evening, at least, is comfortable and familiar.
“I was so impressed to hear about your charity,” I say, once Diana is finally sitting rather than serving. “Ollie is so proud of you, he talks about it to anyone who’ll listen.”
Diana smiles vaguely in my direction, reaching for the cauliflower cheese. “Does he?”
“You’d better believe it. I’d love to hear more about it.”
Diana spoons some cauliflower onto her plate, focusing intently on the transaction as if she were performing surgery. “Oh? What would you like to hear?”
“Well …” I feel under the spotlight suddenly. “I guess … what gave you the idea to start it? How did it get off the ground?”
Diana shrugs. “I just saw the need. It’s not rocket science, collecting baby goods.”
“She’s humble.” Tom pushes more lamb onto his fork, still chewing what’s in his mouth. He shoves the forkful into his mouth and keeps talking. “It’s her Catholic upbringing.”
“How did you two meet?” I ask, realizing that Ollie has never told me this.
“They met at the movies,” Nettie says. “Dad saw Mum across the foyer and sparks flew.”
Tom and Diana exchange a glance. There is affection in their gaze but something else too, something I can’t quite place.
“What can I say? I knew right away that she was the one. Diana wasn’t like anyone else that I knew. She was … smarter. More interesting. Out of my league, I thought.”
“Mum came from a well-to-do family,” Nettie explains. “Middle class, Catholic. Dad was a country boy, no connections, no money. Nothing but the shirt on his back.”
I take a moment to undo the unconscious conclusion I’d come to the moment I walked into the house—that Diana had married Tom for his money. It’s a sexist thought, but not a ridiculous conclusion to come to, seeing the disparity in their looks. The fact that she’d married him for love raises Diana a few notches in my opinion.
“And how about you, Diana,” I ask. “Did you just know?”
“Course she did!” Tom says, framing his face in his hands. “How could you not, seeing this face?”
Everyone laughs.
“Actually I’ve been trying to tell him I’m not interested for nearly forty years but he just keeps speaking over the top of me,” Diana says wryly. She and Tom exchange a smile.
After her earlier formality, it’s nice to see this side of her. I allow myself to hope that once we’ve spent some more time together, she’ll let me into this inner sanctum of hers. Maybe one day I’ll even start helping her with her charity? Diana might not be the easiest nut to crack, but I’ll get there. Before long, we’re sure to be the best of friends.
I was thirteen when my mother, Joy, died. Mum was aptly named—always having fun, never taking herself too seriously. She wore kerchiefs and dangly earrings, and she sang loudly in the car when the radio played a song she liked. At my birthday parties, she came in fancy dress, even though none of the other adults did, and she had a pair of tap shoes that she liked to wear from time to time, even though she’d never learned how to tap.
That was the kind of person my mother was.
The only time I saw Mum dress in black—without so much as a headband or wiglet or adornment—was when she attended a conference or dinner with Dad. Dad is the polar opposite of Mum—conservative, serious, gentle. The only time Mum reined in her personality, in fact, was for Dad. When Dad decided to switch tenures midway through his academic career—something tricky and likely to undermine his career and our livelihood—she supported him without question. “Dad’s job is to look after us, our job is to look after him.”
Dad never recovered after she died. Apparently statistics indicate that most men remarry within three years of a previous relationship ending, but twenty years on, Dad is still happily single. Your mother was my life partner, he always says, and a life partner is for life.
Dad hired a housekeeper after Mum died, to cook and clean and shop for us. Maria was probably fifty, but with her black hair flecked with grey and rolled into a coil she may as well have been a hundred. She wore skirts and pantyhose and low-heeled court shoes, and floral aprons she sewed herself. Her own children were grown and the grandchildren hadn’t shown up yet. She came from twelve noon until six P.M. every day. I don’t know what Maria’s official role was insofar