Daisy hadn’t decided whether she’d call or not. It had ended up not mattering either way because that night, Hal had called to thank her. “My dad spoke very highly of you.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Daisy said. “I wasn’t sure how much he was enjoying it. He was kind of hard to read.”
“Hard to read,” Hal had repeated, and laughed a little. “That’s nicely put. I’m sure he was awful. And I would like to take you to dinner to thank you for putting up with him.” Hal’s voice was deep, warmer than when he’d first called. “My dad couldn’t say enough about how great you were.”
“I think he just liked being spoiled a little. Or maybe he misses having a woman around.” As soon as she’d spoken, Daisy wondered if it had sounded like a criticism, but she was curious to know what kind of woman Vernon’s wife had been; what kind of woman had endured decades of marriage to Vernon Shoemaker and his incredible comb-over.
“All I can tell you is that he was about the happiest I’ve heard him when he called me.”
Hal had come to New Jersey to take her to dinner a few weeks later, when the school year was over, then to a play the following weekend, and to his house the weekend after that, where they’d slept together for the first time. By then, Daisy was madly in love with him, and her mom was madly in love with the idea of having Hal as a son-in-law. Six months later, they’d gotten married… and that, Daisy thought, had been that.
* * *
From the Trenton train station, it was just twenty minutes by Lyft to the house her brother and his husband shared. Daisy knocked on the door, calling, “I come bearing gifts,” and waited until her brother came to take the bagels and usher her inside.
The brick single-story ranch home Danny and Jesse had purchased ten years previously didn’t look special from the outside, but inside, thanks to Jesse’s eye, and all of the art and keepsakes the couple had collected over the years, the house was as beautiful, and as welcoming, as any home Daisy had ever visited. Gorgeously patterned rugs, in shades of gold and indigo and deep, glowing scarlet, overlapped each other on the floor, in a way that would have looked chaotic if she’d attempted it. Charming assemblages of paintings and tapestries and mirrors and framed photographs covered the walls, and the mantel was decorated with arrangements of dried flowers, Chinese ginger jars and seashells, and a single vintage postcard of Coney Island on a wooden easel. Small paintings of birds on gold-gilt backgrounds hung along one grass cloth–covered wall; the bookshelves that lined the hallway were filled with books, and antique bookends shaped like terriers, and photographs of Jesse and Danny on their travels. Fresh flowers stood on the table in the entryway, along with a bowl full of chestnuts and an antique nutcracker. The air smelled like cinnamon and nutmeg and smoke from the fire that crackled in the fireplace. Daisy could hear classical piano music—Bach, she thought—and could hear Jesse’s voice, low and calm, from the kitchen. “Okay, now we’re going to pat it until it looks like a circle. You want to try?”
“Hi, Di,” said her brother, and gave her a hug. There was flour on his sweater, and an apron tied around his middle. She hugged him back, smiling. Danny’s house was one of her favorite places. When Beatrice had been a toddler, Daisy had worried about bringing her to visit, afraid that she’d break something fragile, or pull the threads of one of the woven tapestries or plant hangers on the walls, but Jesse had put her at ease. “I think children need to learn to live with beautiful things. Besides, there’s nothing in this place as precious as you and that sweet baby,” he’d told her, and Daisy, her emotions already amplified by her hormones, had turned away so he wouldn’t see her crying. In Gladwyne, Hal had made her put anything that Beatrice could possibly get at into a childproofed cabinet or up on a high shelf.
The house was mostly on one story, with three bedrooms. Danny and Jesse shared the largest one. The two others were kept child ready, one with a crib and a changing table and a toddler bed, the other with a set of bunk beds and two twin beds that could be pushed together to accommodate adult couples. Over the years, Danny and Jesse had converted the unfinished attic to a playroom, with a dollhouse and a toddler-sized train. While Danny and Jesse had no children of their own, they provided respite care for foster families, sometimes for an afternoon, sometimes for as long as a few weeks, and they didn’t always know when, or for how long, they’d have a child, or children, to care for.