Chapter 1 One Dozen Daisies
one dozen daisies
Preston Darling
I knew Dolly Beckett would be mine since I was four years old.
I’ve been trying to be the one she wants, the one she deserves, since the day I snuck her first kiss, when we were playing outside at Grampa Darling’s, under the sprawling oak with the legendary treehouse where the children of the town’s elite made secret pacts sealed with saliva-slicked palms and played doctor; where older kids snuck their first peeks at porn and played spin the bottle; where teenagers tried pot and blowjobs while playing hooky from school.
Back then, we were too young for any of that, still under the watchful gaze of our mothers.
They sat on picnic blankets in the shade, sipping mint juleps and letting us play in the weeds at the edge of the woods.
I already knew in my little-boy heart that I was going to marry Dolly Beckett one day.
She had the prettiest blonde ringlets and the best name, and in my innocent little brain, that was a logical reason to marry a girl.
I picked a dozen or so daisies, my chubby fists pulling at the tough stems and dragging most of the plants up by their shallow roots. Undeterred, I handed Dolly the cluster of flowers with dirt clods hanging off the root clusters. Then I puckered up my little boy lips and smashed them on hers.
She responded by promptly pushing me down in the dirt.
That’s the moment I fell in love. I may have picked her for my future wife before that, but love hadn’t entered the equation until I hit the ground and she told me that boys didn’t kiss girls until their wedding.
Then she marched past me to tell on me. Our Mamas laughed and said the daddies better lock up their daughters when I got older.
I didn’t know what that meant, I just knew they approved of what I’d done, even if Dolly refused to play with me for the rest of the day.
That’s the kind of girl Dolly is.
That’s the kind of girl worth dedicating your life to making her love you back.