Chapter 17
XVII
DAISY
Daisy struggled to sleep that night, her mind in a riptide of questionable thoughts. It’s hormones, she told herself, staring at the ceiling tiles, counting them one by one. It had to be.
She didn’t think of herself as neurotic. Or at least, not usually. All this obsessive thinking, picking apart half-truths she wasn’t even sure had been meant that way, it didn’t feel like her.
After tossing and turning for what felt like hours, she stood and waddled to the window.
Outside the city, it was alive with the nocturnal souls and anthropoid shadows.
She wondered then where Logan was. Was he staring into the distance like her, replaying the moment?
She sighed, gripping the windowsill tightly.
It was an answer she’d never know and a truth she’d never find.
Callan rang the next day. It had been over a week since Daisy had last spoken to him, and whether it was a by-product of her lingering guilt or something deeper, the way his voice sounded unsettled her.
He never shared much about what was happening over there, almost as if keeping things from her was his way of protecting her.
She’d heard people talk about it, though—how you can sense it in the silence and find it in words, when something has changed—and after sitting in a period of unnerving silence, she knew it had.
“I miss you,” she managed to croak out, which was met by another long pause.
She lay back on the bed and waited, but instead of echoing her words or asking how she or the baby were doing, his first question was, “What did you eat today?”
She forced herself to laugh, brushing it off at first. “Food,” she replied, attempting to inject some humour into the sterile conversation. “And too much of it.”
“What kind of food?”
“Promise you won’t judge me?”
Another pause followed, and in the background, she could hear the soft murmur of voices.
“Daisy,” he said, playfully lowering his voice. “What kind of rubbish are you feeding our child?”
She laughed again, and this time, it was genuine. He was trying to lighten the mood, but something about his tone didn’t sit right. “Chips. And a doughnut.”
“Just one?”
She rolled over onto his side of the bed, burying her face in his pillow. “Don’t judge me for saying this…but…four.”
“Daisy!”
“I know, I know!” she said, her voice muffled. “It’s…it’s what she wants.”
“Correction, it’s what you want.”
She grinned, picturing him wherever he was, shaking his head, maybe even smiling despite himself. “Same thing,” she teased.
“If our child comes out a ball of lard, I know who to—”
Suddenly, the call was interrupted by a loud bang, followed by frantic shouting.
“I-I have to go,” he stammered, his voice stripped of all humour. “I’ll ring you back.”
“You promise?”
He didn’t give her an answer. The receiver shifted, and she heard him speak to someone else, but she couldn’t make it out.
“Callan?”
She waited, the line crackling and voices becoming louder, before it went dead. Hours passed, and she stayed there unmoved, waiting for the phone to ring. But it never did.
The call came at 8:05 a.m. the next morning. Daisy remembered because she’d only just woken up and was trying to summon the energy to get out of bed when her phone buzzed.
“What time do you call this?” she asked, assuming it was Callan returning the call.
Expecting a light-hearted apology, when she was met with silence, she froze. “Am I speaking to Mrs Thomas?” a woman asked, calm and unfamiliar.
Daisy sat up, her heart pounding. The woman's voice was too detached and clinical for her liking. “You are.”
“This is Sergeant Edwards. I’m calling about your husband, Callan Thomas.”
A sinking feeling flooded through her. This couldn’t be it; this couldn’t be the call.
In a handful of social gatherings, she’d come across a few widows who had told her about the call.
“Time freezes,” one had said. “I was there, but I wasn’t there.
They could’ve told me I won the lottery, and I wouldn’t have registered it.
” As she stared around her, the walls seemingly warping and growing closer, she could feel the same detachment smothering her.
“Are you there?” the woman continued, and it hit Daisy that they’d been sitting in silence for too long.
“I’m…I’m here,” she stuttered.
“Are you at home, Mrs Thomas? Would it be alright if I came to speak with you in person? I always find speaking face to face—”
“No, I…I have things on today,” Daisy cut in. Whatever news she had, she needed it now. “Please, just tell me. Is he dead?”
“Mrs Thomas—”
“Is he?”
“It would be better if I came over—”
“For fuck’s sake, just tell me! Is he dead? Is Callan dead?”
There was a pause, and Daisy froze, her heart thudding in her ears. She could feel every sensation: the way the light breeze filtering in through the window hit her skin, the dampened sound of The Verve from her neighbour’s flat, and the faint smell of freesias from her garden.
“Please,” she managed to whisper, “I need to know.”
“He’s not dead,” the woman finally answered, her voice flat and careful.
“But Mrs Thomas, Callan has been injured. There was an IED incident, and he’s going to require surgery.
He’s currently in Bastian and will be en route to Birmingham in the coming hours.
He’s in an induced coma for now, but he’s stable.
Unfortunately, at this time, we don’t know the full extent of his injuries.
” Another pause. “I understand this is a lot to take in, but can I come to you and explain everything and what support we can offer to you both?”
She closed her eyes. Logan had once told her how the brain was a miraculous machine.
“It has its way of protecting you,” he’d told her.
“I’ve heard of people being told their significant other has passed, only to show up at work hours later.
Sometimes, it makes things inconceivable and diverts your attention from the here and now so it can build the foundations to deal with what’s to come.
” Perhaps that was why she did what she did next.
“No,” Daisy said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “You can’t.” Then, without a single ounce of rational thought, she hung up.