“Ahh, yes, the Buckleys,” he said now, a tinge of annoyance in his voice, even though this dinner had been his idea. He let his hand linger on my breast still another moment, before dropping it back to his side. “Daisy…” He said my name, but then didn’t finish his thought.
He looked at me, and we held each other’s gaze for a moment, but neither one of us said a word. So much was unspoken between us now. Perhaps Tom wanted to ask me when we would ever be together again? If not now, when? I’d recoiled from his touch since we’d left France, and partly it was that feeling; I was so unsettled my skin crawled and my limbs twitched. I was so desperately homesick for something or someone or somewhere that didn’t actually even exist. What was my home with Tom? Where was it?
But then there was the other thing, too. That question that lingered in my mind, when I awoke in the darkness and our bed was empty. And I roamed the grounds, listening for him, but hearing only the gentle rush of Lake Michigan in the distance. Where did Tom go in the middle of the night?
“Daisy… I…” he said again.
“What is it, Tom? What do you want to say?” I implored him now, nearly taunting him. Daring him to tell me where it was he went. Who it was he was with.
But instead he broke into a hesitant smile. “I miss you, Daisy. That’s all.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek tenderly in a way that evoked every warm memory I held inside of me from Tahiti, from Kapiolani. From the Punch Bowl, where he’d carried me to the car to keep my shoes from getting wet during another rainstorm, what felt like a million years from this one.
I softened a little. “I’m right here, Tom,” I said.
“Are you?” he asked me. “Are you really?” His hand went back up, and I expected him to reach for my breast again. But instead, he reached around, unbuttoned the brass buttons on my dress carefully, one by one. He pulled the sleeves down over my arms and my dress dropped to the floor, leaving me before him naked, wet, and shivering. “Let me get you a towel,” he said gently. “Before you catch your death.”
He left and returned a moment later with a large white towel from the linen closet down the hall. He threw it around my shoulders, rubbed me gently dry. And I suddenly wondered if he was just restless too. If somehow even living here together, we were simply moving around each other in opposite directions, and all we had to do was walk toward each other once again.
I looked up and caught his eyes, and I smiled a little. A thank-you. An apology, too. “I suppose we do have a little time before supper.” I breathed the words softly, like a whisper-song. “And Marion can always keep them waiting in the parlor…”
Tom made a little noise of surprise, or delight. A laugh or was it a groan? I dropped the towel—I was dry enough—and I stood before him totally naked. The restless twitch had finally stopped, and I felt warmer again. Right here, with Tom, was exactly where I belonged.
* * *
TWO HOURS LATER Josephina Buckley droned on about her azaleas, and I tried to catch Tom’s eye across the length of our long dining table, while nodding and murmuring along with her. Tom was engrossed in his second glass of whiskey and his discussion about polo with Harold Buckley. For a short time before dinner, we’d connected again, but that moment was fleeting. And my legs twitched, restless again.
Josephina was at least ten years older than me, maybe fifteen. But she may as well have been Mother’s age from the frumpy way she dressed and went on and on and on about her garden. Tom was wrong—we were never going to be friends. Just this dinner felt interminable, and I stifled a yawn.
Across the table from me Rebecca, the Buckleys’ daughter, picked at her chicken with a fork, exhibiting the same boredom and annoyance I was feeling for this conversation. She was sixteen and beautiful with plump rosy cheeks and curls the color of churned butter. I considered that she was closer to my age than her mother was. And yet, I was a mother myself now, and Rebecca was still a girl.
I remembered being a girl so vividly. It wasn’t all that long ago that Rose was still alive, and Jordan and I had giggled in my bed about that handsome soldier I’d snuck into my bedroom. That time felt so close, and also, like another lifetime. I could no longer remember the exact contours of Jay’s face or the feel of his hands on my body. But I could very much remember the endless rush of joy, the happiness and warmth, the glow of my own teenage innocence. When she finally looked up from her chicken, I shot Rebecca a sympathetic smile.