Daisy stared at the screen as if it had slapped her. She knew that her father had loved her. Hal loved her, too. He didn’t treat her like a child, just like… someone less than him, her mind whispered. Someone who wasn’t as smart or as important, someone whose opinion barely registered, and whose voice didn’t matter much. At least, not as much as his did.
She put her phone in her pocket and walked down the hall to knock on her daughter’s door. When Beatrice opened it, she said, “I need some help with the dishes.”
Beatrice looked startled. Usually, all Daisy asked was that Beatrice set the table and clear her own plate. The kitchen was Daisy’s domain, which made everything that happened there Daisy’s job. Hal had his work, and Beatrice had school, and she had pots and pans to scrub, floors to sweep, countertops to wipe. A home to make, for the two of them.
“So, Nora leaves him in the end,” she said, as they walked down the stairs.
“What?”
“In the play. A Doll’s House.”
“That’s right.” Beatrice went to the sink. “She says she can’t be anyone’s wife or anyone’s mother until she knows who she is. She walks out of their house and closes the door behind. It’s this iconic moment. At least, that’s what our teacher said.”
“That’s very interesting.” Daisy’s voice was brittle. She bent over the dishwasher, feeling a great pressure on her chest, something bearing down on her, making it hard to breathe. “You’re growing up to be a very impressive young lady.”
Beatrice looked troubled. “Mom,” she said. “Why didn’t you finish college?”
Daisy thought she knew what Beatrice was fishing for: affirmation that her life would be fine with just a high-school diploma; permission to ignore Hal’s wishes. Even if Daisy agreed—and she wasn’t sure she did—she knew better than to say so. Hal would be furious.
“It was a long time ago,” she said. “And things were different.”
They finished cleaning the kitchen in silence. When Beatrice asked for permission to go back to her room and finish her homework, Daisy nodded. She turned off all the lights downstairs, making sure that the windows were latched and the doors were locked. In her bedroom, Hal had fallen asleep, with the television on and the remote on the bed beside him. Daisy turned off the TV. She put on her nightgown, washed her face, brushed her teeth, then went to the bed, where she lay on her back with her eyes open, as the clock ticked down the hours until morning.
Something is changing, she thought, as the sky beyond the window went from black to faintly gray. The house was quiet, except for Lester’s noisy snores and Hal’s quieter ones. Was it her? Was it Hal? Was it the world?
She lay awake on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, until it was six o’clock and her husband got up, quietly, to put on his running clothes, feigning sleep until she heard the front door open, and close. Then she lay there for another hour, wondering if she could continue to live like this, and, if not, what she was supposed to do next.
25
Beatrice
Normally, Beatrice hated it when her parents had dinner parties. She disliked the way they’d show her off, parading her around, introducing her to the guests, making her talk to strangers about her school or her soccer team or what books she was reading. She hated how her mom would get stressed and screechy, and how her dad would send Beatrice back upstairs to change her clothes if he disapproved of Beatrice’s outfit, saying, “You can express yourself three hundred and sixty days of the year, but for five days I get to pick.”
But what her mother had planned for Saturday night wasn’t exactly a dinner party; it was relatives: Beatrice’s grandfather and his lady friend, her grandmother and her grandma’s gentleman caller, her uncles Danny and Jesse, with just one new person coming over. And the new person was actually someone Beatrice liked—her mother’s new friend, Diana.
A few days after she’d cut school with Cade, she’d come home from school to find Diana and her mother cooking in the kitchen. They’d looked like birds: her mother, a plump brown wren, flitting and twittering around, picking up a pinch of this and a bit of that as she built her nest. Diana, meanwhile, looked like an eagle, imperious and watchful, hovering on the currents, peering at the scurrying rodents and rabbits below her, waiting to strike. Beatrice prepared for awkward questions about why she’d missed school and where she’d been, but instead, Diana looked her over appreciatively and said, “I love your hat. And your pin! It’s perfect.”