43. Daisy
Chapter 43
Daisy
I sank into the hot tub with a sigh and watched as Ruth did the same, her chestnut hair piled on top of her head. She’d finally — reluctantly — agreed to our spa day, and we’d spent the day getting massages, facials, and hair masks and making small talk.
Well, I made small talk. Ruth mostly acted like she was doing me a favor being here at all. Any other time I would have called her out on it, but Cassie and Sarai’s claim echoed through my mind.
Ruth was in trouble, growing up too fast for her own good.
I didn’t want the responsibility of looking out for her, but my mom and Blake were dead and my dad clearly wasn’t up to the job.
What was the old saying? It’s a dirty job but somebody has to do it.
The dirty job was keeping Ruth safe and I was the unlucky somebody who had to do it — whether Ruth wanted me to or not.
“This feels good,” Ruth admitted, tipping her head back.
I resisted the urge to say “Duh,” because I’d been trying to connect with her for the belated spa-day birthday present for weeks and she’d acted like I was trying to book her for front-row tickets to a human sacrifice.
“It does.” I looked around the hot-tub area at Blackwell Springs, the new-ish day spa that had opened up on Main Street. It was pretty, tiled with blue-green sea glass, huge salt lamps glowing orange in the corners, the jacuzzi sunk into the center of the room like a Roman bath. “I hope Cantwell doesn’t put this place out of business.”
Ruth opened her eyes. “Why would it?”
“They’ll have a day spa too, a fancy one,” I said. “Guests will be able to book discounted passes but other customers can book for the day.”
“Is it nice?”
I was surprised by the question, mostly because Ruth rarely showed any interest in my life. “It’s not done, but the plans make it look super luxe.”
“Will you get a discount since you work there?” Ruth asked.
“I’m not sure. I actually don’t know if I’ll still be working there when the place is done.” I didn’t know if I wanted to still be working there. I’d had the seed of an idea, a way I might be able to use the house to build a career for myself, one that didn’t make me want to scream into the void, but I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about it yet. Still, this was good, an opening for me to ask about Ruth, about her life, without seeming like the nosy older sister. “What about you?”
“What about me?” Ruth’s voice was lazy, the day of relaxation softening her earlier petulance.
“You’re a junior this year, and you’re taking classes at the college. That’s all a big deal. Have you decided where you’re going to college?”
There was no doubt Ruth would go away to school. I was the designated flunky in the family. Ruth would go to an Ivy, get a degree in something my dad could brag about, go on to work a high-paying job, marry someone equally impressive, and have two kids who would come out of the womb speaking five languages and solving advanced calculus equations.
“I’ll probably apply to Columbia, Yale, and Stanford,” she said. “We’ll see where I get in.”
“Do you have a preference?” None of this was what I really wanted to talk about, but Ruth was smart. She would be able to smell an ambush from a mile away. I had to be careful.
“Not really,” she said. “California would be fun, but I love the city, so Columbia would be fine, and Yale would look good on my résumé.”
Ah, to be Ruth Hammond. A high school junior and already thinking about her résumé.
“You must be excited to get out of here,” I said.
She shrugged. “Kind of.”
I smiled, trying to play it cool. “Kind of? That doesn’t sound like the Ruth Hammond I know. Are you seeing someone?”
I knew she was, not only because Cassie and Sarai had seen her out with someone but because I’d been watching Ruth’s social media. The pictures were suitably vague, the kinds of pictures you posted when you were being coy about the guy you were seeing: two plates at a restaurant table, a male wrist wrapped around a beer bottle, angsty song lyrics as captions.
Something guarded dropped over her eyes. “I see people. I’m not forty. God, are you going to ask me if I’m going steady with someone next?”
I laughed a little even though her derision stung. I wasn’t that much older than Ruth but she had a way of making me feel like someone’s ancient uptight grandma. “It’s an honest question.”
“You’re asking a lot of them,” Ruth said, her eyes closed again.
“Just trying to catch up. We haven’t spent any time together in ages.” I hesitated, hoping she would continue. When she didn’t, I picked up the ball again, all too aware that I was pushing my luck. “So? Are you dating anyone?”
She opened her eyes and looked at me. “Do you really think you can just bail on me and then act like we’re best friends after a day at the spa?”
“I didn’t bail on you,” I said. “I’ve been at the house. Mom’s house. You can come up any time. I told you that.”
“Come to the house where you’re living with Blake’s murderers? No thanks.”
Great. Somehow the conversation that was supposed to be about Ruth had turned into a conversation about me and the Beasts. And what could I say to that? I need you to forgive the guys who murdered our brother because I love them?
Not exactly a compelling argument. I’d be lucky if my dad didn’t hire someone to deprogram me.
“Well, we don’t have to meet at the house,” I said. “I’ll come see you if you want to hang.”
“Even if Dad’s home?” she asked. I hesitated and Ruth pounced. “What is your problem with him anyway? And don’t give me that stupid story about him kidnapping you or I’m leaving.”
My face burned. I’d been so sure my dad was behind my kidnapping after Calvin drugged me and stuffed me in his car. I’d told Ruth, trying to warn her, and she’d made me feel crazy. I’d resented it at the time, but now I could only feel embarrassed because she’d been right: it hadn’t been my dad.
And I had sounded crazy.
But that didn’t mean everything was back to normal with my dad. He’d still cut me off when I moved out, tried to exert control over me by sending Calvin over to dump my stuff and take my credit cards even though I only ever used them in an emergency.
“It’s complicated,” I said. Because facing my dad meant really facing the fact that I might not be his daughter at all. That maybe there was a reason he’d always been a little more distant with me than with Blake and Ruth and maybe that reason was because I was Mac’s daughter and not his.
Ruth’s gray eyes flared. “You wonder why we’re not close and then you keep feeding me bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit. There are things about Dad I’m not ready to talk about. Not the kidnapping thing. You were… you were right about that. It wasn’t him. But other things.”
I’d been agonizing for weeks over whether to talk to Mac. It seemed like a no-brainer: if I wanted to know whether Mac was my biological father, I could ask him.
But deep down I wasn’t sure I did want to know. What did it matter? Cassie was right: my dad had taken care of me, raised me, been there for all my milestones. Sure, he’d been distant and demanding, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t my dad.
Maybe that was the thing about being a parent, a real parent: you got to be imperfect because you were there and that was the part that really mattered .
My relationship with Ruth was already complicated, and it would be even more of a shit show if I somehow made it work with the Beasts long-term. Did I want to add Mac to the mix? Ruth already felt so far away. Would she still feel like we were sisters if we had different dads?
“What other things, Daisy?” Ruth was staring at me through the steam and I wondered if it was the first time she had asked the question or if I’d been so spaced out I hadn’t heard her the first time.
“Just… things.” It sounded pathetic even to my own ears. Somehow Ruth was sounding like the logical one, like the grown-up one, and it was all because there were too many things I couldn’t say.
Because I had too many secrets.
“You know what?” she said, wading to the Jacuzzi stairs. “I’m done.”
“Don’t leave .” I watched her step out of the Jacuzzi, water dripping from her bikini-clad body. “Ruth…”
She grabbed her towel and started wrapping it around her body. “You say you miss being close but then you move in with Blake’s murderers. You lie to me about Dad and you want me to tell you everything while you keep all these secrets. Call me when you’re ready to really be sisters.”
She slipped her bare feet into her slides and started for the door.
“Ruth, wait!” I didn’t have a chance of catching her by getting out of the Jacuzzi now.
She sighed and turned around. “What?”
“I just… I am your sister,” I said. “That will never change. And… I’m always here. I mean, you can count on me, you can call on me — anytime, anyplace — and I’ll be there.”
“Whatever, Daisy.”
I watched her leave and sank back into the Jacuzzi with a sigh.
Shit.