Chapter 30 Daisy
DAISY
The dress is ivory cotton with tiny embroidered flowers along the hem, and it fits perfectly over my thirty-eight-week belly. No corset. No structured bodice. No pretending I'm anything other than exactly what I am, a very pregnant woman about to marry the man she's technically still married to.
"You look like a garden goddess," Nell says, adjusting the simple crown of baby's breath in my hair. "A very round garden goddess."
"I look like I swallowed a beach ball."
"A beautiful beach ball." She steps back, examining her work. "Your mom would be losing her mind right now. In the best way."
I touch the blue ink stain on my thumb (I was annotating a poetry collection this morning, couldn't help myself) and think about Annie. How she would have fussed over my hair. How she would have cried before I even started walking. How she would have loved every single thing about this day.
"She'd be furious about the venue," I say. "She always said bookstores were sacred spaces."
"And weddings aren't?"
"She thought weddings were chaos wrapped in tulle." I smile at my reflection. "But she also thought love was the only chaos worth choosing, so."
Nell squeezes my shoulders from behind. "Speaking of chaos, your father has asked me three times if he's supposed to walk on your left or your right."
"Tell him whichever side keeps him from crying."
"That's not a side, Daisy. That's a different dimension."
The back room of The Margin smells like fresh paint and new books.
Nell rebuilt it bigger, better, kept the original layout but added a children's section with a reading nook shaped like a ship.
The shelves are full again. The register is new.
And tonight, every surface is covered in string lights that make the whole space glow like something out of a dream.
My dream. My choice. My man waiting at the end of the fiction aisle.
"Okay." I take a breath. "Let's do this before our daughter decides to make her entrance early."
"She's been incredibly patient."
"She's been using my bladder as a trampoline for six hours."
"Patient for her," Nell clarifies. "She definitely has your sense of timing."
The door opens and my father appears, wearing a suit I've never seen before, charcoal gray, perfectly fitted. His eyes are already red.
"Daddy, we haven't even started."
"I know." He clears his throat roughly. "I know, sweetheart. I just… you look so much like your mother right now, I can't—"
"Dale." I take his hand. "If you make me cry before I walk out there, I'm going to ruin Nell's makeup job and she'll never forgive either of us."
"She's right," Nell says. "I spent forty minutes on those eyes."
Dad laughs, wiping his face with his free hand.
"Okay. Okay, I'm good. I'm fine." He looks at me, and his voice goes soft.
"Annie would be so proud of you, Daisy-bell.
Not just for this." He gestures at my dress, the flowers, all of it.
"For everything that came before. The way you fought.
The way you forgave. The way you chose what was hard because it was right. "
"Dad."
"She always said you were braver than you knew." He kisses my forehead. "She was right about everything, that woman."
I squeeze his hand so tight my fingers ache. "Left side. You walk on my left."
"Why left?"
"Because that's where my heart is."
He makes a sound that's half laugh, half sob. "Lord, child. You're trying to kill me."
Nell opens the door to the main floor, and the soft acoustic music Adam and I chose together starts.
"Ready?" Dad asks.
"I've been ready for a really long time."
We step out into the light.
The aisle runs from Fiction to Romance, which Nell insisted on because she said it was "thematically appropriate.
" The folding chairs are packed with everyone who matters, Ruth in the front row, tiny and fierce in a purple dress that matches her signature reading glasses.
Bev beside her, already crying into a handkerchief embroidered with little books.
Priya on Ruth's other side, her dissertation defense successfully behind her, grinning like she's never seen anything more romantic.
Grayson and Abbie are there, holding hands and smiling at me. Klaus is wearing a bow tie that's either brilliant or ridiculous, possibly both, and he's holding a camera like he's personally responsible for documenting this moment for posterity.
Ingrid is on the groom's side, which would have been weird a year ago but feels perfect now. She waves at me with both hands, unable to contain herself, and I have to bite my cheek to keep from laughing. And at the end of the aisle, standing between Poetry and the Philosophy shelf, is Adam.
He's wearing a dark suit with no tie, the collar of his white shirt open just enough to show the edge of ink on his collarbone.
His hair is slightly too long, curling at his temples.
His hands are clasped in front of him, and he's watching me walk toward him with an expression I've never seen before, caught between wonder and certainty. His dark brown eyes are wet.
I'm going to make this man cry, I think. I'm going to stand up there and say words and he's going to completely fall apart in front of everyone. The thought makes me unreasonably happy.
Dad walks me all the way to the end of the aisle, where Ruth is officiating because she got ordained online specifically for this occasion and because, as she put it, "Someone has to keep you two from getting too sappy."
"Who gives this woman?" Ruth asks, formal and gruff.
"Her mother and I," Dad says, voice cracking. "With more love than I know how to hold."
He kisses my cheek, shakes Adam's hand with surprising warmth, and takes his seat next to Ingrid. Adam takes my hands. His fingers are shaking.
"Hi," I whisper.
His voice is rough. "You're so beautiful I forgot how to breathe."
"Focus on the oxygen. I need you conscious for the vows."
"I'll do my best."
Ruth clears her throat. "We're gathered here today because these two knuckleheads couldn't do things the normal way.
" She looks out at the small crowd. "Most people, you know, they get married once.
Maybe twice if the first one doesn't take.
These two decided they needed a whole redemption arc before they could figure out what the rest of us learn in premarital counseling. "
Quiet laughter ripples through the room. Adam's thumb traces circles on my palm.
"But here's the thing about second chances," Ruth continues. "They're not really second chances. They're choices. Daily, hourly, minute-by-minute choices to show up for each other even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard." She looks at Adam. "You know about hard, son?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"You planning on running again when it gets tough?"
"No, ma'am."
"Good answer." She turns to me. "And you, Miss Daisy. You planning on keeping those sharp opinions to yourself?"
"No, ma'am."
"Better answer." Ruth nods, satisfied. "Now. I'm told you wrote your own vows because apparently the traditional ones weren't specific enough. Daisy, you're up first."
I take a breath. My hands are sweating. Adam's are too. I can feel it, the nerves transferring between us through our palms.
"Okay." I pull the folded paper from where I've hidden it in my bouquet. "I wrote this as an essay because that's how my brain works, and if you mock me for it, I will bring it up in every argument for the next fifty years."
"Noted," Adam says softly.
"Dear Adam," I read, and my voice only shakes a little.
"I rehearsed a speech about love and partnership and how much you've changed," I continue.
"It was very eloquent. You would have been impressed.
" Light laughter from the small crowd: Nell, my dad, Ingrid, the handful of people who watched us fall apart and somehow still believed we could put ourselves back together.
"But that speech was a lie. I do love you, desperately, in ways I didn't know I was capable of.
But it made our story sound prettier than it was. "
Adam's watching me like I'm the only person in the room. Like he's afraid to blink and miss something.
"The truth is, I met you on the worst day of my father's life.
I stormed into your conference room at Meridian ready to scream at you for suing a man who didn't deserve it, and you sat there in your ridiculous expensive suit and let me yell myself hoarse.
And then you offered me a deal. Marry you for five years, and the debt disappears.
Simple and transactional. Insane, looking back. "
My throat tightens, but I push through.
"I said yes because I was desperate. I thought I knew exactly what I was getting: a contract, a performance, a business arrangement with excellent health insurance.
I didn't know I was getting you. The real you, the one underneath all that armor.
The one who reads my mother's annotations in the margins of paperback novels and builds rooms full of books and learns how to be a person someone could actually love. "
I look down at the paper, at the next line waiting.
"The first time you kissed me, I thought my heart would stop. The first time you disappointed me, I thought it might stop for real. And somewhere in the middle of all that starting and stopping, I fell so in love with you that I couldn't remember who I was before you."
I pause, looking up from the paper. His eyes are swimming.
"That was a problem," I continue. "Because when you love someone so much you lose yourself, you can't actually love them well. You just cling. You just hope. You just wait for them to save you from your own silence."
Bev is openly sobbing now. Ruth pats her arm.
"So here's what I'm promising today. I promise to remember who I am, even when loving you feels like the biggest part of me.
I promise to keep asking for what I need, and to expect you to listen.
I promise to fight with you instead of fighting alone.
" I fold the paper carefully. "And I promise to keep choosing you.
Every day. Through ordinary mistakes and difficult conversations, with both of us doing the work. "
Adam makes a small sound, almost a laugh, almost a cry.
"I choose you, Adam. Not the arrangement. Not the business deal. Not the logical next step in some plan I didn't write. Just you." I press my hand to his chest, feeling his heart thunder beneath my palm. "My infuriating, complicated, highlighter-hoarding husband. I choose you."
The room is very quiet. Adam's breathing is uneven.
"Adam," Ruth prompts gently. "Your turn."
He nods, but he doesn't pull out a paper. He just looks at me, and his voice is steady even though his hands are trembling.
"I was going to write an essay too," he says. "I tried. Three times. But every time I tried to explain how much you mean to me, I got lost in metaphors and promises I wasn't sure I could keep."
"So I made a list instead."
I smile. "You would."
"Things I've learned from loving Daisy Williams," he says, like he's reading a title.
"Item one: Books are not just books. They're conversations with people who loved them before you did.
Item two: The right thing is usually the harder thing, and the harder thing is usually worth doing.
Item three: Forgiveness isn't a single moment.
It's a practice. You wake up and you choose it again. "
His voice cracks. He pauses.
"Take your time, honey," Ruth says softly.
Adam swallows hard. "Item four: You can build an empire and still miss what matters if you're not paying attention. Item five: Paying attention is a skill. It requires practice. It requires showing up. Item six—"
He stops. His eyes are so full of tears he can barely see me.
"Item six," he tries again. "I will show up. I will show up every day. I will show up when it's hard and when it's boring and when you're angry with me. I will show up when you don't ask me to. I will show up even when I'm scared."
The room is crying. Everyone. Even Klaus, dabbing at his eyes with his ridiculous bow tie.
"I don't have a list for that," Adam says quietly. "I just have a promise. I'll show up."
I pull him forward and kiss him before Ruth can tell us we're allowed to. His hands rise to cradle my jaw, gentle, shaking, and I hear Ruth muttering "Close enough" before the room erupts in cheers.
The reception is cake and champagne in the children's section, all of us crammed between picture books and the ship-shaped reading nook.
Grayson makes a toast that's mostly jokes about Adam's emotional growth.
Abbie makes one that's mostly tears. Klaus attempts one in German before switching to English and losing his train of thought entirely.
Adam pulls me onto what passes for a dance floor, a small clearing between Poetry and Cookbooks, and holds me as close as my belly allows.
"Your vows made me cry in front of everyone I know," I say against his chest.
"You started it."
"I was supposed to start it. You were supposed to be stoic."
"I've never been stoic in my life." He says it without a shred of shame.
"Lies. You have resting CEO face."
He laughs, pulling me closer. "I love you."
"I love you too." I rest my forehead against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. "We did it."
"Against all available data."
The club has abandoned their chairs and formed a loose circle around us, singing something that might be "At Last" but is definitely off-key. Ruth's voice cuts above the others, warbling and wonderful.
"Your friends can't sing," Adam murmurs.
"Our friends. They're your friends now too."
"Our friends can't sing."
"No, they really can't."
I'm laughing when I feel it, a sudden pressure, then a warm rush that soaks through my dress and hits the floor with a splash that's audible even over the terrible singing.
Adam freezes. "Was that—"
"Yes."
"But we're between Poetry and Cookbooks."
"I am aware of where we are."
Everyone has stopped singing. Ruth is already moving toward us, her orthopedic shoes squeaking on the hardwood.
"Well," I say, looking up at my husband's shell-shocked face. "Your daughter has your sense of timing."
Adam's hand goes to his jacket pocket.
"I have a stopwatch," he says, slightly manic. "For the contractions."
"Of course you do."
"It's in my wedding jacket."
"Of course it is."
He pulls it out.