Today
Daisy Hamilton ran her finger along the icy tumbler of vodka, her third in as many minutes. She tossed the freezing alcohol against the back of her throat, filled the glass to the brim one more time, shoved the bottle back into the freezer, and took the shot onto her back deck. She sat hard in the Adirondack chair that faced the gardens and lit a Virginia Slim. The letter from Rick Saeger sat on the table next to her, mocking. The promise of the money, mocking. The promise of closure, mocking.
When the phone call came this morning, rapidly followed by the letter, Daisy went into overdrive. She needed someone to share in her sadness, her horror, her fear. Aubrey was the first person who came to mind. The first one who always came to mind. The loss of Josh wasn’t enough punishment for that girl. Daisy wanted to tear her open and watch her bleed on the pavement.
Dropping the envelope at that little bitch’s school had consumed her. She needed the girl to hurt, just like Daisy hurt, though she didn’t know why she bothered; Aubrey was as walled off as they came. Daisy had always thought Aubrey was one of those people who had no emotions, no conscience. A sociopath. But if that were the case, would Josh have married her in the first place?
She’d never be able to ask him.
When she pulled out of the Montessori parking lot, her pointless arrow slung, Daisy had driven aimlessly around town, looking at all the places Josh played as a little boy. She ignored the transparent ghost of the girl, stuck to him like glue, sapping all of his energy, pulling his attention away from the only woman who truly loved him.
She’d stopped for a drink. Just one. Fortified, she’d driven through town to the Mount Olivet Cemetery office and given them the second date for the gravestone.
An expiration date.
She sipped the vodka. Thought back, the way she always did. Wondered if she would ever have peace.
It started on a Tuesday. A Tuesday that should have been like every other Tuesday before, not like every Tuesday to come.
Daisy had been making cookies, and the hour spent standing and stirring and bending before the oven made the crick in her back flare up, the one that started several years earlier after she’d fallen down the stairs. She knew she should stop and take some ibuprofen, but she wanted to get this last batch in the oven. Then she could rest. Then she could give in to the nagging pain that was her life.
But the door to the garage slammed, and in came her son, calling like a frightened jaybird.
“Mama! Mama! Mama!”
Her heart had sped up for a moment, then calmed. She recognized the alarm in his voice, she who was so attuned to every nuance of her child: every cry, every smile, every tear, every tooth; the way the skin on the inside of his arms was silky smooth and the scent of his hair told her he needed a bath, and the after, when he bundled into the towel, wet and clean and sleepy in her arms. His voice was filled with distress, but he was not hurt or in physical pain. His concern was for another.
Probably a squirrel hit by a car, or a bird flown into the window. Nothing to worry about. Nothing that couldn’t be soothed with a kiss and a cookie.
How wrong she was.
Josh had skidded into the kitchen, his rumpled hair sticking up in the back, the cowlick that refused to be tamed no matter what she did to it.
“Mama!”
She turned to him, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Josh, stop yelling. I’m right here.”
“Mama! Something awful’s happened.”
Awful. To a ten-year-old, that could be anything from dropping his toothbrush in the toilet to remembering the toad he’d left in the pocket of the jeans she had just put in the wash. Awful was running out of milk to go with his cookies. Awful was relative.
“What happened, Josh?”
Her voice was weary. She hadn’t meant it to be. She didn’t know exactly when it started, the lassitude. The first time Ed had hit her, maybe? When she asked for the restraining order? When she’d filed the divorce papers and he’d come screaming at the door, the police having to cart him away? When she’d remarried—Tom, good, steady, boring Tom, who didn’t drink, didn’t hit, and loved Josh like his own child? She was a good mother. She’d done all the right things for her son. Her happiness was irrelevant in the face of his love and joy. So what if she felt trapped?
“Mama, Mrs. Pierce told us Aubrey’s parents went to heaven.”