by Mary McNear
“Daisy’s twenty-one,” he said. “She has as much right to be here as you do.” He glanced around the bar then and found what he was looking for. “Why don’t you go back to your table, Christy,” he said. “It looks like your friends are waiting for you.”
“Oh no,” Christy said softly, so softly it made the hairs stand up on Daisy’s arms. “I’m not done with you yet.”
“Christy,” Will said warningly, but it was too late. In a movement so sudden it made Daisy jump back a little in her chair, Christy picked up Will’s half full glass of beer and threw the contents of it in his face.
If there was more, Daisy didn’t see it. She wrenched her hand away from Will’s and ran for the bar’s door, pushing it open blindly, hot tears already spilling down her cheeks. But when she found herself in the middle of the parking lot, she stopped and looked around in desperation. She would give anything, anything, right now to have a way to get home that wasn’t in Will’s pickup. But she didn’t know anyone else at the Black Bear. Well, anyone else she could ask for a ride. She thought, for a moment, about walking back to Butternut, but decided against it. She was miles from town, it was pitch-black outside, and she didn’t know these back roads that well.
So instead she walked over to Will’s pickup and tried the passenger-side door. Locked. It figured. She had no choice but to stand there and wait, her humiliation palpable, until Will came out a few minutes later.
“Are you okay?” he asked, opening the door for her.
She didn’t answer him; she didn’t trust herself to. Instead, she climbed into the truck, slammed the door, and fastened her seat belt, concentrating the whole time on willing her tears to stop. Which they did, more or less. Because during the drive home, which seemed inordinately long tonight, only a few of them slid, hot and silent, down her cheeks. She was almost positive Will couldn’t see them in the darkness of the truck, though he looked over at her frequently, and a couple of times he even started to say something before he stopped himself.
All this reminded Daisy of another night, the first night, the night that Will had driven her home from the beach. Tonight, though, was worse. Then, she’d barely known Will. Now . . . well now, she’d at least thought she’d known him. And she was struck by a realization that almost made her groan out loud with the knowledge of her own stupidity. What she’d found out tonight about Will and Christy was what her mother and Jessica had both tried to tell her about. They’d both known about it before she did. Hell, the whole town had probably known about it before she did. She sank down a few more inches in her seat, her humiliation complete.
Already, though, at least one coherent thought was forming in her brain: she wasn’t going to tell her mother about this incident. Not that hearing about it would bring her mother any satisfaction; it wouldn’t. She wasn’t mean. Far from it. And she’d never wanted anything more than for Daisy to be happy. She would never, ever say I told you so. But she might think it.
By the time Will pulled into his customary parking space on Main Street, Daisy was ready, her hand already on the door handle. But when she started to open the door, Will finally spoke. “Daisy, please, don’t go like this. Just . . . just hear me out, okay?”
She stopped and then closed the door. She still couldn’t look at him, but she would listen to him, she decided. For a minute, anyway.
“First of all, you need to know something, all right?” he said. “I never saw the two of you at the same time. By the night we had our first date, it was already over between me and Christy. I wanted to give us a chance, Daisy, a real chance. I never saw her again after the night I came over to your apartment for the first time. I promise you that.”
She’d meant to listen to him in stony silence, but now she felt anger pulsing at her temples. “Is that all you think this is about, Will?” she asked, turning to him. “Because it’s not. I mean, it’s part of it. But, Will, she’s married, for God’s sake. She has a husband. I know him.” As she said this, though, it occurred to her that the only thing she really knew about Mac Hansen was that he was a lousy tipper. But, still, to have this happen to him? This seemed like a punishment that didn’t fit the crime.
Will didn’t say anything; he only nodded a little, and for some reason Daisy found this infuriating. Wasn’t he even going to try to defend himself? Or did he think he didn’t even need to?
“I don’t know, Will,” she said, “maybe you think I’m blowing this out of proportion. Maybe you think, ‘So what if I had an affair with a married woman. It’s no big deal.’ And maybe you think it’s old-fashioned, or quaint, even, for me to be upset about it—”
“I don’t think that,” Will interrupted.
But she wasn’t listening. “Maybe you think, too, that because my own parents got divorced, marriage means less to me, Will, that I don’t take it as seriously as I would if they’d stayed married. But that’s not true. If anything, the fact that the two of them failed at marriage makes me take it more seriously.” She stopped, a little out of breath.
They were silent then, for a moment, even though her mind was racing with questions. “Just, just tell me something, Will,” she said suddenly. “Just help me understand this.”
“All right,” he said.
“How . . . how did it happen? How did you meet her?”
He hesitated. “I met her at a bar,” he said.
Of course, Daisy thought. Where else?
“And how long . . . how long did you see each other for?” It was so strange, she thought. The wanting to know, and the not wanting to know, both at the same time.
He sighed and closed his eyes, just for a second, and Daisy knew she wasn’t going to like his answer. “A year,” he said.
“A year? Will,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. But she had more questions for him. It was like ripping off a Band-Aid. Once you started to do it, you couldn’t very well stop in the middle. “And how often did you see her. Will?”
He sighed again. “It varied. Sometimes, I’d go a month without seeing her. Sometimes, if her husband was away, I’d see her two or three nights in a row.”
Daisy rubbed her eyes, trying to block out the image of the two of them together.
“Daisy,” Will said quietly. “Stop, okay? You don’t need to know this.”
“I do need to know this.”
“Every detail?”
“Yes, Will. Every detail.”
He sat in silence.
“Were there other people, Will? For you and for her?”
He shrugged. “There wasn’t for me. I don’t know about her.”
“What about her husband, Mac? Did he ever find out about it?”
He shook his head. “No. Not as far as I know.”
“And what, what was it . . .” She paused, struggling with the wording of this question. “What was it that you and Christy had in common?” she asked. “I mean, you seem so different to me. What did the two of you even talk about when you were together?”
For the first time since her interrogation started, she saw his exasperation begin to break through. “We didn’t talk, Daisy. That’s not why we were together,” he said. And she knew, from his expression, that as soon as he said it, he regretted saying it. He started to say something else then, but she wasn’t listening.
“Oh, God,” she murmured, putting a hand to her temples.
“Daisy, what is it?” Will asked, alarmed.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just . . . thinking about the two of you . . . not talking. It’s making me feel sick to my stomach.”
“Then don’t think about it,” he said, reaching for her, but she moved out of his reach.
She heard him exhale then, slowly, “I’m sorry,” he said. “About the sick to your stomach feeling. Thanks to you, I know what that feels like.”
“Thanks to me?” she said, looking over at him.
He nodded. “I feel that way every time I think about you going back to college and . . .” He hesitated, and Daisy
sat very still, because they never talked about this. Ever. About Daisy going back to college at the end of the summer.
“I think about you going back there,” Will continued, “and . . . and meeting someone else. Or just being with someone else. Someone on your volleyball team, or in your apartment building, or in one of your classes. I don’t know why I think about it, Daisy, because it’s like torture. But I do. I imagine you with this person, this person who isn’t even real, talking to him, or kissing him maybe, or just being with him, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach. Just like you said. That’s jealousy, I guess. I’d never felt it before this summer.”
She shook her head. They were getting off topic. Besides, there was another question she had for him. “Did you know she was married when you first met her, Will?” she asked. Please say no.
“Yes,” he said. “I knew.”
“You knew and you didn’t care?” she asked, irritated that her tears were threatening to start again. Don’t you dare cry now, Daisy.
“I don’t know, Daisy. Sometimes, I think, I did care. I just didn’t care enough.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s supposed to mean, Daisy, that before I met you this summer, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about whether or not what I was doing was right or wrong. Sometimes, I wanted to; I wanted to care. But most of the time, I was just glad I didn’t care.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, wiping away a tear.
“I didn’t grow up like you did, Daisy,” he said. “I’ve seen those pictures hanging on the wall in your apartment. The ones of you building a snowman, or eating an ice cream cone—”
“My childhood wasn’t perfect—” she started to object.
“I’m not saying it was perfect. But someone . . . someone brought you up, Daisy. Someone taught you things. They took those pictures of you, and then they went to the trouble to buy frames for them and to hang them on the wall. Just like they went to the trouble to help you with your homework, and, later, to go to all those volleyball games you played in.”
He blew out a long breath and glanced out the window of the truck, and then he looked back at her. “Look, I’m not feeling sorry for myself. And I’m not excusing what I did. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been on my own, pretty much, for my whole life. My mom took off, and my dad . . . my dad’s not a nice guy, Daisy. You’ll just have to take my word for it . . .”
Daisy almost pressed him here for more information, but Will, she knew, didn’t like to talk about his father.
“Anyway,” he said, “except for the time I spent with Jason’s family, I was on my own. I just kind of . . . raised myself; you know, figured things out as I went along. Obviously, I wasn’t very good at it. I made a lot of mistakes—and I’m still making them. But the difference now, the difference since you walked into the garage that morning, is that I care that I’m making them. You make me care, Daisy; you make me want to be a better person.”
“Oh, Will,” Daisy said softly, shaking her head. She felt an urge then to bury herself in his arms, and to forget about all this. But she wasn’t ready to. Besides, her head ached, and the smell of the beer that Christy had thrown on Will was making her feel queasy.
“I’ve got to go,” she said, reaching for the door handle. “I need to think.”
Will nodded grimly, and this time, he didn’t try to stop her.
CHAPTER 16
Are you sure that roof is going to hold?” Walt asked doubtfully, looking up at the cabin’s rafters.
“I hope so,” Jack said, following his gaze up. “Depends on how long it rains for. But I think I did a pretty decent patch job,” he added, in a slightly louder voice, so he’d be heard over the steady drumming of the rain on the roof. It was early morning, and Jack and Walt were sitting in Jack’s living room at a table Jack had salvaged from a yard sale, drinking the instant coffee Jack had made on a hot plate. His entertaining skills, already somewhat limited, were now additionally hampered by the fact that he’d torn out the cabin’s kitchen the week before. He’d already ordered new flooring, new cabinets, and new appliances, but until they came in some time next week, instant coffee and canned soup were his featured menu items.
“Jeez, it’s really coming down,” Walt said, looking out the window to where the rain was blowing in gusts across the lake. Jack agreed and started to lift his coffee cup to his lips, but he remembered then how awful the coffee inside it was and lowered it back down without taking a sip. He was thinking about trying to make a better cup of it when he realized Walt had asked him a question.
“I’m sorry, Walt. What did you say?”
“I said, did you sleep at all last night?” Walt repeated.
“Not really,” Jack admitted. “I had that dream again. You know, the one I told you about.”
“You told me about it,” Walt said, nodding, his white handlebar mustache nodding with him. “And I told you then what I’m going to tell you now, Jack. I’m not qualified to analyze anyone’s dreams. I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m just an old man who’s willing to drag his sorry ass out of bed early in the morning, and drive out here, in the pouring rain, so that you can ignore me.”
Jack laughed. The man had a point. He had been ignoring him. Still, Walt was wrong about the other thing, about needing to be a psychiatrist to analyze Jack’s dream. It was the same dream he always had about Caroline, the one where she was waiting for him, in her nightgown, in her bed, and Jack was fairly certain that any fool could have figured out what it meant.
“Jack, I don’t like it,” Walt said now, shaking his head.
“You don’t like the dream?”
“No, not the dream. The whole setup, Jack.”
“What setup?”
“Your setup. Here, in Butternut.”
“What’s wrong with my setup? I have a goal, don’t I? I’m fixing up this cabin.”
“It’s not that goal I’m concerned about; it’s the other one. And don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said when Jack feigned innocence. “I mean your goal of you and your ex-wife getting back together again.”
“And what’s wrong with that goal?” Jack asked, a little defensively.
Walt shrugged. “It’s too . . . too open-ended, too far outside of your control. I mean, you’re waiting for something to happen that might not happen. And if it doesn’t happen . . .” His voice trailed off.
“If it doesn’t happen, you’re afraid I’ll relapse.”
“You’re damned right I am,” Walt said, scowling at him, and Jack was reminded of the fact that Walt had a reputation in Butternut for being ornery. Jack had never seen that side of him, though. He knew him as a tough, but patient sponsor, who would meet with anyone anytime of the day or night and listen to them for as long as they needed to talk. Caroline didn’t like Walt much, he knew, but Jack figured he was lucky to have him in his life just the same.
Walt took another drink of coffee and said slowly, “You need to think about this, Jack. I know you want your ex-wife back. But what if she doesn’t want you back?”
“She does want me back,” Jack said. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”
“So you’ve said. But what if you’re wrong, Jack? Have you ever stopped to consider that?”
“No,” Jack said. Yes. But never for too long. It was too depressing.
“Well, maybe you should consider it then.”
“I can’t. Not yet. But whatever happens with Caroline, Walt, I won’t start drinking again,” Jack said, meeting his look head-on. “I can’t go back there. I owe it to her, and to Daisy, to stay sober. And you know what, Walt? I owe it to myself, too. I mean, I’m not going to lie. I got sober for Caroline and Daisy, but I’m going to stay sober for myself.”
“All right,” Walt said, looking mildly placated. “But I want to see you at at least three meetings this week, Jack.”
“Three minimum,” Jack agreed, with a tired smile.
&nbs
p; Walt nodded, satisfied, and took another swallow of his coffee. Then he grimaced. “My God,” he said, “this stuff is awful. But you know who makes a good cup of coffee, Jack?”
“Who?”
“Your ex-wife. Best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.”
Jack frowned. “But she says whenever you come in to Pearl’s you complain about her coffee.”
“Do I?” he said, amused. “Oh, I’m just giving her a hard time.”
“Well, she doesn’t like you,” Jack said bluntly. “Neither do a lot of other people in town. They think you’re mean, Walt.”
“Do they?” Walt said. He looked pleased. “Well, that’s fine by me.”
“Why’s that?”
Walt considered the question. “Well, because when people think you’re mean, they have a tendency to leave you alone. And, for the most part, I like being left alone.”
“But you’re a sponsor.”
“Well, I didn’t say I wanted to be left alone all the time. Even I can’t do without people entirely. But the thing is, I find most people annoying, Jack. Recovering alcoholics, for some reason, I find less annoying.”
Jack smiled. “Glad to hear it,” he said. “But seriously, Walt, you’re the best sponsor I’ve ever had.”
“I don’t know about that,” Walt said gruffly. “But I do know that if you’re waiting for me to give you a hug, it’s not going to happen.”
Jack laughed. “I won’t hold my breath. But I am going to make another cup of really horrible coffee. What do you say?”
“I say you’re quite the salesman.” Walt chuckled, sliding his empty cup across the table to Jack.
Damn it,” Will said, slamming down the coffeepot. The coffee machine in the service station’s office was broken, again, and Jason, as usual, was late for work, which meant there wasn’t even anyone here for Will to complain to about it. He thought that was a shame, really, given what a foul mood he was in, and given how little sleep he’d gotten last night, and given how much he could really, really use a cup of coffee right about now.
