by Susan Wiggs
Daisy looped her arms around her knees and watched Charlie, who was lost in a world of play. Why did parents saddle their kids with expectations, instead of letting the kid become whoever he wanted to be? Didn’t they know it made kids want to do the opposite?
It was a sports injury that precipitated Logan’s descent into drug addiction. A soccer championship was on the line, and Logan had suffered a knee injury. He discovered if he swallowed enough painkillers, he could keep playing.
Hide your pain and keep on playing. It was the O’Donnell family way.
Daisy pushed her son’s toy truck over a plastic bridge and silently vowed never to pressure him about anything. Ever. She wondered if her own parents had made that same vow about her. Didn’t every generation promise to be better parents than their own parents had been? How come it never worked out that way?
“Good, it’s all settled, then,” she said to Charlie. “A sleepover with your dad.”
“Because you’re working?” Charlie asked, scooping out a hole with a yellow plastic shovel.
That was the only reason she ever left him. To work. This time was different.
She paused her truck at the end of the bridge and took a breath. “This is not for work. I’m going to see Julian.”
Charlie didn’t stop digging and he didn’t look up. “Daddy-boy,” he said quietly.
“Okay?” she asked.
No response.
“Julian’s got something important to do called a commissioning ceremony.” It was the moment Julian would actually be given his officer’s commission, and she couldn’t imagine missing it. “It’s a really big deal to be an officer in the air force,” she added, wondering how much of this Charlie was absorbing. She stuck a plastic gas station by the side of the sandbox road and pushed her truck into the bay to fuel up. “They’re going to tell every body where he has to go for his job. He could be sent anywhere in the world, from Tierra del Fuego to the North Pole.”
“Where Santa lives,” Charlie said, his face lighting up.
“You never know.”
She shook off a wave of melancholy, thinking about how hard it was going to be, seeing him go off somewhere to start his life as an officer. She was determined not to show her sadness. This weekend was about celebrating Julian’s incredible achievement, not about lamenting the chance they’d never had.
“Tell you what,” she said to Charlie. “Let’s go grab some lunch and you can pick out three toys to take to your dad’s.”
“Four toys,” he said, always pushing for more.
She was pretty sure he didn’t know what four was, but that wasn’t the point. You didn’t bargain with a little kid. “Three,” she said. “And they have to fit in your Clifford bag.”
Charlie was sound asleep in his car seat when Daisy drove up to Logan’s place. She spotted him up on the roof of the house he’d bought last fall, pounding at something. The house was old and graceful, from the 1920s, on a tree-lined street prized for its vintage architecture and quiet ambiance. The neighborhood was a haven for the upwardly mobile, close to schools and the country club. It didn’t appeal to Daisy in particular—her taste ran to funky lakeside cottages—but Logan had embraced home ownership with his usual tenacity.
Like all older homes, the house had issues. He insisted on doing many of the renovations himself, even though he could probably afford any contractor he wanted. It was as if he had something to prove. Born to a wealthy family, he’d never had to do home repairs. With his new place, he embraced the challenge. It was a steep-roofed two-story house surrounded by overgrown rhododendrons and hydrangea bushes, with a big hickory tree in the front. He must have heard her drive up because he paused in his work and lifted his arm to wave.
He lost his balance and wheeled his arms, and his feet came out from under him. Gathering speed, he skidded down the steep slope of the roof. It was like something out of a nightmare. Daisy opened her mouth in a voiceless scream and clamped both hands over her mouth. A part of her understood that this would be a really bad time for Charlie to awaken—in time to see his daddy fall to his death.
Logan grabbed for a purchase, hooking onto the eaves. The old metal tore away. He tumbled to the edge and dropped like a sack of mail, crashing down on an old rhododendron bush.
Daisy leapt out of the car and rushed over to him. He lay by the broken bush, motionless. His eyes were closed, his face chalk-white.
A sense of unreality fell over her. No. These things didn’t happen. They weren’t supposed to happen. He looked dead. He was dead. Just like that.
She couldn’t catch her breath. She sank to her knees beside him. “Logan, no,” she said. “Please.”
A terrible sound came from him as he sucked in a breath. “Please…what?” His eyes fluttered open, and he groaned.
She cried harder, from joy now. “Are you all right? I thought you were dead.”
“Hey, I thought I was dead. Completely knocked the wind out of me.”
“Should I call 911?”
He pushed himself up, plucked a rhody branch from his hair. “Sorry to disappoint you, but the emergency is over.” He moved his head from side to side. “No broken neck. Extremities all intact.”
A thin, livid scrape slashed across his cheek, and his hand was bleeding.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Okay enough, I swear.” He wiped his hand on his shirt.
“You shouldn’t have been up on the roof all by yourself. Couldn’t you have called someone?”
“Now you’re sounding like my mother.”
“Sorry.”
He offered a lopsided grin. “Maybe the fall knocked the silver spoon from my mouth. Here, give me a hand.”
She pulled him to his feet and looked into his eyes, making sure the pupils matched. “Did you hit your head?”
“Nope. Fell on my ass.” He laid his arm around her shoulders. He smelled of sweat and broken greenery. “I should lean on you, though. You know, just in case. Where’s my boy?”
“Asleep in the car.”
“I got plans for us this weekend,” said Logan. “My soccer team’s got a big match.”
She cast another worried look at him. “You might be really hurt.”
He stepped away from her, spread his arms wide. “Look, I’m fine, okay? I took a spill—”
“From a two-story roof.”
“And lived to tell the tale,” he said. “Quit worrying. Charlie and I’ll be fine. Perfectly fine.”
“What were you doing up there, anyway?”
“Fixing some loose shingles. A regular home handyman.”
“Do me a favor. No ladders, no roof repairs while you’re in charge of Charlie.”
He raised his right hand. “Scout’s honor.” He unbuckled Charlie’s seat and pulled it out. Charlie stirred but didn’t wake up, so Logan carried the whole rig into the house. Daisy followed with the Clifford bag and Charlie’s weekender.
“I could call Sonnet,” she suggested. Her stepsister was Charlie’s favorite babysitter. After finishing her studies and internships in Germany, Sonnet was back in Avalon for a few months. In the fall, she would start work at the U.N.
“Or either of my parents could help out—”
“Enough, okay? I didn’t get hurt. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my own kid.” He spoke quietly, but his voice had an edge. Because of his past as an addict and drunk, people tended to tiptoe around him or assume he was inadequate. Just the suggestion of help brought out his defensiveness.
“I know you’re capable. But you just fell off a roof. You’re not Superman.”
He grabbed a Nehi soda from the fridge. “Sure, I am.” He offered her a sip.
She shook her head. “All right. Instead of getting another sitter, I could cancel.” Thus proving once again how easily life interfered with her and Julian.
“Nope,” he said quickly. “No way.”
This startled her. Logan knew she was going to the commissioning ceremony,
and he couldn’t stand Julian. In Logan’s mind, Julian was the one thing that stood between them, preventing them from having a deeper relationship. Which was so wrong, but that was a different conversation. Still, she didn’t get why Logan seemed to want her to go to Ithaca.
He must have read her mind. “You need to see him get his commission. Maybe it’ll be, I don’t know, closure for you.”
“Closure?” She hated the sound of that word.
“You need to see that the air force is his life.” Logan spoke kindly. “You’ll never be first with him. Maybe after this weekend, after he gets sent to Timbuktu, that’ll finally be clear to you.”
It irked her that Logan assumed that was the way things would play out. He spoke as if he had some kind of crystal ball.
“Great, now you’re my relationship analyst.” God, how did I get here? she wondered. Sometimes she looked around her life and asked herself that. How was it that she was getting relationship advice from the father of her child, a guy who had come into her life through an act of bad judgment, and stayed through sheer determination.
“Logan—”
“I want you to know, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, not to Timbuktu or the Pentagon or North Dakota or Cape Town. Here, Daisy. You know what you mean to me.”
She did know. If she ever needed a reminder that this was true, all she had to do was remember what had happened the Christmas before last. The day had started out innocently enough. She and Charlie had been invited to spend the holiday with the O’Donnells, which meant taking the train with Logan from Avalon downstate to the city. She remembered feeling so torn that day, knowing Charlie deserved equal time with his paternal grandparents, yet realizing it would mean spending the holiday away from her own family. For Charlie’s sake, she’d put on a brave face, packed her bag and met Logan at the station.
At the last minute, Julian had come to town to surprise her. His train had arrived shortly before hers was scheduled to leave. He’d come bounding over to her platform with his usual exuberance, which deflated visibly the moment he’d spotted Logan. She hadn’t known they would both be there. It was never comfortable having the two of them in the same vicinity.
Predictably, and to her complete mortification, it had all gone wrong in a flurry of angry words and accusations. Like a couple of rutting animals, Julian and Logan had gotten into a fistfight right there on the train platform. A fistfight. Between two men who both claimed they cared about her—Logan, the passionate family man she’d known all her life and the father of her child, and Julian, the guy she hadn’t been able to get out of her heart since they’d first met.
In the midst of the altercation, things had flown from pockets, littering the platform—change, a Swiss Army knife, keys…and a small velveteen jewel box. It had hit the pavement, popping open to reveal the unmistakable glint of a diamond ring. She’d been so shocked, she could barely think, but she’d blurted out, “Oh. You dropped something.”
And God help her, she couldn’t be certain who had brought the ring.
Most women dreamed of a romantic marriage proposal offered on bended knee with soft music playing in the background. In Daisy’s case it had been a nightmare enacted in public before a crowd of people. A far cry from a tender moment to remember and savor with misty-eyed fondness, it had been one of those occasions that had left her wishing the ground would open up and swallow her whole.
Instead of a sweet recitation of love and devotion, the occasion had started with a fight. What happened next still made her cringe. A babble of spectators. Strangers pressing in, drawn by the drama. There had been a moment, a split-second leap of hope, when she imagined the ring had popped out of Julian’s pocket. But no. Marriage was discouraged for ROTC candidates.
Seconds later, with one eye swelling shut and a trickle of blood coming from his lip, Logan had snatched up the box and said, “I meant to surprise you with this, but that son of a bitch forced my hand. I want you to be my wife.”
Julian had made a sound of disgust and stalked away from the platform. More passengers gathered in close, intrigued. Daisy had prayed for a swift, merciful death.
She had refused to see either Julian or Logan that Christmas and had spent the next semester and summer studying photography abroad. After several months in Germany, where her stepsister Sonnet had been living and working, Daisy had returned, as confused as ever.
“The offer’s still open,” Logan said now, and she knew exactly what he was referring to.
“My answer is the same.”
Logan smiled a little. “Your lips are saying no, but what you really mean is, not yet.”
“No means no,” Charlie murmured, waking up with a drowsy smile. It was one of those phrases Daisy tended to say to him…a lot.
“Hey, buddy.” Logan hunkered down and freed the little boy from the car seat. “I’ve been waiting to see you all day.”
“Dad.” Charlie clung to him like a monkey and they kissed.
Daisy watched, caught by fondness and exasperation both. Complicated. That was the word for her life. How simple everything would be if only she could believe she was supposed to be with Logan. The three of them together—a family. What was wrong with her? She and Logan had made this amazing child. Why couldn’t they be happy together?
Five
The officer in the mirror stared back at Julian with a sense of grave purpose. Who was this intensely serious guy? He didn’t even recognize himself. Was that him?
Like so much of officer training, this was a deliberate strategy on the part of the air force. Through all the drills and preparation, the individual was taken apart and remade, perhaps reborn in a way. This suited him fine, dumping a past he couldn’t change for one he could control. He was learning to look the part—an officer. A leader. A warrior.
“My, my,” said Davenport, letting loose with a wolf whistle. “Aren’t you as sweet as honey?”
“Screw you.” The man in the mirror grinned, appearing a little more familiar now. Then he checked the time. “I’m ready to get the show on the road.”
“Have a seat. We’ve still got a half hour.”
“Can’t,” said Julian.
“Can’t what?”
“Can’t sit down. Do you know how long it took me to get these creases right?”
“Hours and hours,” Davenport said with a laugh; then he sobered. “Dude, you look like a million bucks. Or at least like you’ve earned the commission you’re getting today.”
Julian had no idea if his suite-mate was right. He’d worked his ass off, but given the nature of his first assignment, whether or not he was prepared could be anybody’s guess. The most frustrating thing about the news was its top secret classification. He couldn’t tell anybody the details. He didn’t even know most of the details himself. For the past year, he’d been groomed to be part of a special team, a highly unlikely designation for someone at his level. Although he knew his base assignment, he could tell people only that he’d been commissioned for active duty.
He shook hands with his friend, and Davenport resumed his jocular air. “I might advise you to go for a short walk to clear your head, but that would be a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“You are way too pretty in full dress uniform. You’ll end up going through the whole ceremony dragging along an entourage of drooling women.”
“Right. And how many women do you know who get turned on by the sight of brass buttons and epaulettes?”
“I guess you’re about to find out.”
Julian checked out his service dress uniform again, making sure every detail was right. Ribbons, devices, badges, insignia—all present and accounted for. Stuck in the side of the mirror was a five-year-old photo of him and Daisy, standing side by side, laughing at the camera. He remembered the exact instant it had been taken, with the shutter on timer. She’d made him laugh by saying, “Okay, pretend you like me,” knowing full well they were totally into each other.
He was glad he rem
embered because otherwise he might not even believe the kid in the picture had ever existed. That tall, skinny kid with waist-length dreadlocks, assorted tattoos and piercings and a bad attitude was a stranger to the clean-cut officer in the mirror. Julian had been a punk—an adrenaline junkie with not much going for him except an unexpectedly stellar academic record and test performances. And of course, his status as a minority. He didn’t want people to assume race was the reason he’d been admitted to an Ivy League school and an elite training program, so he made sure he outperformed everyone else.
Taking pains not to mess up his uniform, he slipped his hand into his inner breast pocket and touched the ring for luck.
His phone buzzed, and he picked up. “Gastineaux.”
“Hey Mister Almost-second Lieutenant,” said his brother, Connor. “We’re outside. Come on down.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Connor and Olivia had driven from Avalon with Daisy. His nerves jangled with excitement. He turned to Davenport and was startled to see all five of his suite-mates gathered at the exit. They had shared quarters all year long. They’d fought and laughed and partied and competed and helped one another. Now the five of them formed a gauntlet at the door.
“Good luck, Jughead,” said Williams. “We wish you the best.”
The solemnity of the moment was broken by Del Rio, who played the air force hymn on a kazoo.
Julian saluted them with all the smartness and respect he would afford a superior officer. “Thanks, guys.”
He made one last check of everything. Tie, perfectly knotted. Shoes, gleaming. Hat, well-placed on his shorn head.
He was ready. He was so damn ready. He took the elevator because the stairwells tended to be dusty. He emerged into the small lobby of the residence hall and headed for the door, which opened onto a shady courtyard. In search of his visitors, he strode outside, his heart beating a mile a minute.
When he saw Daisy, he could feel himself smile out of every pore of his body, if such a thing were possible. She was wearing a yellow dress with white dots, white sandals with heels. Toenails painted pink. And a smile he saw every night in his dreams.
