Chapter 47 Daisy - DNA
DAISY DNA
There was overreacting, and then there was what I had done in Mason’s office, which needed an entirely new word.
Because it was well over the border of normal human reaction.
So, yes, I could argue that I had overreacted because I loved Maisy so much and I wanted what was best for her.
But now, back home, with a glass of wine and a sleeping baby, I knew I was being really, really selfish.
I felt connected to her, but I’m sure her mother did too.
And that her father would. And her grandparents.
My job was to keep Maisy safe until the next best step was decided. I had totally lost sight of that.
Plus, I was the one who had cued Sarah that night we were in the hospital. The father had safe surrendered the baby. That much was true, even if he wasn’t fully aware of it. She was only using what I had given her.
I could pick up the phone and call Mason and tell him that. I could right the wrong. But then there was a tiny knock on the door.
I opened it, and Greer flung herself around my legs.
A smiling Amelia stood behind her with some sort of dish in her hand.
I waved her in, worrying that I hadn’t really cleaned the kitchen today.
Then again, Amelia had had baby twins. She had toddler twins now.
Surely organizational perfection was not something she expected.
“I thought you might need dinner,” Amelia said.
I scrunched my nose. “So, you heard.” Of course Mason would have told his sister-in-law about my complete nervous breakdown.
“Heard what?” She looked genuinely curious, so maybe I was wrong. “I just figured you might need to eat something that wasn’t from a package.”
I nodded, overcome with gratitude.
“Where’s baby Maisy?” Greer asked.
“She’s asleep,” I whispered.
Greer put her finger up to her lips.
“Maybe Aunt Daisy would let you watch Disney while we have a glass of wine?” Amelia said.
Greer’s eyes went wide. “Extra screen time?” she whispered as if she was incanting a spell. “What about George?”
“I’ll give George extra screen time sometime to make it fair.”
Greer was very big on fairness. I predicted that she would be a lawyer one day. I poured a glass of wine for Amelia as she fiddled with my TV and then joined me at the dining table.
“So, now you’ve got me curious,” she said, taking a sip and grinning.
“Oh, Amelia.” I put my head in my hands. I filled her in on all the details of the police visit and what I had said to Mason afterward. I wanted—no, needed—her to say, Daisy, it’s not that bad.
But she didn’t. How could she? Because I had put my needs over those of a teenage girl in a world of pain. It was pretty awful. I was pretty awful. I wanted to blame my mother. Would that work? I knew it wouldn’t.
When I finally looked up at her, Amelia was studying me. “Are you rethinking letting me watch your children?”
She shook her head. “I’m using my journalistic skills to psychoanalyze you.”
I sat up straighter. “Oh, thank goodness. Have you diagnosed me yet?”
She raised her eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure I have.”
The way she looked at me… I knew she knew. A sorrow that I never, ever let myself feel, that I hadn’t fully let myself lean into since I was a teenager, grabbed at my throat.
“So I’m right,” she said.
Tears burst out of me at the same time as “They didn’t even want her. They will never want her. And I’m not going to let what happened to me happen to her.”
Amelia moved closer and put her arm around me. “Oh, thank God,” she said. “I was hoping that you were scarred, not just a total monster.” I couldn’t help but laugh. I wiped my eyes.
“Thank you for that,” I said. “Because I can assure you, I was thinking that I was.”
Amelia leaned back and took another sip of her wine.
“Man,” she said, “you know, it’s funny, because when I went off to college and then moved to Palm Beach, I used to think, People would never even believe what I dealt with living down here.
And then I realized that, sure, yeah, I had a crazy aunt that lived in the east wing and a mother and her best friend who ran our little town through genius tactics of meddling and manipulation.
And a long-suffering daddy who had to put up with it all.
But the older I get, the more I realize that that’s not bad stuff. That’s just more love.”
My eyes filled as she talked. I nodded.
And my heart ached thinking of Mason, of how I had blown my chance at being a part of this family that I had fallen so hopelessly in love with.
I had created something beautiful for myself and then shot it to hell.
Was it on purpose? Was I afraid that if I let him really love me, if I let myself get truly attached to a family, they would leave?
I knew I was letting myself off easy. Like, well, my mom left me, so now I’m ruined forever. But hadn’t I been hiding behind that one for a while? It was time to move on. If I didn’t, how was I going to be the mother that Maisy truly needed if I did end up getting that chance?
“Mommy!” Greer said, fiddling with the remote. “The news people are talking about Uncle Mason!”
I jumped up, assuming this was about Maisy and the rescue. Amelia said, “I’m sure it’s just her imagination. She has a big one, you know!”
I got to Greer’s side at the tail end of a shot panning a baseball field that was way too fancy to be in Cape Carolina.
I smiled. That was so sweet. She must associate every baseball field she saw with her favorite uncle.
I patted Greer’s knee as she sighed and leaned against me.
“Aunt Daisy, I’m going to miss Uncle Mason so much. ”
I looked down at her, confused, until Carmen and Larry, our local nightly news co-anchors, popped back on, and Larry said, “It’s about time Mason Thaysden got his due.”
Carmen—yes, that Carmen, the same one who was married to our esteemed principal and carried a torch for Mason—nodded. “Oh, I know you’re much older than I am, Larry,” she said, shining her fingernails on her lapel. “But I never missed a game he pitched in high school.”
I was torn between trying to figure out what was actually going on and thinking that Carmen and Larry and the whole local news situation was so cute.
Larry laughed. “You never let me forget it, Carmen,” he said.
“And I can tell you what. We’ll be paying a lot more attention to the Tar Heel baseball stats here on Cape News next season.
” He tapped his stack of papers on the news desk, something I wondered if he knew he did at the end of every broadcast. It made the most satisfying sound.
“That’s right, Larry,” Carmen said. “Well, Mason, if you’re watching, we’re so proud of our hometown boy. We’ll miss you, but we’ll be cheering you on every week.”
Miss you. We’ll miss you. I looked up at Amelia, who was standing, motionless, staring at the television, her jaw slightly agape.
So, it was true. He was leaving. “So, this is not fake news?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood, trying not to cry for Greer’s sake.
“What’s fake news?” she asked in that little singsong voice that was far too shiny for how I felt.
“This is not a conversation you should be having with me,” Amelia said.
“But it is. Because you’re the one here.”
“He just found out,” Amelia said. “He’d been trying to talk to you about it because he wanted to work things out.”
I shook my head and sniffed, trying to steel myself.
The man I was falling in love with was leaving town, and he hadn’t even bothered to tell me.
I had acted a fool—no, not a fool. I had acted unconscionably, putting my needs before the needs of two children.
Some would say that maybe we were even, that this was common ground, and we could build a bridge. But I was too proud.
I stood up, knowing I had about two minutes of composure before I completely fell apart. “Well, ladies, thank you so much for the visit and the dinner. I’d better get a little catnap before Maisy’s next feeding.”
“I can stay,” Amelia said. “I can take a feeding for you, let you get some sleep.”
The true concern in her voice was all it took for one tear to slide down my face. I wiped it away. Quickly.
Greer flung herself into me and wrapped her arms around my waist, pressing her head into my stomach in that full-fledged way that I loved so much. This was not a girl who would keep secrets or keep up appearances. “I love you,” she said.
I picked her up and kissed her cheek. “I love you too.”
Amelia reached out her arms to take her daughter from me.
A perfect pair they were, a mother and a daughter who didn’t share one strand of DNA.
(Well, okay, I mean I knew we all shared some DNA.
Hell, we shared most of it with a mouse…) What they had is what I thought Maisy and I had.
What Amelia and Parker and George and Greer had is what I had allowed myself to be delusional enough to imagine I could have with Mason and Maisy.
But no. Maybe it wasn’t in the cards for me.
Somewhere, there was a girl inside me who would never give up on her dreams this easily. But that girl had grown up. That girl was working twelve-hour shifts and single parenting and brokenhearted, and she couldn’t quite muster the energy to fight.
“Call me,” Amelia said. But I knew I wouldn’t. The only way for me to survive my humiliation was to separate myself from the Thaysden family.
I had wanted to be one of them. I knew that in their family, when the chips were down, when times were tough, that was when you came together. But I’d never seen that. I didn’t quite know how to do it. So, now, it was my turn to model what I did know: running away.