep and even breathing tells her he’s fallen asleep. She shifts him onto the pillow and turns off the light.
She should go to bed, too, but she’s kept alert by memories: her own, and now Jessica’s. They met only this morning, but already, the specifics are distorted, as if they’re underwater, worn away by the waves into something colorless and delicate.
Downstairs in the office, Diana turns on the computer and slides the cursor across the screen to a folder titled “Our Wedding.” She sets the images to slideshow, and her screen fills with a photo of Chris and Tom putting on boutonnieres and grinning. Another of Aunt Teresa and Uncle Brian walking into the church with Tom. Diana and Andrea, standing in their parents’ yard on that steamy summer day in front of a row of blue hydrangeas, heavy with flowers shaped like stars.
She should be mad at Tom, furious and raging at his betrayal. Those feelings kindle inside her, a fire seeking to ignite. Before they blaze, however, Diana remembers Grace’s description of anger’s addictive qualities, how it could become all-consuming:I haven’t been able to let my anger or pain go,Grace said.You should.
“I’ll try,” Diana murmurs, focusing on dousing those embers of pain, one by one.
Another photo appears on the screen. This one is of Diana alone. She remembers her mother waiting behind the photographer, powder in hand, ready for touch-ups, and the way her thighs, slick with sweat, stuck together as she adjusted her skirt. She remembers running her hands across the bodice of her dress, the lace tickling her fingers.
She enlarges the image, her face filling the screen. This Diana was passive. She never questioned Tom too closely about anything, not his family history, not his long hours at work, and not the reasons why he was reluctant to return to Hamilton. That Diana didn’t demand much from those around her. If only she’d been different then. If only he had, too.
Diana removes the letter and its copies from her pocket and unfolds the pages on the desk. Would Tom have ever told her about Jessica if he’d had more time?
This thread of the story is unresolved, tied up in a knot she will never unravel. It will always tug at her, especially when she feels his loss most keenly.
The photos continue to advance: Tom and Diana’s first dance, the wedding cake covered in sugar-spun flowers, the crystal chandelier above the dance floor glowing in the sun that streamed through the leaded windows. The slideshow ends on a black-and-white photo of Tom and Diana posing at the foot of a staircase, both unaware of how life would turn them about.
Her fingers clamp onto the letter. By now, the words are second nature to her. She repeats them like a prayer, her lips moving silently:When I was 18 years old, I did something criminal. Something so terrible I can’t even write the details here. People died. It’s all my fault.
The answer of what to do next comes to Diana like a door opening from a darkened house into a bright day, bringing light to where there was an untenable murkiness. She opens the desk drawer and takes out the folder containing her research: the items she photographed while visiting theHamilton Star, the brochure for the O’Connor farm sale, printouts from the internet, Jessica’s cell phone bill, the paper from Grace with Jessica’s Nashua address scribbled in blue ink, the sketches from Tom’s notebook of Jessica and the horses, and Grace’s photo of Tom and Jessica. Inside she puts the original letter and its two copies and leaves the office.
In the kitchen, she takes the original letter from the folder, tracing Tom’s signature one last time. She drops the folder into the sink and opens the small drawer where she keeps odds and ends. Hidden under a coupon for Sully’s breakfast sandwiches, she finds a matchbook. She opens the cardboard flap and pulls out one match, igniting it with an efficient switch of her hand.
