50. Daisy
Chapter 50
Daisy
Penn's black truck sits in front of my parents' house, shiny and sleek and stark against the farmhouse with the white clapboard siding. I pull up on his passenger side, shutting off the engine. Climbing out, I glance into the truck. Slim Jim stares back at me.
In an instant, my brain understands what my heart refuses. Penn would only keep his reason for leaving from me if he believed it would hurt me. And what would hurt me? Knowing my beloved parents had something to do with it.
I start for the house, and in the distance, a horse whinnies.
Instead of walking in the front door, I quietly let myself in the side door off the kitchen. The large room smells of dough, and through the oven light I see biscuits rising inside. Butter sits on the counter, softening. Duke's remarks from that day we hid behind Rowdy Mermaid in his SUV bubble to the surface. He'd said I looked like softening butter when Penn was close to me at the speakeasy. I found it funny at the time, but now it makes more sense.
My corners round. My color changes. I soften.
Penn . Why are you here?
Walking on soft feet through the house, I drift to my father's study in the back corner. Voices filter out into the hall, muted by the closed door.
When I arrive at the door, I don’t linger. I don't take a deep breath, or prepare myself. No need for eavesdropping. I want the truth, and I want it right now. I crash in, like a rhino. Or a pygmy hippo.
My father sits at his desk, horror on his face as his gaze falls on me in his open door. Penn whips his head around, and he doesn't wear the surprised look of someone who has been caught. He looks relieved.
"Why is he here?" I ask my father. Blood pounds in my ears, because I know . The details are blank spaces, but the events are taking shape. Penn crying over me, my blood on his hands. My father on phone calls behind a closed door in this same room. The way I overheard him say I won't wait for this to happen a second time .
And now, my father, the man who spent his entire life caring for me, loving me, sacrificing for me, looks me in the eyes and prepares to lie.
"Hey, Daisy Mae," he greets, almost covering up the tremble in his voice. Almost, but not quite. "Penn had some questions about that property he’s selling. His old house."
Penn's shoulder blades bunch, agitation in his muscles and the flex of his jaw.
"Is that right?" I ask my dad, crossing my arms. "You’re a real estate lawyer now?"
He chuckles uncomfortably. "Well, no."
"Real estate agent?"
A second chuckle, tighter this time. "Also no."
"What specific knowledge do you have that would lead Penn"—I glance at the utterly silent man across from my father. His head dips fractionally, as if urging me on—"to come see you?"
"Oh, you know, this and that." It's heartbreaking to watch my dad hustle, like he has a broom and he's cleaning up the detritus of the past.
"Enough," Penn speaks, a quiet strength in his voice. "Stop lying to her, Mr. St. James. Just stop ."
My dad has the absolute gall to look surprised. "Daisy," he licks his lips, a flush creeping over his neck. "I’m not sure what Penn is talking about right now, but?—"
Penn pushes back his chair, the legs protesting with the swiftness of his movement. In two strides he reaches me. I'm starved for his touch, but he keeps his hands to himself. "He paid me, Daisy." Penn's voice is urgent, like he needs me to know this old truth. "He offered my mom and I money to leave, and we accepted it. A new home for us in California. An opportunity for her to get better."
The words are a physical blow, as if they’ve grown hands and reached for me, pushing me back until my shoulder blades hit the wall behind me. My mind spins. Nothing that happened at the end of that summer made sense to me, and all those times I've looked back on it, I saw it through the eyes of a child. Muddy memories, blurred by time.
With two hands on Penn's upper arm, I push him aside as though I'm merely opening a closed curtain. My father, still seated, has prayer hands propped under his chin. He looks desolate. Exhausted. But not sorry.
"You paid him, Dad?" When he doesn't answer, I say, "How could you?"
"Dammit," my father cries, smacking his hand on the top of his desk. "It's been fifteen years. You don’t get to come in here now and act like this breaks your heart."
I can't believe what I'm hearing. All this time . "There is no statute of limitations on bad behavior. And you did break my heart back then. And this? Right now? This does hurt my heart." My lower lip trembles. "Dad, I loved him, and you paid him to go away."
"My job as your dad is to do what’s best for you, and back then that meant keeping you away from this boy." He points at Penn, the boy who is now a man, and bigger than my father. "Penn, one day you will understand that. You will have a little girl, and she will become the center of your universe, and you'll watch her develop an impossible love for a boy who doesn't stand a chance at living a normal life. And then, when he hurts her, even when it's an accident , you will make a difficult choice in her best interest. That is the painful side of parenting. Making decisions that will be hard on them, knowing it will benefit them in the future."
"Daisy?"
Three pairs of eyes swing to the door. To my mother.
She grips the handle, the other hand braced on the frame. She looks tired and frail, with dark circles under her eyes. Bonnie stands unobtrusively behind her, her face a practiced blank mask.
"Mom," I say, glancing at Penn as I pass him on my way to her. He steps aside, his hand brushing mine. His face is stricken. This is his first time seeing my mother in this state.
"How was your nap?" I ask, reaching her. I lean in, folding her into a careful hug.
"Fine, until we came downstairs to check on the biscuits Bonnie made while I was sleeping, and heard raised voices." Her gaze starts with me, then darts to my father, and lands on Penn.
Penn offers his hand to my mom. "Mrs. St. James, it's me. Penn Bellamy."
"Penn Bellamy," she says, a smile blooming on her face. She glances at me, worried confusion in her gaze. I smile intentionally, letting her know it's ok. I'm ok. Content with my response, she turns back to Penn. "Welcome home. You grew up to be handsome."
"Thank you, Mrs. St. James."
"Now," she says, remaining in position in the door. My heart breaks a little, knowing she's standing there only because she needs the assistance. "What's this all about?"
"Oh, it's nothing," my dad answers before I can. "Penn is selling his old house and wanted to run a few things by an old friend."
She doesn't know? The relief consumes me. Already I feel this is all too much to carry. I couldn't possibly hold the weight of being upset with my dying mother.
My dad's eyes plead with me. Two different thoughts war within me. She should know! competes with Why put that on her?
I look at Penn, and suddenly I want to cry. Scream, sob, fucking lose it. This dance we do to keep my mother happy, to facilitate the least painful end of life for her, is draining me.
Does Penn sense this? Read my mind? He must, because he steps up. Smiles his winningest smile, and I think if he'd given me that wide-mouth grin the first day at Summerhill, I would have recognized him in an instant. "I haven't given you a proper greeting, Mrs. St. James." He folds my fragile mom into a gentle embrace, saying, "It's been so long, and it's nice to see you again."
Her gaze sweeps to me, and she smiles. "He always was a good hugger," she remarks.
"The best," I confirm, and damn if there isn't a tear rolling down my cheek.
Penn pulls back, but stays close. "Selling an old house brings a unique set of problems, and I wanted to bend your husband's ear."
"Ahh," she nods, eager to accept the words. The last thing she needs are old transgressions paraded around. I understand my dad choosing not to tell her. I'm not any better.
"Pardon the interruption, folks," Bonnie says apologetically, peeking around my mom. "Ms. Brenda, it's time for your medication."
"It certainly is," my mother responds, sighing heavily. "I'm aching from head to toe."
My gaze collides with my dad's, a conversation passing between us. She will be gone, and it will be just us. We're not ready .
"Daisy," my mom says, like she's only just thought of something. "I can't wait to see you in my dress, baby girl. You're going to be a dream."
"You've already seen me in it, Mom," I remind her gently. "At the fitting."
"Ahh, yes, but the aisle and the flowers and your hair and makeup done makes all the difference. Tomorrow's not so long to go." She smiles, but her lips quiver. She's in pain.
Bonnie seems to understand. She loops an arm around my mom's, saying, "You just wait until you all see how I'm doing Ms. Brenda's hair for the wedding."
Penn twists a pinkie finger around mine, support I need. A reminder that he is here. "You can't be prettier than the bride, Mom," I tease, like there isn't a knife ribboning my heart.
Mom makes a pshhh sound with her lips. "Such things are not possible."
I tell her I love her, and I kiss her sunken cheek.
Bonnie walks Mom away, making it look like they are going the same pace, when in reality she's leading. I look to my dad. In her absence, he's sobbing silently. I rush to him. I am so, so mad at him, furious. But this terrible pain he's in supersedes my anger.
"Dad." I wrap my arms around him.
"Just when I think I've come to terms with her dying, it hits me all over again." He dabs at his eyes with a tissue from the box on his desk.
"Me, too." I wipe at my wet cheeks.
"Daisy, I'm sorry for everything. For the way it all happened. I never wanted to hurt you, and I know you're looking back on it now and thinking I was in the wrong, but?—"
"You weren't totally wrong, Mr. St. James." Penn, an observer of the grief in the room, comes closer. "I don't like the way it all happened, and I have a lot of complicated feelings around it, but I don't think you were all the way right, or wrong." His eyes shine, so pure of heart, and I fall a little more in love with him. "If my life had continued on that way, there would've been a lot of mistakes in my future. Mistakes going far beyond taking my mother's car and crashing it with Daisy in it. Living the way I was, becoming a teenager with a mom who had checked out? She needed help, and there was no way I could've gotten her the help she needed."
Penn . Sweet, kind Penn with his good heart and his wry sense of humor and his openness to let me feel what I feel. I love him, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
I let go of my father, rounding the desk. My hands slip over Penn's shoulders, wrapping around his neck as I bring him to me for a hug. I breathe him in and I hold him close, and my heart feels like it's home.
My dad clears his throat. "Daisy?"
Oh . I step back. Meet Penn's eyes. The corners of his mouth turn up.
"You're marrying Duke. Tomorrow," my dad says slowly, a reminder I don't need.
Regret sweeps through me, the feeling mirrored back to me in Penn's stormy eyes. "Right," I answer on a strangled whisper. It's all set. Every last detail.
"Your mother?—"
"I know, Dad. I know."
Realization widens his eyes, slackens his jaw. "Oh, Daisy Mae."
"The apple doesn't fall far," Penn says, bringing a moment of levity to a grim situation. He takes my hand, winding his fingers through it. "I love your daughter, Mr. St. James. I loved her when I was a kid, and I love her today. And in case you're wondering, I'm not going to run into the ceremony tomorrow and cause a scene."
"You're not?" I ask without thinking. A part of me had entertained that fantasy, not only because it's the epitome of romantic, but because if someone outed me, exposing what Duke and I agreed to, it would be over. An ending that wouldn't be my doing.
"I'm not going to put you in that position, Sunshine." He smirks, giving me that playful look I desperately love. "Did you want me to?"
I bite back a smile. "I might have daydreamed about it."
"Me, too," he admits.
We share a smile, a quiet laugh, and everything falls away. For a moment we are Daisy and Penn, best friends running around my parents' house, and we have all the time in the world in front of us.
A quiet heaviness settles over us as reality intrudes. By this time tomorrow, I will be as far removed from Penn as I can possibly be. I will be Duke's wife, and Penn will eventually return home to San Diego.
"Will you walk me out?" I ask him.
He nods eagerly. "Of course."
Nearly unforgotten on the other side of his desk, my dad says, "Daisy, about tomorrow..." He trails off. What is there to say?
"I'll be there, Dad. I'll give Mom her dream. I'll do everything I said I would."
He opens his mouth, hesitates. Blinks hard and shakes his head. "For what it's worth, Penn, I'm happy to see you're back. You bring something out in my little girl, that frankly, nobody else does."
"Thank you, sir."
I glance back at my father on our way out the door. Wrinkles pull at the corners of his eyes. He looks tired. Deflated.
We walk back through the house, then into the kitchen. I'd been hoping to catch my mother, give her one last hug and tell her I love her again. I could say it one hundred times a day and it wouldn't be enough to make up for all the future I love you's we will miss.
She's already disappeared with Bonnie, so I let us out the side door. Slim Jim's expression changes when he sees Penn, going from stoic to a goofy dog smile.
"So…" Penn turns to me when we're between our cars. We forgot ourselves in my father's office, but we're in public now, and we keep a polite distance just in case. The inverse of me and Duke. This whole situation is the messiest of messes, a snarl that looks impossible to untangle.
"So," I echo.
"I don't know what to say."
"Neither do I."
"This feels a lot like letting go."
My lower lips trembles. "It really does."
"I'm going to get hammered drunk tonight."
"That's probably a bad idea."
"I plan to still be drunk tomorrow."
"That's going to be a painful recovery."
"Nothing will torment me more than knowing you're someone else's wife."
The tears spill over. How could they not?
"Fuck, Daisy." His head hangs, and he grips it with his hands. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to make this harder on you than it already is."
"Every second that brings me closer to being married I become more confused and sad and scared. It's the eleventh hour. What am I doing?" I swipe under my eyes. Sniff. Penn reaches for me, and I'm yearning to step into him, to feel soothed by him.
He thinks better of it, and drops his hands.
Something in my peripheral vision catches my eye, and I look up at my mother's window. There is nothing there, except perhaps a slight movement of her lace curtain, but maybe I'm imagining it.