DAISY #2
Eventually, he wrote telling her it wasn’t fair to keep her waiting for him, and he wouldn’t call her again. The pages of the diary have crinkles, and the ink is smudged like she’d been crying while writing. My fingers glide across her handwriting. My heart breaks for her.
If she were here, would she have talked to me about her first love?
Taught me what heartbreak was and how to live through it?
What true love is meant to feel like? All the things a mother would teach her daughter, I’ll never get to experience.
Tears sting the backs of my eyes. It’s not the first time I’ve felt robbed of a life with her.
Reading her journal is like getting a small piece of her back.
Her voice is not so dull anymore, and for the first time in years, I feel a connection to her.
Further on, she talks about meeting my father at church, and her parents encouraged a courtship. The more time they spent together, the more she grew fond of him.
When she speaks of my father, I don’t feel the same passion and sparks flying off the pages, like with David. No yearning for the man she loved. It all seems colorless.
She writes about getting engaged and planning the wedding.
How their families were happy about their upcoming nuptials.
Again, nothing in what I’m reading tells me she was madly in love and couldn’t wait for her wedding day.
It seems like she was going through the motions to make everyone else around her happy.
That sounds so familiar. My whole life, I’ve been doing what everyone expects of me. Never once taking what I want.
Well, when Dad gets home, I’m telling him it’s Kade I want. Nothing he can say will change my mind.
He’ll have to learn to deal with it. I’m tired of my happiness being sucked out of me. Kade makes me happy. I’m not sacrificing him like my mother did David. I would follow Kade to the ends of the earth to be with him.
Nothing will stop me.
Further through the book, there’s nothing about the wedding. If it went well. If she cried with joy when they said their vows. If they spent a wonderful time on their honeymoon.
Nothing.
The last page is dated five months before I was born. She didn’t write in her diary for over a year.
Today I felt the baby kick for the first time.
It was soft little flickers, but I know it was the baby.
I was in the garden, cutting daisies to put in a vase for the dining room table, when it moved.
I sat on the grass with my hand over my stomach and thanked God for the little miracle growing inside me.
The baby’s a girl. I just feel it. Jude thinks it’s nonsense and only time will tell. But he’s wrong. I’m having a sweet baby girl. Daisy. That’s what I’ll call her. Just like the pretty flowers I picked when I felt her kick.
I’m so excited to become a mom. I always wanted children.
When I first thought about having a family, it was with David.
We’d lie on the grass looking up at the clouds and wonder what they’d look like.
We planned family trips to Disneyland, camping, and cooking marshmallows on an open fire.
I don’t think of him often anymore. I’m not sure why I am now.
Maybe because Jude and I don’t discuss those things.
It’s more about how we’ll raise our child in the Christian community.
My time with David, planning our future, was some of the happiest days of my life. I haven’t felt like that again. Was it because David was my first love? We were so young and carefree. When you get older, things change and become more serious.
Now, that all-consuming feeling of happiness is bursting inside me again.
I have something to look forward to—my little Daisy.
The more I say the name, the more I love it.
Jude might need some convincing. He’s already talking about biblical names.
I’ll keep it to myself until she’s born.
Surely, he can’t say no to a woman who’s just given birth?
I’ve started buying baby clothes and things Daisy will need in the nursery. I can’t wait to hold her in the rocking chair while she sleeps.
When she gets older, I want her to know she can be anything she wants to be. Go wherever her dreams take her.
If Jude’s not happy with her following her dreams, she’ll have me by her side, encouraging her.
Some days, I wish I had someone in my corner.
Would I have followed David to London if I wasn’t so scared of disappointing my parents?
Absolutely. Would it have lasted? Who knows?
The love we had for each other was like nothing I’d felt before.
Yes, I love Jude. It happened gradually.
But there are days my mind wanders back to the time I spent with David and wonder… what if?
So, if I have one wish for Daisy. It’s to be who she wants to be. Love who she wants to love. I guess that’s two wishes.
My vision blurs as hot tears stream down my face and splatter onto the page, mixing in with my mother’s handwriting. I can’t read anymore. With shaking hands, I drop the diary to the floor.
She never got the chance to follow her dreams. Be with the man she loved. Do whatever she wanted. She had people in her life telling her what to do. Who to date. Where to work.
Just like my life.
I’d been lied to. Guilt-tripped so my father could use me.
How could he do this to me? How could they do that to my mother?
The front door opens and shuts. “Daisy?” My father calls out. “Are you here?”
Rage bubbles under my skin. I pick up the diary and spring to my feet, storming through the house. My father’s in the kitchen looking inside the fridge. He must have heard me enter because he says, “I have steaks for dinner.”
“I won’t be staying.” My voice trembles.
“Why not?” He closes the door and turns to face me. His expression turns to concern when he looks at my face. “Daisy, what’s wrong?”
I hold the diary toward him. “Have you read this?”
“What is it?”
“Mom’s diary.”
His forehead creases. “I didn’t know she had one. Where did you find it?”