“I’ve brought your car back,” I said by way of greeting.
“Oh, have you? Thanks so, darling.”
She handed Pammy to her relieved nurse, and when the two of them were gone, Daisy nodded after them.
“They tied me down so tight to deliver her,” she said flatly. “I didn’t know why my wrists and legs were so bruised until I started having the dreams.”
I dropped the keys onto the small table that held an untouched glass of lemonade and a small enamel box for pills.
“You told me that before,” I said. “Daisy, what happened?”
She looked at me so blankly that for a moment, I thought that she must be drugged. There was a perfect lack of understanding on her face as if she needed to sort out the events from the previous week from what she had had for breakfast, what parties she had been to, and whether the gardener had taken care of the roses.
Daisy shook her head, standing to walk down the stairs to the lawn.
“Oh Jordan, don’t bother me with that, not today when I have such a headache.”
I followed her down the steps, feeling an unaccustomed anger rise up in me. Above us, as if responding to my anger, the sky went a growling gray and the water reflected it back sullenly.
“I rather think we’ve been friends long enough that you can spare me some time even if your head does ache!” I said. “Daisy, what happened?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? Of course it doesn’t, it’s all in the past, and Tom says—”
“You don’t care what Tom says, and I will know you for the worst kind of liar if you start saying you do now,” I said. “Tell me.”
She shook her head, not as if she wanted to say no to me, but more as if she was trying to clear the cobwebs that had fogged up her memories of that night. In front of us, the Sound rose up in delicate white foam blooms, the water choppier than it had been.
“Oh, darling, why are you being so cruel to me? It was an accident, of course it was an accident.”
“Yours,” I said, and she shook my hand off to stalk down towards the water.
“Of course mine,” she said, staring out over the water towards Gatsby’s mansion. Even from this distance, there was something hollow about it, something defeated and caved in. “It’s always mine, isn’t it?”
Two eyes, T. J. Eckleburg had said, and then it had seen no more. Daisy couldn’t do that kind of thing, but I had a feeling that Gatsby could have.
“What else?” I asked, and Daisy wrung her hands.
“Jordan, you must stop this at once, I cannot bear this kind of questioning, not now…”
I saw the tears in her eyes, real as they always were, but I didn’t care about them today. I clenched my fists, shuddering as a cold wind cut both of us from the east.
“Daisy,” I said sharply. “Stop looking at that damned haunted house, and talk to me.”
“Oh, why should I!” she said with a flash of temper, turning to look at me. “What does it matter now? Jay’s dead and gone, it’s over, why can’t you just let it be over?”
“It’s not over to me yet. Daisy, just tell me.”
She glared at me, and I cast around for more than just orders.
“No one’s going to believe anything I say even if I did say anything,” I said finally. “Aunt Justine’s probably sending me off to Shanghai to see the sights. Come on, Daisy.”
She turned from me, stumbling to sit on the lawn facing the mansion again, her thin legs cast like pick-up sticks in front of her. She shook her head, and then she nodded. The sky went a flat aluminum gray with sullen purple highlights, a warning of danger.