“And I married him. The guy who’d hired me, not his father,” she explained.
“So, like, right out of college?” Diana looked startled.
“It was actually in the middle of my senior year,” Daisy said, feeling the familiar twinge of embarrassment she got when confessing that her only diploma was from high school.
“Wow. You must have been a child bride.”
Daisy swallowed hard, again hearing echoes of her friend. Hannah had teased her, calling her kiddo sometimes, or teen mom. “I was almost twenty-one. That’s actually kind of average for lots of the country, but, yeah, it’s young for around here.”
Diana was looking at her with an expression that Daisy couldn’t decipher. “You must have been sure of him.”
“I guess I was.” Daisy sipped the watery dregs of her drink. “Although sometimes I think that all I was sure about was marrying someone, and Hal was just the first one who asked.” The words were out of her mouth before she’d thought about them, and, as soon as she heard them, she felt her cheeks get hot. This wasn’t something she’d ever said out loud. Not even to Hannah. “God, that sounds horrible. I mean, I wouldn’t have married just anyone.”
“Of course not,” Diana said, even as Daisy wondered if it was true, if she’d have snatched up any guy with Hal’s education and prospects. It wasn’t something she enjoyed thinking about.
“I love my husband.”
Diana nodded, and looked across the table, watchful and waiting.
“It was just…” Daisy’s boots were squeezing her toes. She shifted in her seat, discreetly easing her right foot partially free. “It was pretty grim, after my dad died. I think if I hadn’t gotten married, I would have felt obligated to live with my mother.” Daisy suppressed a shudder, remembering, in spite of herself, the dark apartment that always seemed to smell like cabbage, even though she’d never cooked it; her mother’s vacant expression as she sat on the couch; and how she’d felt like a wind-up car, frantically whizzing this way and that, trying to distract her mother, to jolly her out of her misery and get her back in the land of the living. The memory of falling asleep every night with the weight of her failure like a lead ball in her gut.
“So Hal was your escape hatch.” Daisy must have looked startled, because Diana quickly said, “I don’t mean that in a dismissive way. Given what was going on with your mother, it sounds like anyone would have wanted to escape.”
“Hal’s a wonderful guy,” said Daisy. She had been in love with Hal; completely, head over heels in love. She could remember those feelings vividly. They’d been real. But there’d been more to it. She had wanted a soft place to land, and Hal, who’d already made partner at his law firm, who’d inherited a house and had money in the bank, had been just that landing place. She also had no doubt that her mother was glad to have Daisy’s future settled, to have Daisy be someone else’s responsibility. And Hal had wanted a comfortable nest; he’d wanted ballast, things that could tether him to his responsible, straight-arrow life. A house, a mortgage, a wife and a child; those things could keep him in place and serve as a barrier between his old life and his new one. As to exactly what that old life encompassed, Daisy still wasn’t entirely sure. She’d never asked him much about it. She’d never wanted to, and told herself she didn’t have to push or probe. Thinking about Hal’s history was like walking into a dark room and touching the side of a monster. You didn’t have to do more than sense its contours, its shape and its bulk, to understand that it was bad.
Diana was looking at her closely, with interest but no judgment on her face, as Daisy said slowly, “I think sometimes, if I’d been a better person, I would have stayed with my mom, and been there for her, and not complained. But I always knew I wanted to get married and have children, and a home of my own. I just ended up doing it sooner than I’d planned.” When she’d told them the news, her roommates had performed something resembling an intervention, sitting her down on the couch, asking, one after another, Are you sure? You don’t think this is all really fast? You’re sure that you know him? Not love him, but know him. Marisol had asked her that, Daisy remembered, and she’d said, Yes, of course I know him, even as she’d thought, How much does anyone know anyone else? And how can anyone be sure about anything? What she’d known then was that Hal was, by far, the best-looking guy who’d ever shown any interest in her; he was handsome and accomplished. She knew no one better would ever come along, and she saw no reason to wait.