In her imagination, Daisy wrapped her mother, and her mother’s figurines. She put them away and moved on to the other worries impatiently waiting their turn, jostling for her attention.
There was Lester, their elderly beagle/basset hound, whose heart condition was getting worse. Poor Lester, at twelve, had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and was on three different medications, and he seemed to be losing his appetite, and Hal was already making noises about how it might be time for Lester to go to that great dog park in the sky.
Which brought her, finally, to Hal. Did he still love her? Had he ever loved her? Was he having an affair? Two years ago, there’d been a summer associate of whom he’d spoken almost endlessly, and, at a Christmas party the year before that, Daisy thought she noticed one of the paralegals staring across the punch bowl. The pretty young woman’s gaze had moved from Hal to Daisy back to Hal again, and Daisy could imagine what she was thinking: I don’t get it. What could he possibly see in her? At fifty, Hal was handsome, even dashing, his shoulders still broad and his belly still flat, the lines on his long face and the gray in his dark curls only adding to his appeal, whereas Daisy, twelve years younger, just looked short and dumpy and, probably, desperate. If Hal wanted extramarital fun and excitement, he’d have ample opportunity. Daisy tried not to think too much about that, or whether she’d care if she learned that Hal was cheating, or if she’d just feel relieved that someone else was tending to what he used to call my manly needs. She would have asked her best friend, Hannah, her opinion, whether Hal was being faithful and what she, Daisy, should be doing if he wasn’t, except, nine months ago, Hannah had died.
Daisy rolled from her left side onto her right. She sighed again, and made herself close her eyes. She had met her husband when she was twenty years old, and he was almost thirty-three. Red flag, red flag, red flag, her friends had chanted, all of them certain that there had to be something wrong with a guy Hal’s age who’d never been married, who was interested in a woman almost thirteen years his junior. Hal had clearly been aware of the conventional wisdom, because, on their first date, he’d said, “I should probably tell you how I got to be this old with no wife or kids.”
“At least you don’t have an ex-wife,” said Daisy.
Hal hadn’t smiled before clearing his throat. “I was a pretty big drinker, for years.”
Daisy said, “Oh.” She was thinking about twelve-step programs, about Higher Powers and meetings and sponsors and You’re only as sick as your secrets. She thought, At least he’s telling me now, before I got really interested and, then, Ugh, but I liked him! She’d liked his confidence, and—shallow, but true—she’d liked his looks. Hal was handsome, with olive-tinted skin that stayed tanned even in the winter and emphatic brows, like dark dash marks over his eyes. He had a way of taking up space that felt like a first cousin of arrogance—the result, Daisy assumed, of his age, the money he’d grown up with, and the success he’d already had as a lawyer. He’d come to her door in a tweed sports coat and a tie with a bouquet of flowers for her mom, apricot-colored roses and lilies. He’d held the car door for her, waiting until she was settled before walking around the car and getting behind the wheel. He drove skillfully, and asked Daisy questions, and seemed to actually listen to what she said.
Daisy had liked that he was older; that he knew who he was, that he already had an advanced degree, a house, a career. A man like that seemed unlikely to announce, the way her roommate’s boyfriend recently had, that he wanted to pursue an MFA in poetry instead of an MBA in finance, or to decide, like one of Daisy’s previous beaus, that he wanted to try sleeping with men in addition to women.
All of that zipped through her mind as she sat across from Hal in the restaurant she’d picked. Hal must have seen it. Daisy had never been good about keeping her feelings off her face. “Don’t worry,” he’d said, smiling. “My friends didn’t do an intervention. I never went to rehab, and I don’t go to meetings. It wasn’t anything like that. I liked drinking, but I didn’t like who I was when I drank. So I stopped.”
“Just like that?” Daisy had asked.
“Just like that. For the last three years, I’ve had a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve, and that’s it.” He made a rueful face, those emphatic eyebrows lifting. “I’m not going to tell you that the first few days, or weeks, were pleasant. But I’d never been an every-single-day drinker. I guess I was lucky. But yes. I just stopped.”