Chapter 18 Daisy
DAISY
Adam arrives at four fifteen, exactly when I asked. Nell left her instruction binder open on the counter, color-coded tabs and everything.
"Forty-five minutes," I say. "Register, questions, do not rearrange anything."
"Understood."
The sponsorship call takes the full time. I negotiate my own terms in Nell's cramped office, refuse to give them editorial control, decline the bonus for guaranteed positive reviews. The contract needs revision before I sign, and I tell them so.
When I come back, Adam is bagging a paperback for a woman in a yellow cardigan. He thanks her by name, which means he read Nell's instructions about regulars.
"My phone rang," he says. "Work. I told them I'd call back at five."
"You didn't step out?"
"You asked for forty-five minutes."
The register drawer is closed properly. Nothing is rearranged. He doesn't ask about the sponsorship fee or offer to introduce me to his media contacts.
One kept promise is just one kept promise. I know that. But I notice it anyway, the way you notice a step that doesn't creak after months of bracing for the sound.
"Thank you," I say. He takes his phone outside for the call, leaving me the counter and the decision about my contract.
The Margin feels different when you're getting ready for a date with your almost-ex-husband while actively ignoring the fact that a stalker left you a threatening note last Friday.
I reported it. That's what I keep telling myself as I button my cardigan wrong, curse, and start over.
I took the note to the police Saturday morning, filed a report, gave them Cole's name and case number.
The officer was kind, said they'd increase patrols on the block, asked if I had somewhere safe to stay. I said yes, because I do. I have Nell checking in, I have locks on my doors, and I have the store’s security system Nell installed two years ago that I actually use now.
What I don't have is the ability to stop living my life because Cole Redding decided prison wasn't enough time to let me go.
"You're buttoning that wrong again," Nell says from my bedroom doorway, her voice gentle.
"I noticed." I give up on the cardigan entirely and pull it over my head, tossing it onto my bed where Chaucer immediately claims it. "Why am I nervous? This is ridiculous. I've been married to him for almost five years."
"Because it matters." She crosses to my closet and pulls out a soft green sweater I forgot I owned. "Here. This one brings out the honey in your eyes and doesn't require fine motor skills."
I take it, grateful. "Nell, if something happens—"
"The new alarm code is saved in both our phones, your spare key is in the hollow book on the third shelf of the mystery section, and I will call Adam immediately if anything seems even slightly off." She ticks each item off on her fingers. "We've been over this. Twice."
"Three times."
"Daisy." She catches my wrist as I reach for my earrings.
Her dark eyes are serious. "You're allowed to have one good night.
The police have the note. Adam has a copy too.
He knows who sent it and why we're being careful.
You have done everything right. Now go eat a hamburger with your husband and let yourself feel something nice. "
I want to argue with her. I want to point out all the ways this could go wrong, all the reasons I should cancel and stay home with Chaucer and a good book and the deadbolt firmly in place.
But I also wrote, three years ago in a blog post I thought no one would ever read, that the best heroes take you somewhere you can actually hear each other talk.
Adam texted me the name of a diner forty minutes ago.
"Okay," I say. "Okay."
Rosie's Diner hasn't been updated since approximately 1974, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment.
The booths are red vinyl, the counters are laminate, and the jukebox in the corner plays exclusively songs that predate my parents' marriage.
It smells like coffee and bacon and something maple, and when I push through the door, I spot Adam immediately.
He's in a corner booth, and he looks completely out of place. His suit jacket is off, his sleeves are rolled to the elbow, and he's studying the laminated menu with an intensity usually reserved for quarterly reports. He looks up when the bell chimes, and his whole face changes.
"You came," he says, standing too fast and bumping the table. The salt shaker wobbles. He steadies it with one hand. "I mean… hi. You look… that color is really… hi."
"You said hi twice."
"Both times on purpose." He gestures to the booth. "Please. Sit. I ordered coffee but I can get you something else, tea, water, the blood of my enemies—"
"Coffee's fine." I slide into the booth across from him, trying not to smile at the way he's fidgeting with his menu. Adam Smith, who negotiates multi-million dollar deals without blinking, is nervous about dinner at a diner. "Have you been here before?"
"Never." He glances around like he's cataloging escape routes. "I drove past it once and thought it looked like the kind of place you'd like. The reviews mentioned pie."
"The reviews mentioned pie and that's what sold you?"
"You wrote once that any restaurant worth its salt has pie that tastes like someone's grandmother made it." He says it simply, like it's not devastating. Like he hasn't just admitted to remembering a throwaway line from a blog post I wrote four years ago.
A waitress appears before I can respond. She's maybe sixty, with gray hair piled high and a pencil tucked behind her ear. Her name tag says Maureen and her expression says I've seen everything.
"What can I get you kids?"
"I'll have the turkey club," Adam says confidently. "Extra pickles, side of—" He stops. Squints at the menu. "Wait. This isn't the turkey club."
Maureen peers over his shoulder. "Honey, you're looking at the kids' menu."
I press my lips together so hard they go numb.
"The kids' menu," Adam repeats.
"The dinosaur chicken nuggets are very popular."
He looks at me. His expression is so genuinely bewildered that I can't help it: I laugh, the real kind, the kind that hurts my stomach.
"I'll have the dinosaur nuggets," he tells Maureen, completely serious. "And she'll have whatever she wants."
"Grilled cheese with tomato soup," I manage, still laughing. "And two slices of whatever pie is best."
Maureen gives us both a look that suggests we're either charming or insane. "Coming right up."
When she's gone, Adam folds the kids' menu very carefully and slides it to the edge of the table. "In my defense, the font was small."
"In your defense, you wore your reading glasses for a board meeting once and looked like a very sexy accountant."
"I'll take sexy accountant." His mouth curves. "Better than the man who ordered children's food on his first date with his wife in five years."
"To be fair, we never really had a first date."
"No." He sobers a little. "We didn't. I thought about that a lot, after you left. All the things I never did. Dates and anniversaries and just… talking. To you. About things that weren't logistics."
"We were very good at logistics."
"We were terrible at logistics. I was the one who scheduled logistics and then missed them." He meets my eyes across the table. "Daisy, I wanted to tell you: I started seeing someone. A therapist. Twice a week."
The words land strangely, not like a shock but like a key turning in a lock.
"You mentioned that. At the store, before."
"I mentioned I was going. I didn't tell you why." He wraps his hands around his coffee cup, and his wedding ring catches the light. Mine is still in his keeping. "You asked me once, years ago, what I felt about my father. Do you remember?"
I do. It was our second anniversary. He'd just gotten off a call with Victor that left him silent for hours, and I finally asked, and he said I don't know in a voice so flat it scared me.
"You said you didn't know."
"I didn't. That was true." He takes a breath.
"I've been thinking about it since you left.
The not knowing. How I could go thirty-five years without having a real answer to a simple question.
And I realized I had a lot of those. Questions I couldn't answer.
Feelings I couldn't name." He looks at me, and his dark eyes go raw in a way that makes my chest tight.
"You asked me what I felt and I had nothing.
I wanted to have something. So I found someone who could help me learn. "
"Adam."
"I'm not telling you for credit." He says it quickly. "I'm telling you because you deserve to know that I heard you. Every time you said you wanted more, I heard you. I just didn't know how to give it, and I was too much of a coward to admit that out loud."
The vinyl squeaks when I shift. I should let the therapy comment sit, move us toward safer ground, but my mouth has other plans.
"The lawsuit." I watch his face. "Tell me what actually happened."
Adam sets down his water glass. No deflection, no reach for his phone. "Legal gave me a liability summary. Fleet accident, maintenance questions, your father named. I trusted their assessment."
"You sued a man into the ground based on a summary."
"Yes." He doesn't flinch. "After we married, I ordered an independent investigation. Full audit."
The fluorescent light above us flickers. Maureen laughs at something near the register. I wait.
"The brakes were faulty. Records had been altered to cover it. Your father did nothing wrong."
I knew my father was innocent when I walked into that conference room. Hearing the man who could have ruined him finally say it makes my hands shake.
"The dismissal was permanent," he continues. "Debt protection too. Legally binding the day it was signed. Your staying or leaving never changed that."
"You let me feel I still owed you for it."
He holds my gaze. "You had the dismissal in writing. I treated that as if it settled what I had done to you. It didn't. I should have given you the report and an apology, not left you feeling indebted."