Chapter 24
I decide that I ought to see a therapist. If my mom can do it, I certainly can too. I book an appointment with a woman I find on a website with local listings.
Her name is Jennifer, and she has a kind face and a disarming air that makes me feel like I can tell her anything. Her office is decorated in earth tones and shelves full of framed images with inspirational quotes from famous thinkers. We discuss the rootlessness of my childhood, the strained relationship with my mother, my breakup with Rob. She’s shocked when I tell her what our parents did. I talk about Charlie and the weekend I spent falling for him, and the end of it all. We talk about what moving on looks like.
It takes a month for me to start to feel like myself again, for me to return to venturing out with friends, and going back to cooking real meals and not just boiling pasta every night. My mom and I start having regular phone calls. She had a wonderful trip to the Maldives, and she and Michael are house hunting in Northwest DC, ready to move out of the apartment they’ve been sharing. She talks about getting a dog, which is something that she’s never been interested in before because it wasn’t conducive to her transient lifestyle.
She tells me more about all the work she’s doing with Jeanine and tells me that Peg has gotten Walter to start doing yoga with her, and that he actually thanked her for opening that door for him. Apparently, he’s lost weight, and all the stretching has been good for his back swing and his golf game is the best it’s ever been. I wish I could share this with Charlie. He would find it absolutely hilarious.
At work, Donna announces our next push, and we all buckle down. I’m grateful for the added pressure at work. It means my mind will be extra occupied, and maybe the constant, dull ache in my heart won’t be the first thing I think about every morning.
Another month passes, and I’ve begun to let go. I’ve begun to accept that Charlie was like a comet—a flash of brightness across a dark expanse, lighting everything up in an astonishing display—but fleeting and mysterious. Donna tells us all that she’s going to be out for the next two days. She sits on the board of a nonprofit dedicated to protecting watersheds, and she’s on their hiring committee.
While she’s out, things relax a little bit, as they are wont to do when the boss is out of the office. In the middle of the afternoon, Casey, our intern—a role I once filled, before I was hired—flicks a folded-up paper triangle at me, and we end up abandoning our work for a game of table football that the whole office gets into.
At the end of the week, Donna is back, with her wife in tow, and announces an impromptu office party. The bottle of bourbon emerges from her bottom desk drawer, and we fill paper Dixie cups and ask what we’re celebrating.
“Blue Water found their candidate, and he accepted the position today. He starts in a week,” she says with delight. Ordinarily, hiring someone for another agency isn’t cause for celebration, and I suspect that Donna is just in the mood. The new hire will be focused on reducing the use of harmful chemicals in industrial farming.
Cara runs out to buy chips and salsa, and we gather in the conference room to play trivia. A few people call their partners, and our Friday afternoon turns into a party. At six o’clock, the group decides to move things to a local bar. When we are about to go, Cara pulls me aside.
“You look tired, Daisy. And I don’t really want to go to a bar and watch everyone get sloppy.” She pats her pronounced baby bump. She’s five months along. “Do you want to have a snuggle party at your place? I’ll bring cake.”
The offer of cake and movies with Cara is far more tempting than a night out at a bar, and I smile gratefully. “That sounds good.”
Cara follows me to my apartment complex in her Honda, and I park in my spot while she drives around the corner to the visitor spaces. It’s a three-story building with open-air corridors, and each apartment’s door opens to the outside. I sling my purse over my shoulder and grab an armful of papers that I plan to look at over the weekend. I haul myself up the stairs to the second floor, and then down the stretch of balcony, with my head down, looking at my phone. I tap Instagram open, as I still do at least twice a day, just in case Charlie has had a change of heart.
“I promise I’m not stalking you.”
I startle so hard my feet almost leave the ground and my papers fall from my arms, and I have my keys out in front of me before I even look up, ready to jab my attacker in the eyeball.
Charlie is standing outside of my door in an untucked polo shirt and khakis, and I swear, even though I knew he was beautiful, my mind had somehow tempered it, like it was trying to protect me, and I’m overwhelmed by the sight of him. His hair is rumpled, and he looks tired, but his hazel eyes are the same as they always were, kind and full of tenderness, his lips just as full, his jaw just as strong. The surge of love that sweeps over me nearly knocks me over.
“Charlie,” I breathe.
“Daisy, I’m sorry to turn up at your apartment like this.” He holds his hands out in apology. “It’s totally inappropriate and boundary-crossing, but I need to talk to you in person, and I wasn’t completely sure if you’d read anything I write to you.”
I want to fling myself at him and beg his forgiveness. Tell him how stupid and short-sighted I was. Tell him that I fell in love with him over the course of five days, and I don’t understand how it happened, because I didn’t believe that things like that could happen, but that I haven’t felt like myself since I left Washington. I haven’t felt whole since the last time he held my hand.
Instead, I say, “How do you know where I live?”
He gives me a small, uncertain smile. “I found Cara through your Instagram page, and she said I should just come here. She said she thought… you might be willing to listen?”
I look behind me for Cara to come up the stairs, but she’s not there. She lured me here with the promise of cake, and instead she brought me this. The best thing I could have possibly hoped for. It’s so, so much better than cake. She might be the best person I know.
“I’ve been looking for you high and low, Charlie. Yes, I want to listen. And there’s so much I want to say.”
His eyes carry hope and apprehension, and he runs one hand up and down the strap of his ever-present laptop bag.
“Do you want to come inside?” I ask, and he nods.
“That would be good, I think.”
I unlock the door with trembling hands, struggling even to get the key in the lock, and lead the way inside, grateful that I vacuumed and picked up yesterday so that Charlie doesn’t think I live my everyday life the way I live in a hotel room.
He steps inside, and his eyes sweep the room, taking in the tufted navy-blue couch with yellow blankets and embroidered red pillows. The potted plants that sit in the windows, reaching for the sun. The posters of every city I’ve lived in hanging on the walls. The shelf with the silver spoons.
“It’s so… tidy,” he says with surprise, and I can’t help but laugh in spite of all the tension that vibrates between us like a violin string that’s been plucked.
“It turns out I’m not a hoarder in real life.”
“I wouldn’t care if you were,” he says, “I might try to get you help, but I wouldn’t care.”
He takes a step towards me, and then hesitates. “Should I take my shoes off?” He looks down at the carpet that still has tracks from the vacuum on it.
I shake my head.
We sit down on the sofa, facing each other.
Charlie takes a deep breath, about to begin, but I stop him.
“Charlie, before you start, there are some things I need to say to you.”
He looks abashed, like he thinks I’m about to give him a firm scolding. I don’t blame him. The last time he saw me I was irate.
I take a breath, collecting myself. I wasn’t prepared to give this speech today. The words end up coming out in a rush.
“I’m so sorry about the way I reacted. I should never have yelled at you like that. And I should never have refused to listen to what you had to say. I’ve been trying to reach you to apologize, and I couldn’t find you, and…” Tears prick, threatening to fall, and I swallow hard. Charlie’s eyes are so soft. Full of nothing but understanding and concern.
“You have nothing to apologize for, Daisy. You had been through so much already, and I should have been forthright with you from the very beginning. But, when you told me what you did for a living, I didn’t know… I could never have anticipated what was about to happen. How much you would mean to me. And when I did realize what was happening, I was so scared to tell you. I was so scared you would hate me for it and refuse to see me again, and I just couldn’t bring myself to risk it.”
The hard truth is, I might have hated him. Before I got to really know him, I might have written him off as a lost cause. I didn’t understand yet. I didn’t understand all the things I needed to understand in order to properly love Charlie, and give him the grace he deserves. That knowledge makes the tears come harder, my lip trembling and my nose beginning to run. I swipe the back of my hand across my face impatiently. I need to really listen to him, attentively, the way Cara always listens to me. I need to give him the chance to say all the things he needs to say.
“So then, I thought, I would wait to tell you the truth. I would wait until I had fixed things.”
“Fixed things?” I ask.
“After the rehearsal dinner, the night of David Attenborough,” he explains, and I smile at the memory, “I started looking at job postings. And I knew I was going to leave the firm I was at. Getting to know you… it woke me up. It woke me up to the person I want to be, and I’ve been too afraid to be, my whole life.”
A slow realization dawns on me.
“I didn’t want to tell you what I did, because I thought, if I told you after I had left my job, that the blow wouldn’t land as hard. And you would be able to forgive me.”
“Charlie.” I reach for his hand, and he takes it gratefully, gripping it hard in his. Both of our palms are coated in sweat. “You should have told me about the Matchless thing, but you never owed me an explanation for your work. It’s not my choice to make for you. I have no right to judge you for wanting to earn a decent living.”
Now Charlie’s eyes well with tears, glistening against the gold and green. Seeing Charlie cry cracks my heart into pieces. I don’t want him to ever feel sad, about anything. I want to cover him with my body and shelter him from anything bad that might come his way.
“You could have reached out to me. I made all my social media profiles public, and I was checking every day, and I was so scared I had ruined everything.”
He swallows, and I watch him work to prevent the tears from falling. Our fingers are lacing with each other now, one finger after the other, like we are being stitched back together.
“I know,” he says. “I looked at every picture you’ve ever posted. I didn’t reach out to you because I hadn’t found a new position yet, and I was afraid I would have to go back to corporate law, but then I got called for an interview, and I accepted it today.”
I already know the answer, but I ask anyway. “What job did you take, Charlie?”
He smiles. “I got a job with Blue Water. It’s not a legal position, but they think my background working on real estate contracts will be helpful. And to be honest,” he says, laughing through all the emotion, “I think I was so earnest that I might have guilted them into offering it to me.”
I’m so full of love that my body can no longer contain it and I gulp through a sob that forces its way out. “I’m so sorry I ever made you feel badly. I can’t believe you did that. You didn’t need to do that for me, in order for me to…” love you. I don’t say the words. I can’t. I can’t scare him again.
“I wanted to do it, Daisy,” he says. “I didn’t do it for you, so much as I did it because of you.” He rubs his thumb across my hand, sending fire through me. My chest is burning, and my stomach is twisted into a knot. “I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time. It wasn’t until I met you, and I saw how courageous you are, and how you stand up for your beliefs, and how… true you are to yourself, that I finally got the guts to do it.”
“Charlie…” I choke. “I missed you. I missed you so much you have no idea.”
“Yes, I do,” he says. “I haven’t slept in weeks, Daisy. I’ve been stalking you online like a maniac. I got an Instagram account just so I could see your face every day.”
I’m crying helplessly now, and the tears run freely. I probably look just like I did the morning after the wedding, but I don’t care. Not at all.
“Charlie.” I sniffle. “I’d really like to kiss you right now.”
His lips turn up into a smile as light fills his eyes, and he pulls me into him, back into that space that I fit into so neatly. The place that feels like safety and warmth, and as joyous as Christmas morning. But Charlie is more than a gift. He’s my heart, and it’s bursting.
His arms wrap around me, and his lips meet mine. Gentle and then urgent, as though we need to make up for all the kissing we haven’t done, that we could have been doing, if we both hadn’t been so short-sighted. So afraid of getting hurt.
“Daisy,” he says my name over and over again, as he peppers my face with his lips, and then returns them to mine. “Daisy, you’re so special.”
“So are you,” I answer into his mouth, grasping him, trying to climb onto him.
“Wait,” he says, and I pause as renewed uncertainty springs to life in my belly.
“There’s something else I need to tell you, and it might be bad. I don’t know.” His eyes shift between mine as he studies me.
I give my head a little shake. “What?”
“I just need to say it, because I don’t think I can go a second longer without saying it.”
I wait, my arms still around his neck. Our faces are so close together that all I can see are his eyes. His warm, beautiful eyes.
“I’m in love with you, Daisy. I fell in love with you two months ago, and I haven’t stopped. And I know it’s insane that I’m saying this. You don’t have to say anything back…”
The rest of his words are lost when I crush my mouth to his. I’m smoke, vanishing into him. I kiss him like I'm suffocating and he’s air. I climb onto his lap, and he has his arms around me as I bury my nose in his hair, taking in his perfect smell. The smell that comes from him, and no other place.
“I love you too,” I say. “I love you so much.”
Charlie picks me up, holding on to me with strong hands. “Where’s the bedroom?” he demands, like it’s not a question.
I stop nibbling his jaw just long enough to gasp, “Through the kitchen.”
Charlie carries me back, through the apartment, to my little bedroom, where, yes, there is a pile of clothes on the floor. And a basket of clean laundry that I probably won’t get around to folding.
We fall onto the bed without letting go of one another. His hands shake as he undresses me, pulling my crisp blouse out of my skirt, and pulling my shoes off my feet with impatience. We’re both in a hurry, unwrapping each other as our hearts unspool and tangle together.
“I love you,” he murmurs the entire time. When he brushes my skin with his fingers, when he kisses my body and worships me with his mouth, and then he’s inside of me.
“Perfect earlobe,” he says when his teeth brush against it. “Perfect hips,” he says when he grips them.
When I’m on top of him, hovering over him, and we move in synchronicity, his eyes are somehow dark and tender at the same time, until they blank, and he’s lost, and I’m lost, but I don’t feel like I’m falling this time, because I already fell. And I already landed, right into him.
We lie together after, and the windows grow black with the night, but we don’t let go of each other. He holds me and I nuzzle him until, finally, hunger forces us to relent, and Charlie goes to my kitchen and scrambles eggs for us, and we sit at my table and eat with our feet locked together. I tell him about the revelations from my mother, and when I share the fact that she’s in therapy he’s as astonished as I was.
The next morning is Saturday, and we go to the park, and then Charlie makes good on his promise to take me to dinner. First, we eat heaping mountains of pasta, and then later we lick ice cream cones and make ridiculous puns at each other while we watch children playing, sticky with sugar.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you more.”
We’re cheesy and silly, and we look at each other with stupid expressions that say everything.
The weeks that follow are a dreamy, gooey haze. Charlie starts his new job, and he loves it. I meet his father and lean down to hug him in his recliner like I already know him. I introduce Charlie to Cara, and she apologizes for ever thinking there could have been a red flag.
We go out to dinner with Rob and Gabby, and the conversation is easy and fun. We end up going to a bar where we play foosball—girls versus guys, and Gabby and I kick their asses and high-five each other. The boys demand a rematch, and we do it again.
And Charlie and I settle into a routine. The sort of thing that happens when someone becomes ingrained in your life. We meet at his apartment after work, because it’s halfway between our offices. It’s as neat as I expected it would be. His style is minimalist and clean. His furniture is Scandinavian. He moves his things out of a drawer to make room for me. And then another drawer, and another, until half the bedroom becomes mine.
Cara gives birth in the hospital, nine days past her due date, and after her sisters, I’m first in line to hold her baby boy. He’s wrapped in the green and yellow blanket I made for him. His face is all squished, and his little hand grasps Charlie’s finger with an impressively strong grip. Billy looks so proud I think he might take out an ad in the newspaper.
“His name is Stuart,” Cara says from her spot in the hospital bed. “After Billy’s grandfather.”
“He’s so perfect,” I say in wonderment. Such a tiny, perfect human, with his whole life ahead of him. He’s going to be ensconced in love. He’s the first grandchild in Cara’s family, and her parents have already set up a nursery in their home so Cara and Billy can get a break when they need one.
After a few weeks, Cara is ready to re-enter the world. She’s sleep-deprived and exhausted, but no less radiant. Billy looks like he’s been run over and laid in the street for a few days before anyone bothered to collect him. Stuart sits in his baby carriage, gurgling and marveling over his newly discovered feet, while the four of us eat brunch. Cara drinks a mimosa and is immediately tipsy.
“God, that’s good,” she says, stretching her arms up over her head, and we laugh.
Charlie’s foot brushes against mine under the table, and he grips my hand in my lap. I smile over at him, wondering if maybe there will be a little one in our future. I don’t know what will happen, but I’m happy. I’m happier than I think I’ve ever been, at any time in my life.
And then, eventually, Charlie asks me to move in with him, and our styles meld into a tasteful, eclectic mix. My posters line the hall between our living room and our kitchen. His sofa now has a basket full of my blankets next to it so that Cara and I can cocoon ourselves. Charlie likes romantic comedies, so he often joins us when we have girls’ night, but sometimes he goes out with his friends so Cara and I can have time together.
But at the end of every night, no matter what we’re doing, it’s just Charlie and me again. And I think it always will be. I think that this is it for me. The long, strange road I’ve been on has led me here. To him. To home. Where I belong.