Finally Jay opened his eyes, looked at me, gave me an apologetic half smile. His eyes were clear, compassionate. Daisy had left him once again, and he remembered me, Catherine, lying here next to him. “The point is,” he said, “I’ve been saving up money for something—for someone—who will never come back. So let me use it to help your sister, Cath.” He paused for a minute. Then he added, “Give me a few more months and I’ll have enough money to help her.”
Daisy 1921
CHICAGO
THERE WAS A STORM COMING.
The sky above our estate in Lake Forest grew dark and pearly gray, the wind cut through the oak trees, snapping branches, and I stood out on the veranda, watching lightning tear across the silver sky, feeling vastly unsettled. I’d been feeling this way for a few weeks now, since we’d moved here from France. Weary and restless at the same time. It was hard to breathe and even harder to remember to smile. I fell asleep each night just after supper, exhausted, then woke at midnight and roamed the grounds, jittery. Sometimes, when I awoke, Tom was lying in our bed, snoring. Sometimes, he was just… gone. I roamed and roamed and there was no sign of him, anywhere.
That’s what unsettled me. Where was Tom exactly, in the middle of the night? But it was more than that too. Where was I? Or perhaps, more importantly, who was I?
I’d spent the first twenty years of my life in one city, one house. Every corner of every street in Louisville was familiar and had a memory attached. The woods where Daddy taught me to shoot a gun, and the abandoned road by the river where he’d taught me to drive the Roadster. The five blocks that led to Jordan’s house from mine that I could practically skip in my sleep because my feet knew the way and the number of steps it took to get there. And even the sound of Mother’s snow goose voice, trilling my full name up the long winding staircase. All that was home. Since my wedding, two years earlier, I’d become unmoored. The South Seas, Santa Barbara, Boston, Louisville, and France. Now, Chicago. All that moving around, it was enough to give any girl whiplash.
“We weren’t going to stay in France forever,” Tom had said, laughing a little at the absurdity of it, when I’d complained about us leaving there.
“Well, not forever,” I’d huffed. “But I was finally starting to feel at home here, and now you want to move again?”
He’d kissed my head. “You’ll love Chicago,” he’d said, his voice taking on an annoyingly condescending tone. Our move hadn’t been presented to me as a choice. That morning, he’d simply walked into breakfast in our chateau in Cannes and announced that he was ready to return to the States. That he’d found a place for us in Lake Forest, not too far from his parents. It didn’t matter that Chicago was the last place Daddy and Rose had been before the train crash, that I could hardly bear to think about that city, much less live there. “And we can’t change our plans now.” He was still talking, while he poured himself a cup of coffee. His movements were easy. He hadn’t a concern in the world. “I’ve already begun preparing the ponies,” he’d added.
Heaven forbid we should change the ponies’ plans. I’d bitten my lip to avoid saying that out loud.
And so in Lake Forest I felt myself constantly pining for Cannes. Or maybe not Cannes, exactly, but for something, somewhere. For the feeling of home, of being settled in one place long enough to get my bearings. Our house here was grand and lovely with views of Lake Michigan. And fully staffed, so I didn’t have to lift a finger. We were just a train ride away from Upper Boul Mich and Lakeshore Drive, the pulsing shiny hearts of the city, where there were so many parties to be found, so many young, beautiful wild people just waiting for us to have a gay time with. But the air was desperately chilly in Lake Forest, even though it was still summer. And I had not been able to truly warm up since we’d left France.
Out on the veranda now, the oak branches crackled, and the thunder rumbled loudly. I stood there frozen, trying to remember how to breathe. Trying to settle my senses and my mind and my soul. The rain began, and the wind whipped so hard that water poured at me diagonally in sheets, washing over me, soaking right through my dress to my skin.
* * *
“OH MY GOODNESS, Daisy. You’re positively scandalous,” Tom said to me, his voice taking on a wicked edge. I’d walked up to our bedroom to change before dinner; the rain had soaked me through and through, and I shivered a little.
He walked over to me now, drew me to him, in spite of my sad, wet state. He brought his hand up to trace my breast, and I looked down and noticed it was completely visible through the wet fabric of my beige dress. “Tom, not now,” I protested weakly. “We have company coming for dinner.” It was true, much to my chagrin, Tom had invited a polo friend, his wife, and their teenage daughter for dinner tonight, mentioning it to me only this morning at breakfast. Not much time to prepare myself to put on a show for strangers. Not strangers, Tom had corrected at breakfast. Maybe they’ll become our friends?