Diana nodded. As usual, her mother’s optimism always showed through. She forgave and forgot. But Diana didn’t forget. Carlo had been a heartbreak, and even now, six months post-breakup, she could still feel the bruises deep in her heart muscle. “This doesn’t excuse her, or anyone, for that matter, Mother. She wrote that letter to Granny. It was that letter that kept her from him. And I swear Flora’s stalling, sending us back here to the hotel. Why couldn’t she just tell us what’s up?”
“Patience, dear.”
Diana rolled her eyes. A lecture was coming. She waited one second, two …
“I know you can’t understand it, but decades have passed without me knowing, so giving the woman a day or two to sort out her own story is all right with me. But the mere fact that both your granny and Flora said that my father was brave, that must have meant that it was true. And maybe there is a reason for all of this.”
Her mother was bargaining, rationalizing. And rationalizing, though it might make someone feel better, wasn’t wise to enable. Not in medicine, and surely not in love. But Diana couldn’t say any of this. “What combination should we try first?”
She took a deep breath. “How about Granny’s birthday.”
“That would be too easy.” But Margo was already sliding the lock to 3–0–3. With a flick of her thumb, it popped it open with a snap.
“Whoa.”
Margo’s eyes widened.
“Here we go,” Diana whispered as she shifted to her mother’s side and she lifted the top. The distinct smell of leather and old paper wafted from the case. Inside were sketches, old maps, pictures. But what caught Diana’s eyes were the letters interspersed with the trademark V-mail envelopes, and she fished them out. A quick glance—some were from Leora Gallagher, with her distinct handwriting and California postmark. A familiar flutter started in her belly, of nervousness.
More letters.
In complete silence, they both took turns reading each and every letter, and just as Diana predicted, her entire world was remade again.
* * *
Diana’s running shoes brushed against the hotel hallway carpet. The tips of her ponytail bounced against her neck, her earbuds in, though no music streamed through them. She had dressed herself for a run, a good fast and hard run on the hotel treadmill to clear her head, to immerse herself in the predictable.
Her mind was filled with words, endless words in rotation. Her classmates in school had envied her for having a great memory, for knowing not just the facts but the page she learned them on. Diana cataloged information into files, and then into drawers, labeled and tucked away in her head until she needed it.
But that skill was a problem when she tried to forget.
With the letters now in her head, Diana knew she needed to sweat it out, despite her run this morning. But as she approached the door to the gym on the twenty-eighth floor and peeked into the window, she found the room dark. The gym was scheduled to close at 11:00 p.m., and upon checking her phone, it was only 10:59.
She looked down to her phone, and texted the only person she knew here who had any kind of pull: Joshua.
Hey.
Something wrong?
She half laughed at both his ability to be empathetic and insulting at the same time.
No. Yes. We opened the briefcase.
Really? Want to talk about it? Room 2837.
Um, no. I was texting because your fitness room is closed before it’s supposed to be.
?
Can you open it?
It’s after eleven.
*Now* it’s after eleven
That’s my point.
Diana growled, out loud. She didn’t even care who heard her. All of her pent-up energy had to go somewhere …
Psst.
Diana looked up, curious at the noise, then dismissed it.
Seriously can you open the door?
And there went another psst noise. It came from behind her so she turned toward it.
Joshua was standing in the hallway, hands on his hips, at the opening of his room, just a few doors down. He was in sweats and a white V-neck tee. And dark-rimmed glasses—he had been wearing contacts all that time?
“I heard your growl all the way down here, Diana.”
“I’d appreciate you opening this door for me.” She pointed to the lock.
“Sorry, can’t. It’s against policy. And anyway, I don’t have the key.”
“But you own this building.”
He shrugged. “I still have to follow the rules.”
She huffed. “Fine. Thank you for nothing.” She turned to go.
“Diana, let’s have a drink. Coffee? Tea?”
She halted. “Because you want to know about the briefcase?”
“Yes, why else?” He smiled charmingly, his teeth bright in the dim hallway. Their relationship had gone from strangers to lovers to extremely complicated in a matter of forty-eight hours, and she wasn’t sure how to take that smile. Friend or foe? The guy who kept her company during the party, or the man who was suspicious of her presence?
But right now, she needed to talk things through with someone else besides her mother, and Joshua was the most convenient person.
She just had to keep her head on straight if she was going to be alone with him.
“Fine.” She walked toward him. He gestured to the open door, and she entered his brightly lit foyer.
A book sat on the hallway table, opened facedown, next to his keys and wallet. A vision of him reading on a couch, and her curled up next to him flashed in her head, because what was sexier and more comfortable than that?
“Are you alone?” she asked. Her face heated with the understanding that she hadn’t planned this well. She was attracted to this man, and whenever she was around him, there was this push-and-pull electric charge that rendered her off-balance. And what if the girls were there, and she was this woman stranger coming to their father figure’s door so late at night like this was some booty call?
She flushed, hot all of a sudden, though she swallowed a fleeting thought of them together in bed.
“Yes, all by my lonesome.”
“You know what? It’s late,” she said. “We can talk about this in the morning when we head out.” The next trip on her agenda was a Corregidor Island cruise and tour, which both Colette and Joshua would participate in. After, they’d planned to make another visit to Flora.
“Oh, no. You pulled me out of a dark night of the soul, so we might as well talk about it now.”
“A dark night of the soul?”
“The black moment?”
When she shook her head, he continued with a smirk.
“The climax of the book, when all is lost?”
She cackled. “I know what a black moment is, I just have never heard it called the dark night of the soul. That seems a little, I dunno … extra.” She unsuccessfully tried to keep a grin from slipping onto her face. The guy was a reader, as she was. Carlo hardly read, and aside from the medical journals he kept up with, he rarely picked up a book and had complained that her reading light was bothersome when he was trying to sleep.
He frowned. “Are you making fun of me?”