“It’s fine,” Diana murmured. “You could go for a walk on the beach.” She leaned forward as she got to her feet and, in a voice meant for Daisy’s ears alone, she said, “Just be careful. The deck gets slippery. And you want to watch out for that wobbly post.” Then, head down, she hurried across the deck. Pedro gave Hal a baleful look and followed his mistress inside.
Daisy stood up, resting her hands on the railing, looking out over the water. The wind had whipped the ripples into white-capped waves. She heard thunder again, and she could feel the presence of her husband behind her.
Hal’s voice was still jolly and indulgent. “You always did love a storm.”
Daisy didn’t turn. “Do you know who she is?” Before he could answer, she told him. “You raped her,” she said.
Hal sighed. “It was a party. Everyone was drunk. And it was a long, long time ago.”
She turned, looking Hal full in the face. “Did you ever think about it? About her?”
Hal reached for her. Daisy jerked away.
“Daisy, listen to me.”
“No,” she said. “No. I don’t have to listen to you anymore.”
“I want to tell you that I’m sorry. I owe you an apology.”
“I’m not the one who is owed an apology,” she said.
Hal kept talking in that low, soothing voice. “But you’re absolutely right. I should have told you.” He put his hands in his pockets and gave a shrug, and suddenly she was furious, angrier at him than she’d ever been angry at anyone in her life.
“But you didn’t,” she said. “Because when did I ever deserve your honesty? Or your respect? When did you ever see me as a partner? Or even an actual adult?” She stalked toward him, sticking her finger in his chest. “You decided where we’d live. You decided who we would see. You decided where we’d go on vacation, and what kind of car I would drive, and where Beatrice would go to school. You controlled me.”
“Daisy, I never—”
“Stop lying!” she yelled. “For once in this pathetic excuse for a marriage, be honest with me! Tell me the truth!”
“All I did was love you!” Hal roared.
Daisy stared at him, mouth hanging open.
“Everything I did, everything I kept to myself, every decision I made for us, it was all because I wanted to keep us safe.”
“Oh, please.” She could see his chest heaving underneath his blue button-down shirt. She knew that shirt. She’d bought it for him at Bloomingdale’s; she’d pulled it from the hamper （or sometimes picked it up from the bedroom floor） a hundred times. She’d taken it to the dry cleaner and back again and hung it in his closet. His little bird.
“I know how men are,” Hal was saying. “I know how the world is. And yes, I knew how I was. I wanted a home, I needed a wife, I needed a family. And you,” he said, jabbing his finger at his chest, “needed me.”
“No,” Daisy said. “Maybe you thought so. Maybe you made me think it, too. But it’s not true.”
“I took care of you! I loved you!”
“You controlled me,” Daisy said. “Being your wife meant that I couldn’t have a real business, and I barely had friends. You didn’t ever let me go anywhere, or see anyone, or do anything.”
“What would you have done?” he demanded, with a sneer supplanting his easygoing smile. His voice was low and mean. “What do you think you would have become?” He shook his head. “You think I kept you off the cover of Bon Appétit? That you were going to be Martha Stewart?”
Daisy turned so that her back was toward the water. She braced her feet and raised her chin as the wind whipped at her hair. “You’re a criminal,” she said. “You knew if you told me the truth, and if I told anyone else, you could lose your law license.”
“And then where would you be?” he taunted. “No big house in the suburbs. No private school for Beatrice. No Lexus to drive around.”
“You think I care about that?” she screamed. “You lied to me!” With that, the rain arrived in earnest. Icy raindrops sheeted down, plastering her hair to her head and her clothes to her body. “I want a divorce,” she shouted, feeling hot, salty tears join the rain on her face. “I want you gone when I get home. I want you to stay away from Beatrice. I never want to see you again.”
Through the rain, she saw something flare in his eyes. Alarm at her threat to leave him, fear that he’d lose the house, or his daughter, or maybe, worst of all, his reputation. “I gave you everything,” Hal shouted.