Chapter 7: Carteret Street
Henry drove.
He didn't offer to come in with me and I didn't ask him to.
He pulled up outside the coffee shop on Carteret Street at ten minutes to four and left the engine running.
"I'll be right here," he said.
I looked at the door of the café.
Through the window I could see a few tables, afternoon light, a woman behind the counter.
"What if I say the wrong thing?" I said.
"There isn't a right thing," Henry said.
"There's just what happens."
I got out of the car.
The café was small and smelled of dark roast and something baked with cinnamon.
A ceiling fan turned overhead.
Two older men sat near the window with a chessboard between them.
I chose a table near the back and ordered tea I didn't want.
At four minutes past four, the door opened.
I knew her immediately.
Not because she looked like Matt — though she did, around the jaw, around the eyes, in the way she held her shoulders back even when she was uncertain.
I knew her because she scanned the room the exact same way Matt used to scan a room.
Methodical.
Careful.
Looking for the person he was supposed to meet before they saw him.
Her eyes found me.
She was tall.
Dark hair going silver at the temples.
She was wearing scrubs under an open jacket, and she looked like someone who was used to walking into difficult rooms and staying steady inside them.
She crossed to my table and stopped.
"Eleanor," she said.
"Diane," I said.
She sat down.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
The woman behind the counter called out an order.
One of the chess players laughed at something.
"Thank you for coming," Diane said finally.
"Thank you for calling." I paused.
"I mean that.
I think I needed someone else to make the first move."
Something in her expression loosened slightly.
"I almost didn't," she said.
"I picked up the phone four times before I actually dialed."
"I almost didn't answer."
"I know.
I wouldn't have blamed you."
The tea arrived.
I wrapped my hands around the cup.
"Tell me about yourself," I said.
"Not about Matt.
About you.
Who are you?"
She looked at me carefully, as though checking whether the question was genuine.
It was.
"I'm a nurse," she said.
"Pediatric ward.
I've been there eleven years." A pause.
"I have a cat named Gerald who is deeply unpleasant and I love him anyway.
I grow tomatoes badly every summer.
I read too much and sleep too little." She stopped.
"I'm not sure what else to say."
"That's a good start," I said.
A silence.
Not uncomfortable.
More like two people finding their footing on new ground.
"Can I ask you something?" Diane said.
"Yes."
"Are you angry?
At me?"
I looked at her directly.
"No," I said.
"You didn't do anything.
You were a child.
You didn't choose any of this any more than I did."
Her jaw moved slightly.
"Some people in your position would be."
"Some people in my position haven't had a week to think about it," I said.
"And I've had a week.
And I've been angry at Matt.
And at the situation.
But not at you."
She nodded slowly.
"He talked about you," she said.
"When he came to see me.
He talked about you more than he talked about himself."
My chest tightened.
"What did he say?"
"He said you were the steadiest person he had ever known.
He said you held everything together for so long that he sometimes forgot to check whether you were okay." She paused.
"He said that was his greatest failure.
Not me.
Not the secret.
The fact that he spent forty-six years letting you hold everything and never once asked if the weight was too much."
My eyes filled.
I didn't try to stop it.
"He was right," I said.
"About that part."
Diane reached across the table.
She didn't take my hand.
She just placed hers near mine, close enough to be an offer.
"I don't want anything from you," she said quietly.
"I want you to know that.
I'm not here for money or the estate or to claim anything.
I just wanted to know — " Her voice caught for the first time.
"I just wanted to know if the part of him that was good was real."
I looked at her.
Matt's jaw.
Matt's eyes.
A stranger who was not entirely a stranger.
"It was real," I said.
"It was complicated and imperfect and he made choices I will never fully forgive.
But the good in him was real."
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
Outside, the afternoon light was going golden on the street.
I thought about the shell in my jacket pocket.
The ugly one.
The one with the best story.
"I'd like to come back," I said.
"If that's all right.
Not today.
But again."
Diane looked up.
"Yes," she said.
"I'd like that."
I reached into my pocket and set the shell on the table between us.
"He would have wanted you to have something of his," I said.
"I don't have anything of his with me.
But I have this."
May you like
She looked at it for a long moment.
Then she picked it up and held it carefully, the way you hold something you don't want to drop.
