The Daisy Children

by Sofia Grant

  She moved everything from her black leather satchel into a floral tote that had been a gift from Georgina, put it with the suitcase by the front door, and joined Liam on the bed.

  “You were right,” he sighed. “Fucking bloodthirsty airlines. I got you on Southwest for three-twenty one way. I’ll book your return once you figure out when you’re coming back.”

  “And no connections, right?”

  “And no connections. Even though I could have knocked off almost a hundred bucks if you’d been willing to go through LAX on a red-eye.”

  “Liam—”

  “Kidding!” Liam yawned and slithered down under the blankets. “Better get some sleep. That alarm’s going off early.”

  “I could take an Uber,” Katie said halfheartedly.

  “Yeah, no. I’ll drop you off and get to the gym early.”

  Don’t fall asleep yet, Katie thought. She wanted to talk about how this trip was bringing up the divide between her Life Before—before Columbia, before she learned that most girls didn’t receive a brow wax on their twelfth birthday from their mothers, before she discovered that the slight gap between her front teeth was actually an asset—and her Life with Liam. But the subject seemed as unbroachable as ever.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said pertly. “I’ll bring you a souvenir. What time do we need to leave?”

  “Flight’s at six,” Liam said. “Sorry—the eight o’clock was eighty dollars more.”

  Or one-third the price of your new pants. Katie banished the thought—Liam’s occasional vanities weren’t worth arguing over. “Okay,” she said, grabbing her phone. “I’m setting the alarm for three-thirty, but you can sleep until four if you promise to get up when I tell you to.”

  “I promise.” Liam took her phone from her and set it on the bedside table. They only had one, because their bedroom was so narrow, and he leaned over and turned out their one lamp, then tunneled back down into the covers. In the dark, Katie finally let her features relax, suddenly aware of how much effort she had been putting into staying positive.

  She burrowed against Liam, trying to mask her tears. No baby. Unemployment. Texas.

  “You okay?” Liam mumbled.

  “Yeah . . . hiccups.”

  In a little while, his breathing grew regular and Katie clutched her pillow tightly.

  They’d keep trying, or they’d do something else. She’d have a baby when she was meant to. She’d get to New London and discover she’d inherited a fortune, or a pittance; she’d go to Dallas and bond with her mother, or argue with her. All of it would be fine.

  The thing she really ought to be worrying about was that Texas would seep into her pores and take root, and that when she came back to Boston, she wouldn’t be able to shake it off as easily as she had when she was eighteen.

  THE ALARM JARRED her from a deep sleep. “Okay, okay!” she said aloud before she was all the way awake, already swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

  Only when Liam grunted and tugged the covers back over his head did Katie remember. She glanced at her phone and grimaced; there were two texts from her mother that she’d sent around midnight.

  The first was a photo with no accompanying caption—Georgina and two of her friends, obviously a tipsy selfie, as their faces were blurred and someone’s thumb covered a corner of the picture.

  The second, twenty minutes later, a guilty afterthought:

  Book club girls just left thinking of you LOVE YOU fly safe call me

  Katie trudged to the shower and turned the water on as hot as it got, which wasn’t all that hot. That was something to look forward to—her mother kept her town house sealed up three seasons of the year with the air-conditioning set to frigid, and she had lovely strong water pressure and plenty of hot water, and Katie began all of her days there with a long shower under the steaming, stinging spray using all of her mother’s expensive bath products and luxurious fluffy towels.

  Here, though, the landlord had rigged the heat not to kick in until six o’clock every morning, and so it was a race to finish and dress before her fingers got so cold she couldn’t work zippers and buttons. Some mornings, Katie resorted to push-ups just to get her blood moving, and often her teeth were chattering when she brushed them. She put on her traveling clothes—the dark-washed jeans and a white blouse and her cashmere wrap, which she would drape over herself like a blanket the minute she got on the plane. She dabbed on concealer and eyeliner and lip gloss and then she went to wake Liam, only to find him dressed and ready to go.

  They were silent as they went down the stairs, Liam carrying her suitcase and huffing softly from the effort. Through the lobby doors, the street was uncharacteristically still, with a single Lyft sedan cruising slowly by in the dark.

  “Forty-nine,” Liam intoned somberly, because it was his job to check the weather every morning and let her know the temperature. Chilly, for May, but it had been drizzly and dreary for days. They each took a breath and then they were out in it, the fine mist settling onto her face and into her hair, ruining the effort she had made to straighten it.

  They paid $165 a month to park in a tiny space squeezed next to the Dumpster in the lot behind an apartment building two blocks away, an arrangement that required the skills of a professional driver with a physics degree—or Liam, who seemed to have a sixth sense for maneuvering his prized Peugeot around the various obstacles and angles. Katie rarely drove, and when she did she had to call Liam to come park for her when she got home.

  There was no one on the street, and they walked in silence. Katie peered up into bay windows lit with the soft glow of lamps left on by people who’d spent more to decorate their living rooms than Katie made in a year. For once, she wasn’t beset with the burn of chronic envy; her mind was spinning ahead, over the nation’s sprawling middle all the way to Texas, which she imagined waiting for her with the saved-up affront from the snub of her departure over a decade ago. Like a hostess who greets you at the door with a brittle smile to let you know that she knew you didn’t include her at your last dinner party.

  The mist seemed to seep through to her bones, haloing around the streetlight and making the street glisten. Katie pulled her wrap tighter, and walked a couple of paces behind Liam. When he stopped abruptly as they rounded the corner into the parking lot, she ran right into him.

  “Oof,” she said, surprised.

  “Fuck,” Liam said.

  “Let’s make this easy,” a strange voice said. Appearing from nowhere—or, more likely, from the alley perpendicular to the building, which was narrow and blocked by the same Dumpsters that boxed in their space—was a skinny short guy in a hoodie right out of central casting. It overshadowed his face, so that all Katie could make out was a chin with a wispy blond beard and an acne scab. And a gun. A gun in his hand, pointing at Liam, not two feet away.

  Katie grabbed Liam’s sleeve and yanked him backward, and he dropped the handle to her suitcase and it flopped over with a plasticky clatter. Their mugger shook his head, almost sorrowfully.

  “I’ll take that off your hands, but you go ahead and pick it up for me.” He had a nasally accent that didn’t sound all that authentic, like one of the secondary characters in Mystic River. Katie didn’t think anyone in Boston actually talked like that anymore.

  He pointed. “Your purse, okay? Your wallet, dude. Just drop them on the ground. Rings and watches, please, and then turn around and walk away, like normal. Calm. No need to run. Don’t run.”

  Katie and Liam looked at each other. Katie would have said that there was no way this kid—he probably weighed less than she did, and she noticed that he bit his fingernails—would possibly shoot them, except that his hands were twitching slightly and his nose was running, in a drug way. Not that she would know, but he was probably, definitely high . . . crack, heroin, both, probably things she hadn’t even heard of, and so who knew what he would do?

  “Give it to him,” she said, and poked Liam in the side with her knuckle. “Give him your
wallet.”

  “Look,” Liam said, opening his hands wide, palms up. “Her grandmother died. She’s flying to Texas. I know that sounds like BS, but if you let her show you her flight confirmation—”

  The guy smashed the gun against Liam’s face, cutting him off. Katie gasped, but Liam just staggered back with his hand to his cheek, then stepped forward with his hands in fists. Good for Liam—Katie felt a surge of pride in her husband; she’d never thought of him as her protector before, but it was kind of nice—though now he was going to get his ass beat, or worse.

  “Give him what he wants, honey, please!”

  “Honey, please!” their mugger echoed in a singsongy voice. “Look, asshole, I don’t care who died, just give me your fucking wallet.”

  Katie watched in horror, suddenly certain that Liam was going to be shot, that he was going to die in her arms. She jumped in front of him with her arms out, only belatedly wondering if a bullet at such close range would go through her and hit Liam and kill them both, and then it occurred to her that this was exactly like the opening of practically every Law & Order episode she’d ever watched. All those bodies found in dark alleys—all that terrible dialogue. Chris Meloni’s awful quips and Mariska Hargitay stepping daintily over the pooling blood in her high, high heels.

  “Shut up already,” the guy said. “Look. Give me your wallet and your phone now and maybe I’ll let her keep the ticket.”

  “I don’t have a ticket,” Katie said. Hadn’t this guy taken a flight in the last decade? But maybe he hadn’t. He probably grew up in the projects. “I just need my credit card and my driver’s license,” she said, speaking slowly and calmly. “They won’t let me on without them. But I’ll just take my AmEx, it’s almost at the limit anyway. Keep the Visa.”

  Liam gawped at her; she hadn’t exactly told him about the AmEx. “And twenty bucks,” he said, recovering himself enough to peel a bill from his wallet. “Come on, man, you can have my watch and my credit cards, but let her get a goddamn cup of coffee. Her grandmother—”

  The mugger grabbed the wallet and phone and plucked the twenty from Liam’s hand. Very cautiously, Katie bent down and set her purse on the ground. Her laptop was in it, and her Vuitton cosmetic case, a gift from Georgina. She took out her wallet and straightened slowly while showing him the credit cards lined up neatly in their slots. She took out the license and AmEx and gave a last sad, fond glance at the buttery soft pink leather with solid brass trim—another Georgina gift—and dropped it onto the pavement.

  “Okay? We’re good?” Liam snapped. “Or do you want to hit me again just to make your point?”

  What do you know—there was Liam’s recklessly brave streak again. Katie pocketed the plastic cards and linked her arm with her husband’s. She felt somehow lighter.

  “Rings.”

  Liam hadn’t worn his regularly since they returned from their honeymoon. As Katie took hers off and dropped them in the mugger’s palm, she thought of Liam’s simple gold band, sitting in the soap dish. It didn’t seem fair that he got to keep his, but she could ponder that later, when there wasn’t a gun in her face.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” the guy said. After they’d turned away and gone a few steps, she heard the wheels of her suitcase skittering on the broken asphalt as it was being rolled away.

  Despite the heart-pounding rush of adrenaline that coursed through her, Katie followed Liam calmly, almost sedately until they were out of sight around the corner, and then she threw her arms around him and hugged him so hard the breath whooshed out of him.

  “Jesus,” he muttered, his voice shaking. “He could have—that was—”

  “It’s fine,” Katie said, cutting him off. “We’re fine, we’re alive, how’s your face?” She brushed his cheek tenderly with her fingertips and kissed the purpling welt. “You were amazing, by the way, Mr. Garrett.”

  A warm little tendril unwound inside Katie, and she thought: Bless your heart.

  Chapter Six

  The speeches were over and the choir began singing “Peace in the Valley,” the cue for the Daisies to get up from their seats and file down off the bandstand.

  “Careful, careful,” Mrs. Briggs hissed up at all of them, but most especially at Johnny, her son, who had been seated next to Margaret in the boy-girl-boy-girl arrangement of the chairs, and so was walking in front of her.

  “Jeez,” he muttered.

  Margaret felt sorry for Johnny, because his mother was bonkers. Her own mother had explained that some people had gone a little crazy after the explosion and would likely never get better. After losing Johnny’s older brother Bill, who had lingered for four days before dying in a hospital in Kilgore, Mr. Briggs had called up the parents of several of Bill’s surviving classmates and threatened to set fire to their houses. The sheriff had had to talk to him.

  That was all gossip, and the Piersons didn’t trade in hearsay (according to Caroline, though Margaret had seen her do it oodles of times, when she didn’t know Margaret was listening), but what wasn’t gossip was the fact that Mrs. Briggs was forever running after Johnny and pleading with him to be careful. Every bruise, scratch, or sniffle was cause for alarm. Every Daisy Club event had to be vetted for potential dangers. Mrs. Briggs’s picnic dishes never had mayonnaise in them lest they go bad in the sun, Johnny had to wear a jacket when the temperature dipped below sixty, and he was not allowed to go on any field trips unless she came along to chaperone.

  Thankfully, Margaret’s own parents were considerably more lax. Now that she’d endured the ceremony, she would be free to do as she liked until late afternoon, when she would be required to help pick up the litter and take down the decorations.

  Margaret helped herself to a slice of chiffon cake and, spotting Hank talking to some of the men over by the memorial boards, sauntered casually over, ducking behind them so she could listen.

  “How’re the lessons going, son?” Mr. Gaston, an elderly farmer, asked him.

  “Great, sir. I’ll have my forty hours by the fourth of July. After that I’ve just got the written test and the check ride.”

  Through Helene, Margaret knew that Hank had spent most of his air force stint working as a flight mechanic, first at Pounds Field outside of Tyler and later at Las Vegas AFB. During high school, he’d watched the war on newsreels like everybody else and set his sights on becoming a pilot, but he hadn’t done well enough on the test.

  Now he was making up for lost time at Elders Field up near Kilgore, trading side jobs for flight hours.

  “We sure could use you around here,” another of the old-timers said. “Fella I hired last spring didn’t know what he was doing. Sprayed a couple of my fields, but the drift was so bad I think most of it ended up on my neighbor’s land. Top it off, he nearly hit one of my standpipes. You get that license, I’ll have work for you.”

  “Me too,” Mr. Gaston said. “You’ll do us proud, boy!”

  Well, that was interesting! Margaret needed a little time to think about this news. Helene had been boasting that Hank was going to become an airline pilot and fly around the world, which was a terrible thought, because it would take him away from Texas—and her. All she needed was time to grow up, so that Hank would realize that she was so much more than just his kid sister’s friend.

  But if he became a crop duster—why, she’d be able to look up at lunchtime and wave at him as he buzzed the fields near town.

  Margaret got a cold bottle of Texas Punch from the cooler and went around the backside of the big cedar elm under which they’d set up the refreshments. She shimmied up and settled herself in the crotch of the tree and took a sip of her soda. From here she could watch nearly everyone, undetected.

  There was her mother, not ten feet away, chatting with Mrs. Baker. “These are just so clever!” Caroline was saying, holding up one of the centerpieces Mrs. Baker’s committee had made by gluing yarn round and round empty coffee cans before filling them up with bluebonnets and roses from the committee members’ gard
ens. Mrs. Baker was beaming, but as Margaret watched, her expression slipped.

  “Caroline,” she said warningly, and they both looked out toward the street.

  A man dressed in dirty rags was walking toward them—lurching, really—drinking from a bottle and spitting on the sidewalk. He was wearing a stained cap and shoes so worn that one of the soles was flapping with every step. And he seemed to be coming straight toward their table.

  “Do you think he’s hungry?” Mrs. Baker asked. “Should I get Pete?”

  “I’ll handle this,” Caroline said, her voice sounding strained and funny.

  “There you are,” the man croaked. He stopped a few feet away from the ladies, swaying on his feet. “Look at you.”

  “Do you know him, Caroline?” Mrs. Baker asked.

  “I—no—of course not. You know what, why don’t you see if you can find Pete after all. I’ll handle this until you get back.”

  “But he could be . . .”

  Margaret, perched high above them, couldn’t hear the rest of Mrs. Baker’s sentence. The two women conferred in whispers for a moment and then Mrs. Baker said, “All right—but do be careful.”

  This was exciting. Margaret had been dragged briskly down the street by her mother often enough to know that Caroline could easily get away, if need be, but the man didn’t look like he could chase a sick dog. He was drunk, a condition that her parents had warned her about, and a distinction her father was careful to make between his nightly glass of whiskey and the kind of thing that could turn you into a bum.