Lost in the Forest (25 page)

Daisy, who had been thinking about happiness, about Duncan, about sex, was startled. “Can’t stand what?”

Eva was quiet for a moment. “Can’t stand how hard it seems, how complicated it is—life—without John.” Then, passionately, “I hate coming home, sometimes. I hate it.”

“God, Mom.” Daisy felt that she was being blamed somehow, accused. That Eva wouldn’t be saying this to her unless she was still angry. That her mother’s sorrow was connected to her, to all that she didn’t do, couldn’t be, for her. And what this produced in Daisy was the impulse to turn away. She simply couldn’t add her mother’s sorrow or confusion or anger to her own. She didn’t have the strength to carry any more than she felt she was carrying.

“Get a grip,” she said, and went ahead of her mother up the walk to the lighted house.

W
HEN EMILY
came home from college for Thanksgiving, Eva and Theo and Daisy all drove down to the airport to meet her. Daisy hadn’t known what she would feel, how she would respond, but when she saw her older sister, small and pretty and frowning among the other passengers streaming toward them, she called out Emily’s name and watched as she turned, trying to locate her,
and then did, her face opening in pleasure. Daisy ran forward, ahead of the others, and she and her sister held each other a moment, and then backed away, laughing and awkward and embarrassed, so Eva and Theo could have their turns.

She had missed Emily, she’d been aware of that, but in thinking about it through the fall, she’d concluded that she’d missed her even more when she was still around, because of all that had changed between them. When she thought of being close to her sister, what she remembered was the early time in the house on Kearney Street when they still shared a room; or the years when they were little, in the house on the hill. And maybe most of all she missed the person she had been in those days too, before she had a sense of herself as awkward and clumsy, a sense that intensified as Emily became prettier, more elegant, more popular.

She remembered with a deep, inexplicable pleasure certain games they had played in their hillside home, prolonged fantasies in which they took parts—princess and wicked stepmother, orphan and kindly rich lady. There was a game in which they pushed the furniture into new arrangements and had to cross the living room without allowing their feet to touch the floor—the floor, where crocodiles or skunks or dragons lived. Sometimes Eva let them make a house under the dining room table, draping it with sheets. They brought all their dolls and moved in, and often Eva let them take their meals under there. They would eat in the dim light in what felt like utter secrecy, worlds away from their ordinary life.

Emily, of course, directed all this. She made all of it happen. Left to her own devices, Daisy would have read, or made pictures, or, later, written stories or poems. And as she
was
more and more left to her own devices after the move to town—as Emily stepped into her own life—that’s what Daisy had done, until John interceded. But even then, even after she herself had moved away from Emily, after she had come around to thinking of Emily as shallow, as bossy—even then when Emily beckoned her, as she occasionally did, Daisy had responded with a kind of eagerness she sometimes felt as pathetic in herself.

She had tried to prepare herself through the fall for Emily’s return from college. She didn’t want to feel so eager if Emily should pay attention to her or invite her into her life in some way. And there was a sense in which her relationship with Duncan connected to this resolve on her part. It was like armor against her sister. It was an adventure, an element in her life that Emily couldn’t have guessed at. Something about it, about having this experience that Emily didn’t know about, couldn’t imagine, excited Daisy and made her feel in some way superior to her sister.

Lying in bed on Emily’s first night home, she thought again of Emily’s descriptions of sex with Noah, and it made her experience of sex with Duncan seem compelling. She thought of the strange, beautiful images that filled her mind when he played with her and she came—rain glittering like silver coins in the air, falling and falling on wide green meadows; or houses she was moving through which opened up, room after unexpected room, each one more full of light. She thought of how open and familiar her own body felt to her, all the parts of it that had frightened and disgusted her before, now so charged with power.

But when Emily asked her casually on Thursday night if she wanted to go shopping for Christmas presents with her on Saturday, Daisy said yes without even stopping to think about it. Yes. She did.

“There are, like,
huge
sales,” Emily said.

“Yeah,” Daisy said.

“Maybe we could get something for Mom and for Mark together.”

“Sure,” Daisy said. “Cool.” She realized that she didn’t care what they did. Just the idea of having been chosen by Emily again was enough. She felt, she realized, just as she had when Duncan had arrived in her life: rescued. Rescued from herself. It was like wearing the heavy makeup Maria had put on her at Eva’s birthday party, and the black bathing suit with its too ample cups and the rhinestone belt. The sense of another self, another way of being in the world. It was news. News about herself. She remembered how everyone had looked at her that night, and how she’d wanted to
stay in the costume because she felt suddenly that she could be anyone she chose to be. She remembered writing out the poem that Mark had asked her for, and then, on impulse, writing out that other one, the one that announced her feelings, the feelings of newness and possibility and happiness.

And she felt that way again, she couldn’t help it, when Emily asked to be with her.

S
HE WAS UP
early on Saturday. It was chilly out, and drizzly, but Daisy didn’t care. She came down into the kitchen and turned on the overhead lights. Eva had left half of a baguette out on the island, and Daisy decided abruptly to make French toast. The butter smoked in the pan, the sopping bread sizzled. The kitchen filled with vanilla-scented smoke.

She took her plate to the island. She got the maple syrup from the refrigerator. It was cold and thick as she poured it on. She took a bite and chewed slowly, the sweetness and cold making her teeth ache. She was about to take another bite when Theo came in. He had dressed himself, clearly—nothing was tucked in and his fly was still open. He was carrying his wallet in both hands against his chest. This was a gift from Eva, bought for him last summer after he’d returned the money he’d stolen. A reward for having gone straight after having been a thief, Daisy supposed. She had smirked when she saw it then. She smirked now.

“Going
shopping
?” she asked sarcastically, weighting the word. It occurred to her that she sounded like Duncan.

His head bobbed enthusiastically. “I’m going with you.”

Daisy shook her head. “No, I’m going with Emily. Emily and I are going by ourselves.”

“Nuh-unh, Daisy,” he said with a teasing emphasis. “Emily told
me
, and I’m going too. Mom said I could.”

Daisy set her fork down. Of course. Suddenly she understood it all. Emily
had
invited them both. It was a
project
of Emily’s.
She
was a project of Emily’s. Emily would manage them; she’d be in charge of their togetherness. She’d speak to friends of the day and
of the time with them as a virtuous act.
What did you do on your break? Oh, I took my brother and sister Christmas shopping, you know, to get stuff for the parents
.

Daisy got up from the island, unhungry. She took her plate to the sink and watched the half-eaten toast slide from it. She turned the water on and punched all the food into the disposal. The machine roared and gurgled as she ran it.

Theo had climbed onto a chair. “I am hungry,” he announced when Daisy turned the disposal off.

“Then
fix
something for yourself!” she said, and left the kitchen.

She lay in her room and listened to the rest of the house wake up. She heard Emily in their bathroom, taking a shower, then the long silence while she fixed her hair and fussed with makeup. She heard Eva’s radio in her room, tuned to the news. She heard them talking when they went down to the kitchen. Someone else made French toast too, she could smell it.

She was thinking of her options. She could just not go, but she’d have to explain why, and if she told the truth, she’d seem like a baby. “I thought it was just going to be the two of us.” How pathetic! She didn’t want to seem so foolish, so hungry for Emily’s attention.

Which, of course, she was, wasn’t she?

She was not going to admit to it, though.

She could lie, but a lie would lock her into all kinds of complications. If she said she didn’t feel well, Eva would get involved—thermometers, no going out. If she had something else she was doing, she’d need to disappear and do it. Or disappear and do
something
. It didn’t seem worth it. And she had to get the Christmas shopping done anyway.

When Emily called up that they were leaving in ten minutes, Daisy hollered back that she’d be there.

Eva left just before they did, headed to the store. She beamed at them as she said good-bye. “Have a great time,” she said—and Daisy could tell that Eva was delighted by the very thing that was
upsetting to her: that all three of her children were doing something together.

In the car on the way to the outlet stores, Theo needed to go over the math again and again. Since he had five dollars in his wallet and wanted to keep one for himself, he had four dollars to spend on a present for Eva. Emily was patient; Daisy was silent in the backseat, watching the silver rain streak across the windows.

They went first to the department store to look at clothes. Emily thought they could get her a blouse. Or maybe, as they passed a display of them in the aisle, a sweater. She held out the one she’d noticed, cashmere, widely striped horizontally in blue and white. It cost $120. “We could all buy this together,” she said.

“I don’t like it,” Daisy said.

“But Mom would, I think, and that’s the point, isn’t it?”

“Well. I can’t afford it.”

“What’s
afford it
?” Theo asked.

“I don’t have enough money, dummy,” she said. She looked at him. He was holding Emily’s hand.

“I’m not a dummy.
You
are the dummy.”

“Who cares?” She turned to Emily. “Anyway, let’s not.”

“You are the dummy, ’cause you do
too
have enough money, Daisy.” His voice was louder.

Daisy felt tense, suddenly. “I just said I didn’t, Theo. Shut up, why don’t you?”

“But you do
so
.”

“No, I don’t.” She turned to Emily. “Let’s go look at house stuff,” she said.

“House stuff! That’s a horrible idea.”

“Well, it’ll be cheaper.”

“God. I didn’t ask you to go shopping so we could be stingy,” Emily said. “God! What were you planning to spend on Eva anyway?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think of it like that.”

“Well, what you said was, ‘I can’t afford it.’ So you must have some idea of what you
can
afford.”

“What can
I
afford, Emily?” Theo asked. Emily had put his wallet in her purse for safekeeping. When he had it, he took the money out all the time, because he liked to touch it, to hold it.

“We told you, Theo. You have five dollars, and if you spend four on Eva, you’ll have one dollar left, so four is what you can afford.” Daisy started ahead of them through the aisles, away from the sweaters.

“Daisy has much more than that,” she heard him say.

“Shut
up
, Theo!” Daisy said, without turning back to him. A woman passing her stared—a gigantic crazy girl talking to herself.

“She has hundreds and hundreds. I saw.”

“Hundreds and
hundreds
?” Emily said, in a teasing voice.

Daisy stopped and turned. She waited for them to catch up to her. “You’re a liar, Theo,” she said. Her voice was low and threatening.

Emily made a face at Daisy: let him talk. What’s the big deal?

But Daisy wanted him to shut up. “He’s imagining stuff again.”

“I’m not ’magining.”

“Yeah? You’re always imagining stuff. Just like you imagine John is alive, when he’s dead.”

Emily said, “Cut it out, Daisy,” just as Theo was saying, “He’s
not
dead anymore.”

“Yeah, and I have a lot of money. ‘Hundreds of money.’ ”

“Yes, you do so have it.”

“See?” Daisy said to Emily, her hand lifted. See how crazy he is?

They were standing in front of the perfume counter now, and Emily suddenly switched gears. Perfume, she suggested. Daisy, eager to end the conversation, quickly agreed. They knew Eva’s favorite, Cristalle. Why not? And at the last minute, because the perfume cost them less than they’d planned on, they bought her a scarf too, the kind Eva liked and used as a shawl.

When they got home, Daisy went straight to the kitchen. She was starving, having thrown most of her breakfast away. She was standing in the open door of the refrigerator when she heard them above her, and knew instantly—knew because she saw it so clearly
in her mind’s eye—that they were in her room, that Theo was showing Emily the shoebox that contained her money.

She took the back stairs two at a time, and when she got to the doorway to her room, they were just as she’d imagined them. The double doors of her closet were flung open, and they were standing in it, as if on a stage. Emily was holding the shoe box in the crook of one arm, and in her other hand, she had some of the bills. They were looking across at her, agape. The word actually flashed in Daisy’s mind, as words sometimes did.
Agape
. Stupid-looking. Theo looked scared. They stood across the room from each other, and finally Emily said, “There must be a couple of hundred dollars here, Daisy. Where’d you get it?”

In three steps Daisy was on her. “It’s mine. Give it to me.” Emily didn’t resist. She held the box out, she held the money up to Daisy.