Tommy and Fernando came through and contacted Dr. Karpen, the top neurologist in the country, who is affiliated with New York Hospital. Since he doesn’t have any privileges at University Hospital, he wants to wait until all the tests are taken and results are known. He said he will then confer with Dr. Niptau and talk to us about the next steps. If necessary, they could always transport Mom to New York Hospital.
Tommy also got in touch with Mom’s attorney, Albert Wadell, regarding the living will, the physician’s directive, and the health-care proxy papers. Wadell told Tommy that he is not the lawyer who prepared those documents, but that he knows the documents do exist. Mom had an attorney years ago who took care of all that for her. He passed away around ten years ago. Wadell said that my mother kept meaning to hand all those papers over to him to review and hold for her, but she never got around to it. So the papers must be somewhere in the farmhouse, in the city apartment, or maybe even in Malibu. I have no idea.
I think about the expressions on Tommy’s and Ferny’s faces when they first saw my mother earlier that evening. They were visibly shaken and both tried not to cry. Auntie D. took us all aside, out in the hallway, and said that we had to make a concerted effort to be as cheerful and optimistic as possible. That there is a very good chance she does understand what’s going on. And that maybe, with the right love and positive stimuli, Daisy Lockwood will come back to us. So we all took turns talking to her, trying to get her to recognize and comprehend something, anything.
Auntie D. left with Tommy and Fernando, and I sat alone with my mother. I apologized to her for being obnoxious on the phone Monday night. I explained I was troubled and confused, but that I should never have spoken to her that way. The things I said do not at all reflect how I truly feel about her. I love, respect, and admire her. I hope and pray that she heard me.
When I left the hospital, I rode the elevator down to the underground parking lot, where I’d left my car. I stepped out and saw that the parking garage was empty and dark. I’ve seen enough movies to know this was not the ideal place to be late at night. I set off the alarm to my car, so I could easily find it, and also to ward off any bad guys who may have been lurking in the corners. Fortunately, there were no lurkers. I found my car and breathed a sigh of relief that I had not been mugged, raped, or murdered.
When I finally pull into the road leading to the farmhouse, I feel so relieved to be home. My plans for the evening are to pour myself a large glass of Merlot and to get out of my clothes and into a hot bubble bath.
I emerge from the tub cleaner, calmer, and ready for sleep. I put on one of Mom’s nighties and go downstairs to leave the side door open and some lights on for Jamie. Even with everything that’s happened to us in the past week, I am so happy and excited that he’s coming.
It is a relief to finally get into bed and relax. I stretch my arms and legs, which feel achy and crampy. I haven’t worked out in days—no running, no yoga, no Pilates. I can’t remember the last time I took off two days in a row from exercising.
I pick up my Blackberry to check my messages. It feels like a month has passed since Auntie D. and I sat at the kitchen table earlier in the day. So much has happened today. I text Jamie to let him know that I left the side door unlocked, and that I miss him.
I want to read my mother’s diary, but the volume I’d been reading is downstairs in my bag. There is absolutely no way in hell I am going to get out of bed again. Also, I cannot bear reading about my grandfather’s abuse anymore. I lean over to the stack of diaries by the side of the bed and randomly chose another one. The dates on the cover are June 1971–June 1973—sixteen to eighteen years old.
The handwriting is smaller and closer to my mom’s adult handwriting—but it still maintains some of the frilly loops she used in her earlier journal.
June 18, 1971 Friday
Dear Diary,
This weekend is going to be so wonderful. I’m very excited. As you know, Donna just went out of town with her parents. (Boo-hoo, I miss her already!) So I have been going over my friend Karen’s house to spend time with her. Now Karen and I are not as tight as Donna and me, but we like to spend time together.
Karen is fun and cute and popular with the boys, but she’s not like Donna. Donna has what she always calls joie de vivre, which means joy of living. We both took French this year and I struggled, but Donna has that French flair. I told her she must have been Marie Antoinette in a past life. She stood on a chair and said, Qu’ils mangent de le gateau, which means, let them eat cake! She made like someone was cutting her head off and fell off the chair. She is so hysterical!
But, like Mrs. Farber my English teacher says, “Daisy Edwards, you are digressing!” So getting back to my big news: I went over to Karen’s house and we were swinging on the two tire swings under her big elm tree talking when a car pulled up.
It was a really an out of sight car—it was a RED MG Midget convertible! The guy driving is a guy that Karen has liked for about six months. He’s older and just graduated high school! His name is Mike Nash. He’s tall, really tall. He has dark long hair to his shoulders and a mustache. He is so cute! Karen said he was accepted by the University of North Carolina on a basketball scholarship. (Tar Heels is supposed to be a famous basketball team, she says.) Anyway, he got out of his car and leaned on the tree and talked to us!
Karen’s been flirting with him for months now, but he has a girlfriend, Marjorie Leynard, a pretty blond girl who is a cheerleader. Now Karen is pretty too, don’t get me wrong. But she’s certainly not “cheerleader pretty.” She is tall; about five foot eight, and has curly blonde hair. She’s a little bit on the heavier side, but not really fat. Her most striking feature is her big green eyes. She has THE longest black lashes and her eyes just pop! I wish I had lashes like that.
He told us that Marjorie was an airhead and too stuck up and he was sick to death of her attitude. So he broke up with her. We both agreed with him that he probably did the best thing. No one likes a stuck up girl, even if she is a cheerleader, that’s for sure.
And then, this is the first good part, he took Karen’s hand!!! He said, “You feel like going out with me tomorrow night?” I thought she was going to drop her teeth (that’s what Mama always says). She looked at him and said, “Sure, Mike.” Just like that, cool as a cucumber. My heart was pounding so hard for her. And then (this is the second good part) he turned to me and said “Do you wanna come too? I have a friend.”
I tried to be as cool as Karen and said, “Depends on who he is.”
Mike said, “His name is Steve Santini.” I knew EXACTLY who he was. He also graduated this year and he works with his father, summers and weekends in their landscaping business, F. Santini and Son.
Papa doesn’t like his father too much. I don’t think he really knows him all that much. The Santinis came to town around three or four years ago from Nassau County and opened up the landscaping business.
My uncle Nat, Mama’s big brother, also has a landscaping business; so of course, Papa automatically didn’t like Mr. Santini, ’cause they’re my uncle’s direct competitor. Anyway, Papa always says, “Upstarts—why don’t they stay in their own neck of the woods? Why the hell do they have to come here and take business away from good solid people who have lived here all their lives?”
But anyway, Steve Santini is sooooo cute. He is about five foot nine and has longish light brown hair with blonde streaks in it (from working outside), a mustache, and hazel eyes. He’s pretty dreamy. So I said, “Sure, why not?” I, too, was as cool as a cucumber.
Mike gave Karen a kiss on the cheek and said, “Okay, we’ll pick you ladies up right here at eight o’clock tomorrow night.” And he left. Karen and I were flipping out. First, we decided I have to tell Mama and Papa that I’m spending the night, tomorrow night, sleeping over Karen’s house. As long as I promise to be back at the farm stand first thing in the morning, I’m sure they’ll be fine with it. Karen’s mother won’t mind us going out, as long as she gets
home before eleven o’clock curfew; Karen’s gone out with boys before. Her parents are pretty liberal.
So we spent most of the rest of the afternoon talking about what we would wear and where we think they’re going to take us, etc.
Well, Diary, I am so excited, I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight. I’m going to bring a bunch of outfits over to Karen’s house after I close the farm stand tomorrow and get dressed over there.
Oh I wish I didn’t have freckles!!
Bye for now. Goodnight John Boy!
Daisy xoxoxo
I stop reading and start to laugh. My mother was your typical high school girl who hid things from her parents. You never really think of your parents as kids. Sure, you see old photos of them, but you truly can’t imagine them as anything but, well, your parents.
Although it is awesome to be able to read about her life through her sixteen-year-old eyes, I do feel like I’m trespassing on young Daisy’s train of consciousness. That doesn’t stop me. I continue to read:
June 20, 1971 Sunday afternoon.
Dear Diary,
I’m at the farm stand and things are really slow, so I figured I would write to you now instead of tonight, because I just can’t wait. Last night turned out to be a real bummer! Worse than a bummer, ten times worse than a bummer, if that’s possible. We got all ready. I wore a really pretty denim dress and ballet slippers and Karen wore a red skirt, black top, and black high heels that she took from her mother’s closet. Her parents were out for the night, so Karen raided her mother’s closet and makeup drawer. She put makeup on me first. First she applied eye shadow and then she took her mother’s eyebrow pencil, lit a match to it, and made it really dark! She drew a thin line on my top lids and then on the inside of the bottom lids. My eyes are big to begin with, but this made them huge! Anyway, I thought maybe it was too much, since I never hardly wear makeup at all, really. (Mama and Papa would crucify me if they saw me wearing makeup.) But Karen said it wasn’t too much and that I looked really beautiful. When Karen was dressed, she looked beautiful and wow, she looked so much older! Like at least eighteen or even older.
So about eight o’clock we went down by the tree and Mike and Steve were already there. They drove Steve’s car, because Mike’s car is a two-seater. Steve’s car is a blue, very cool Mustang convertible.
So anyway, we got in—I was in the front seat because Steve was driving and Karen was in the back seat with Mike. They asked us if we wanted to go to the beach and sit and talk. We said sure. Mike said that we should go to Hampton Bays because the beach there is nicer than on the North Fork, because it’s the ocean and not the sound.
I looked at Steve and he was even cuter than I remembered. I looked up in the sky and thought dating is great, I could get used to this. The top was down in the car, so it was difficult to have a four-way conversation because of the wind. So after a few minutes Steve and I started talking to each other. He told me that he wants to be a park ranger in Oregon and that he loves working outdoors. He asked me about my plans for the future and I said that all I really want to do is be a writer. He was easy to talk to and we were having a good time. I looked in the back seat and I was stunned. Mike and Karen were making out hot and heavy and Mike had his hand under her top. He was feeling her up, right there in the back seat.
I started getting very uncomfortable and I must have had a funny look on my face, because I saw Steve look in the rearview mirror. He must’ve seen what they were doing, because he smiled and winked at me.
We got to the beach and they were right, it was beautiful. There was a full moon and you could clearly see the waves when they broke on the shore. The sky was lit up with hundreds of twinkling stars.
Mike said, “Karen and I are going to go down past the dunes for a walk. We’ll be back soon.”
I started getting nervous; this is not what I thought a date would be like. I figured we would all sit around and talk and stuff. Anyway, Steve put some music on and said, “Why don’t we sit in the back seat, it’s more comfortable there.” I told him okay, but I really started feeling a little panicked. I certainly didn’t want to seem like a baby, so we got into the back seat.
We talked about everything for about a half hour or so. I started feeling really comfortable. He told me about his family and how it had taken so long for them to get accepted into the area, and how people were rude to them. I felt guilty because I knew Papa was one of the rude ones.
Out of the blue, he leaned over and kissed me. This was my very first kiss, Diary, and it was so sweet. His breath smelled like mints. Then he kissed me again and again and then—he FRENCH kissed me! It was really nice, now I know why people like to kiss so much, because it makes your whole body tingle from your head to your toes. I mean everywhere!
When he was kissing me, he put his hand on my left breast. I immediately blocked his hand with my arm.
“No, Steve,” I said.
“Come on, Daisy, it’ll feel so good, trust me,” he said.
I told him again that I had never done that before and I didn’t want to start tonight. So he said okay and then we started kissing again. His kisses were getting really passionate and it felt great. Then Steve put his hand on my back and pulled down my zipper and pulled my dress down over my shoulder. He put his hand on my shoulder and started reaching under the top of my dress to my bra.
“NO!” I said, “Steve, I really mean it.” I was scared.
“Please get Karen and tell her I want to go home,” I said. Tears were coming to my eyes and I didn’t want him to see it.
He looked annoyed and said, “Calm down, don’t be such a baby.”
I opened the door and got out of the back seat. I figured I’d find Karen and tell her that I wanted to leave, NOW! I walked on the sand through the dunes. I heard Steve call me but I didn’t look back. I ran against the wind to find Karen. Sand was blowing in my face and stinging my eyes and my hair was whipping all around. I finally saw them. Karen and Mike were lying on the grass of the dunes and Karen was practically naked. I called to her that I wanted to go home. At that point, I didn’t care if I was interrupting them. I didn’t realize that Karen was like that. What my mother would call “loose.” I didn’t even wait to hear what they said. I ran back to the car and told Steve that I wanted to go home now. And if Karen and Mike didn’t want to leave he could pick them up later.
Mike and Karen did come back. Karen was fixing her clothes and Mike’s hair was all messy. Karen tried to talk me into staying. I said no, I wanted to go home. She took me aside and asked what was wrong. I told her and she said I should grow up and called me a real child.
I didn’t care what she said; I didn’t care what anyone said at that point. I just wanted to leave.
I told Steve where I lived and asked him to take me there.
It was the most uncomfortable ride of my whole entire life. I wanted to be OUT of that car and in my own bed. Karen and Mike were in the back seat laughing, but I didn’t care. She certainly wasn’t a good friend, not like Donna. Donna would never have put me in a position like that.
Steve finally pulled into the private road to the farmhouse and I told him to let me out. I couldn’t let my parents see me getting out of the car. I would be punished for the rest of the summer. I ran to the front door and realized I still had on all that makeup! So I snuck around the house to the outside pump and scrubbed my face. It felt good, like I was washing away more than just my makeup.
My parents were in the living room watching television. My mother asked why I was home and not sleeping at Karen’s. I told her that I got homesick and wanted to sleep in my own bed.
So that’s the whole story, Diary. I am seriously considering becoming a nun!!! I hate my life!
Sister Daisy Rose xoxoxo
I look up from the diary. What a complete ass that guy was. Teenage boys will always be the same. Horny is horny, no matter what decade.
I am getting sleepy, but I want to read one more entry. By the time I’m
finished, I’ll surely be able to fall asleep.
Jamie should be landing soon and will be at the farm in a couple of hours. I decide to call the I.C.U. nurse to check on my Mom once more before going to sleep.
The nurse answers, “I.C.U., Karen speaking.”
“Hi, Karen, this is Daisy Lockwood’s daughter, Lily. I’m calling to see how she’s doing,” I tell her.
“Hold on, Miss Lockwood, I’ll put your Mom’s nurse on.” She puts me on hold.
“This is Tina, can I help you?” the voice on the other end answers.
“Hi, Tina, this is Lily, just checking in on my Mom,” I say, hoping she will give me good news.
“Everything’s the same, Miss Lockwood. Oh, and Dr. Grippi is going to call you in the morning to let you know your Mom will be in tests until about one or two in the afternoon. Or it could be even later—since it’s the weekend, we tend to be understaffed. You should probably call before coming, so you don’t end up waiting here a good part of the day.” I thank her and hang up the phone.
Tomorrow I plan to bring not only pictures of her loved ones, but also a really beautiful picture of her to tape to her headboard so that anyone treating her will know what she really looks like. How animated her face is, and how vibrant her eyes are.
I open the diary:
July 20, 1971 Tuesday
Dear Diary,
I know, I know. I haven’t written since that horrible night last month. So much has happened, and all of it good!! First of all, the very next day Steve Santini started calling my house. He called like nine times in one week! My mother gave me the messages, but I never called him back. I had no desire to speak to him—I thought he was a male chauvinist pig! Anyway, two weeks ago, I answered the phone one night, and guess who it was? You guessed it—Steve Santini! He said, “Daisy, it’s me, Steve.”
“What do you want, Steve?” I asked.
“Listen, I’ve called you so many times in the last couple of weeks. Did you get any of my messages?” he asked.
The Seeds Of A Daisy: The Lily Lockwood Series: Book One (Women's Fiction) Page 14