Chapter 15
XV
DAISY
Daisy wanted to wait until he returned from Afghanistan. Callan had other ideas.
“It'll be easier,” he said. “If anything happens to me, I know you'll be looked after.”
She’d told him not to be so absurd, that nothing could or would happen to him, but he insisted. So, they did.
Instead of the intimate garden wedding she’d pictured as a girl, they married at the courthouse with a handful of friends and his mother in attendance.
He promised it was only a formality and they would do something bigger when he got home.
As he put it, “He’d have more money then,” but Daisy knew it would never come.
It should’ve been the happiest day of her life.
Callan was kind, generous, the kind of man she’d want her daughter to have, and he loved her—all of her.
Yet, to her surprise, after it was all said and done, she locked herself in the bathroom.
There, staring at her reflection and growing belly, she cried.
Life was moving at double speed, and there she was, feeling as though she were taking on water and drowning from the inside out.
She sat there for a while. Then, without really deciding to, she took out her phone.
The message from Logan was still there, the one about marriage, untouched for over a year.
She didn’t ask what he meant in her reply.
Didn’t ask how he was. She just typed: I hope you’re wrong about this.
Then she let the phone slip from her hand to the floor.
An hour later, perhaps two, Edie finally came looking for her.
“Daze?” she said, knocking on the door. “Let me in.”
She stared at her shadow under the door, watching it flicker as she swayed. Edie had been drinking, which meant any advice she gave wouldn’t be tainted with unnecessary caution.
“Is anyone else out there?” she asked.
“Nope. It's just me.”
She let her in, and they sat for a while, listening in silence to the sound of Nirvana playing from downstairs.
“I'm worried about you,” Edie finally said, reaching for her hand.
“You don't need to worry about me. I'm fine. Truly.”
“Sitting on your bathroom floor, heavily pregnant and crying on your wedding night isn't fine.”
She had a point. Nobody could argue that.
The room fell silent again, and Daisy rested her head against Edie's shoulder. This was a classic Edie trick: a little dose of honesty woven into a prompt. She’d been trying to lure her in, and it had worked.
“It's just a lot,” she admitted. “The wedding. How fast everything is moving. This,” she whispered, cradling her bump. “That's all.”
“He loves you,” Edie said, then, after a pause, added, “It may not seem like much, but it is.”
She was right—some people searched their whole lives for love, and she had it right in her grasp. So why didn’t it feel like enough?
They sat for a while longer, listening to the commotion downstairs. She’d only known Edie as a work colleague and casual acquaintance, yet, in that moment, she felt more akin to a sister.
Edie had sighed, nudging her gently. “You know, if it doesn't work out, we'll buy a run-down chateau in the south of France and raise this kid. All of us. You. Me. Alec.”
Daisy laughed at the thought. “It'd last five minutes.”
“Maybe. At least we could say we tried, though.” Edie stood and extended her hand. “Come on, let's go. There's a man downstairs waiting to dance with you.”
She knew she should have gone with her, but opted not to.
“You know what, I think I might just hit the sack instead,” she said. “I'm exhausted.”
Edie didn’t press her on it and smiled. “Alright, I'll see you on Monday then.”
She watched as she left, unaware it would be the last time she would see her. Two days later, Edie had packed her bags and left London. There was no note, explanation, or reason. She simply vanished as if the pages of their story had been ripped from the book.
Daisy later found out through a three-page email from Edie that she and Alec had been trying for a baby for months in secret to no avail.
“It was triggering,” Edie wrote, “to see you so conflicted when you had the one thing inside you I would have sold my soul for.” She then told her that night, Alec had said no more IVF—they were done.
“He didn't want to do it anymore, Daze. We'd been so caught up in trying to create a new love that we neglected the love that was already there. And you know what? It died.”
She offered no explanation as to where she’d gone or who she was with. As she put it, “I've always been a runner, and now I'm going to run towards something good—happiness.”
To this day, Daisy still wondered if Edie had found it.
Had Logan lied in one of his emails when he’d assured her that her life's transience was one of the most beautiful things? For her, instability and the unknown were terrifying, and once Callan deployed, she realised how much her soul needed him to anchor her.
Over the years, she’d drifted apart from friends who had overlapped her in the race.
Where she’d been at home, heavily pregnant and attending antenatal classes with women half her age, those whom she’d once considered family were attending birthday parties and football matches.
Without Callan, she was alone. That was until she saw him again.
There he was, crossing the road in a black overcoat and jeans. She’d been coming in the opposite direction, laptop bag in hand and water bottle in the other.
“Miss Daisy,” he’d called out, noticing her first.
She stopped, watching as he quickened his step. When he reached her, he grinned, gesturing to her belly stretching through the last two buttons of her coat.
“You're pregnant,” he said, as if it wasn’t obvious.
She laughed. “Well spotted. I am.”
“Congratulations. When did this all happen?”
“I'm due next week.”
“Next week? You shouldn't be out here in your condition.”
“Don't be dramatic.” She studied him for a moment, taking in his features. He hadn’t aged at all, whereas she felt as though retinol could no longer hide the fact that she’d passed her prime.
“Do you know what you're having?”
“A girl.”
He nodded, his eyes moving from her stomach back to her face. “You look—”
“Like a whale?”
“I was going to say radiant.”
She pulled a face. “Now, we both know that's a lie.”
“I wouldn't lie to you,” he said. “Ever.”
They stood there for a moment, with pockets of passersby edging past them from every direction. Then, almost like he was unsure what to say next, he suggested they grab a coffee.
Seated across from him, she’d found herself fixated on his missing wedding ring. She wasn’t intending to ask, but he must have read her thoughts because he admitted he was divorced.
By the time he’d walked her home, her mouth had been dry from talking, and judging from the kicks coming from her uterus, if she’d laughed any more, she could’ve sworn she would have gone into labour.
“I enjoyed this,” he said as they approached her street. “It's always so different with you.”
“Don't get sentimental,” she teased. “Remember, we aren't even friends.”
He stopped and turned to face her, shaking his head. “You keep saying that, but somehow, I disagree.”
She would never forget the way he’d looked at her that day. There they were, light snow falling around them like paper planes, and the street lights illuminating his face. In another life, she would have kissed him, taken him by the hand, and led him to her bedroom.
But it wasn’t another life; this was reality.