38. Daisy
38
DAISY
W hen I wake the next morning, I’ve got two missed calls from my mother, and the phone is ringing with a third.
“Sorry,” I tell her when I pick up. “I was surfing.” It’s easier than saying I was sleeping in because your childhood friend Harrison was insatiable all night. “Is everything okay?”
“Scott’s gone,” she says firmly. “For good this time.”
She sounds pretty certain, but we’ve played this game before, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give up what I have right now just so she can slip back into her old ways a week or two hence.
“Mom, I’m sure it’ll work out—”
“It’s different this time, Daisy,” she says, and she doesn’t sound upset—she sounds resolved . “I spoke with Liam last night, after the movie, about Scott. Honey, I had no idea he was…”
“He was what?” I demand. Because she sure as hell knows he’s been cheating by now.
“He made a comment last night to Harrison about you being…like your father. ”
My stomach sinks. “Based on what?”
“Nonsense,” she replies. “I was pretty upset about the stuff Scott said to Harrison when we were both there. But I never knew he was saying things like that behind your back and mine. For him to imply you’ve got a problem over these entirely normal incidents…”
I dig my hands into my hair. “Mom, he’s been doing that for nearly a decade and it’s only bothering you now? Who cares if he’s saying it behind my back? It’s that he’s been saying it to you and that you fucking agreed with him that’s been the issue!”
“You’re right.” Her voice is strained as if she’s about to cry. “And I’m sorry. But I never knew, when you were little, how things were going to turn out. You are a bit like your dad with the surfing and wanting to be outside all the time and the way you haven’t always cared about consequences. Which doesn’t mean you’ll turn out like him, but Scott spun things in a way that…I wanted him to be wrong, Daisy, but I’d have felt like a bad mother if I assumed he was wrong and didn’t get you the help you needed.”
I’d probably have done the same thing in her position, but I’m still not quite ready to let her off the hook. “So you didn’t believe me when I said it, but you believed Liam ?”
“No,” she says. “No. It’s just that…I’ve seen enough proof of my own that you were right about him cheating, and last night he proved he doesn’t have your best interests at heart. It’s one thing for him to express some concerns to me. I’m your mother. To twist the truth to a bunch of people he barely knows…that’s sick. So it’s done. That man is never returning to my home. Ever.”
I’ve wanted this moment for years. Except I don’t want her to get rid of Scott for me. I want her to get rid of him for herself—because he can’t stop cheating and because he’s unreliable and narcissistic. Selfishly, I don’t want her to get rid of him at all right now because I know what she’s going to ask next .
“I’m going to Harrison’s office this afternoon to have him draw up the separation agreement,” she says. “Will you come back home?”
Yes, that’s what I knew she would ask. And under the circumstances, I don’t see how I can tell her no .
These past weeks here have been the happiest of my life—weeks that made up for all the dark months that preceded them. I love this house; I love surfing. Mostly I love Harrison, and the experience of being with someone who likes me exactly the way I am. I won the lottery here, and now I’m being asked to hand the prize back. Will he even want to keep seeing me if I’m not conveniently waiting in his home? My mother lives a half hour away…it’s not as if I’d just happen to be around, and there’d be no point in continuing to work at Wharf Seafood when I’d barely earn enough to pay for gas and parking.
“Sure, Mom,” I reply quietly, and it feels like a sort of death.
After today, there will be no more mornings on the deck, no more early morning and late afternoon sessions at the Horseshoe.
And there will possibly be no more Harrison.
It’s that last one I’m struggling to face.
By the time Harrison gets in that night, my mom has set Scott’s stuff in her front yard, and the separation agreement has been filed. It’s really happening, and there’s probably no going back.
Harrison’s gaze brushes over me as if checking for injury.
“Did you talk to your mom?” he asks, undoing his top button.
I want to yank him to me by his tie and tell him to shut up. I want to say, “ Don’t ruin this . ”
“Yeah.” I cross the room to him. “She said she was meeting with you?”
He nods, and for the first time I notice the circles under his eyes. “I assume she wants you to come home?”
I swallow. “Yeah. I told her I’d be there tomorrow.”
And then I wait. I want him to ask me to stay. The arguments he could make would be selfish ones. I’ve been making them all afternoon myself: I’ve given up enough on behalf of these breakups with Scott; she’s a grown woman, and she’ll be just fine.
I think, even if he said all of this, I’d wind up leaving—my mom has given up too much on my behalf to not be there when she needs me—but I wish he’d try anyway.
Instead, he lifts me onto the counter, spreading my knees and stepping between them, and then he kisses me as if I’m something he’s about to say goodbye to forever.
He’s efficient and no-nonsense in the morning as he gets ready for work. The coffee is made. The protein shake deposited in the side of his bag. But when it’s finally time for him to leave, he tosses the keys from one hand to the other, stalling.
“I’ll see you soon, yeah?” he asks. There’s a flicker of worry in his dark eyes. “Your mom probably wants you around this weekend, but if you can get free, let me know.”
I blink back tears. We never addressed it last night, and I’m not sure we’re really addressing it now either. But at least he wants to see me again—I wasn’t entirely sure if he would.
“Don’t drink all the bourbon before I get back down here.”
He steps close. “I’ll be fine. Just take care of your mom. And yourself.”
I force my mouth not to tremble. I want him to be happy in my absence, but he mourned for Audrey for months—it would be nice to think he’s going to mourn for me, even if it was only for a few days.
His lips brush mine and then hold there. “Be good, Daisy,” he says, swallowing as he walks away.
There’s something about it that feels very final.
After he’s gone, I pack everything but my wetsuit—I’m leaving it here in the hopes that I’ll get another chance to use it—and then I go to the deck, where I say a silent goodbye to the house, to the water, to all these amazing sun-soaked moments I’ve spent here with him. It went too fast. And I’ll be back here again, but it won’t be the same. It won’t feel as if it’s mine, and maybe Harrison won’t feel as if he’s mine either. Which is probably for the best since he never actually was.
My mom’s still at work when I get to her house, which is okay because I need a moment to process my disappointment as I walk in the door. I need a moment where it’s okay to admit that I miss the sight of the ocean, the sound of waves crashing, and, most of all, how much I already miss Harrison. That I’m more than a little heartbroken at the fact that I won’t see him tonight, that I’ll be sleeping in my childhood bed alone.
I place my stuff in my room and scrounge around in the fridge for dinner. I find frozen chicken and cream and pasta and whip up a casserole. As miserable as I am, cooking soothes me somehow. I play my music and though I’m too sad to dance and sing…I feel slightly better by the time the dish goes in the oven.
Mom sniffs the air when she walks in a half hour later. “You cooked?”
I shrug. “I made a chicken casserole—it should be done in a few minutes.”
“You didn’t need to do that,” she says with a frown.
I swallow down my irritation, but I wish to God she’d just…give it a rest. Why is it the end of the world if I take some time to make a meal? “I like cooking, Mom. ”
She waves her hand dismissively. “One day, you’ll be like Doctor Thomas. You know she doesn’t even do her own laundry? She has someone in her house full-time to take care of everything. All the cleaning, the cooking, the shopping—that’s going to be you eventually.”
She says this with a wistful smile, the way someone might talk about winning the lottery. Except…I like to cook. I like to go shopping. Is there a single thing I actually enjoy that my mother would approve of?
After dinner, we watch The Notebook . Ryan Gosling repeats that same move—the full-on kiss, Rachel McAdams’ face gripped in his hands. I picture Harrison calling it assault. Saying he’s never kissed anyone like that. I would like to be the first, the one he feels that much for.
Is he eating? Is he working late? Is he setting up a dating profile, ready to re-enter that world? Maybe I got him over the hump. If I were a better person, I’d be happy about it.
I pick up my phone to text him and put it down. Telling him I miss him is clingy and puts him in the awkward position of needing to say it back. He’d probably worry I was getting too serious, was forgetting the impending end date.
Or I could say something so filthy that he’d beg me to come see him. So filthy that he’d be desperate for it.
I glance sideways at my mom to make sure she’s thoroughly engrossed in Ryan Gosling. She is.
What’s the dirtiest thing I could possibly say? What’s something we haven’t done yet? There are a few things, not many, but I’m fully prepared to offer one up. I lift my phone…just as a text arrives from him.
Harrison: When can I see you?
My chest floods with sunlight. It’s better than anything he could have said. It means he misses me and wants this and that I’m marked safe, for today, from being the needy, childish nymphette he wishes he hadn’t met.
Are you asking for a naked pic or my actual presence?
Harrison
I’ll take one of each if both options are on the table.
Sunday morning? My mom will be at mass. I’ll tell her I’m surfing.
And the picture?
Coming soon. (Imagine me saying that in my dirtiest voice.)
You say everything in your dirtiest voice.
And you love it. I’m surprised you didn’t ask for a video.
I’m new to this. If I’d realized video was a possibility, I would have.
I smile to myself. It’s not the same as being with him. But it’s not as bad as having nothing of him at all.