That Summer by Jennifer Weiner (free e reader txt) 📗

suffering. Awake at night, she laid her traps, claiming an email address that was close to the other Diana’s, constructing a fake website and a bogus Facebook page, finding blogs and books about consultants, so she’d get the lingo down, seeding the ground for the day she would go to Philadelphia, to meet Daisy Shoemaker, the main connection between the two living men who’d harmed her, the wife of one, the sister of the other. She would look this other Diana in the eyes and then she’d decide what she would do, how she could confront Hal without hurting some poor blameless woman, in a world where being born female meant spending years of your life at risk, and the rest of it invisible, existing as prey or barely existing at all.

32 Daisy

Why are we going to Grandma’s?” Beatrice asked, after they’d dropped off poor, sad-looking Lester and gotten on the highway.

“I need to speak with her.”

“And you can’t just call?”

“I need to speak with her in person,” Daisy said. Once she’d gotten behind the wheel, a strange coolness had descended over her. She felt as if she was enclosed in a bubble where she could be reasonable and calm. The bubble would pop at some point, and all the terrible truths would come flooding in to assault her, but, for now, she could listen, and reason, and think.

“Mom,” said Daisy. “What’s going on? You have to tell me something.” Daisy could hear the anxiety in her daughter’s voice, and knew that Beatrice was right. She had to say something. She just didn’t know what that should be.

“I need to ask my mother some questions about what happened when Danny was a teenager.”

“What do you mean? What happened?” Beatrice demanded. She was putting the pieces together, much more quickly than Daisy had hoped she would. “Did this happen at Emlen? Was Dad involved?”

“It didn’t happen at Emlen. It involved Emlen students.” Careful, Daisy told herself. You need to be careful now. She would have given years of her life to be able to tell her daughter that Hal wasn’t involved. But she couldn’t. “I don’t want to say any more until I know for sure.”

Beatrice shifted in her seat. “What happened?” she asked. “Did someone die?”

“No one died,” she said quietly. “And I can’t tell you anything else. I promise, when I know the facts, I’ll tell you. But right now, I can’t.”

She was picturing Hal as he’d been when she’d first met him, handsome and solid and mature. She could still hear what he had told her, on their very first date: I used to be wild. I drank a lot. I don’t want to be that person anymore. She’d been able to intuit what he wasn’t telling her: that, if they proceeded, it would be her job to prevent him from backsliding. That, in becoming her husband and a father, he would be turning himself into something other than what he had been; a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, with a loyal, loving wife by his side. She would be an integral part of his transformation, even if that meant putting her own dreams to the side. She’d be his guardrails, his early-warning system; she’d keep him from going over the edge. She’d done her part, Daisy thought. And if he’d made good on that promise, if he’d truly become someone other than who he’d been, if he’d been a good husband and father, if he’d done good with his life, how much could she hold him accountable for his actions when he was eighteen? How much punishment was the right amount? What did Hal deserve?

“Mom.” Beatrice’s voice was tiny. “How bad is this? What’s going to happen? Is Dad in trouble?”

And again, Daisy gave her daughter as much of the truth as she could. “I don’t know.”

Just over three hours after they’d left Lower Merion, Daisy pulled into the parking lot of her mother’s apartment building. “Stay here,” she told Beatrice.

“No! I’m coming with you.”

Daisy make her voice firm. “Stay in the car. I’ll be back soon.” Daisy climbed out quickly and walked across the parking lot and into the lobby, locking her legs to keep her knees from shaking as she rode the elevator up to the eighteenth floor. She lifted the brass knocker, feeling its cold weight in her hand, and let it fall, once, then again.

A minute later, there was Arnold, in neatly pressed pants, a button-down shirt, and slippers. “Daisy,” he said, beaming. “What an unexpected surprise!” When she didn’t return his smile, he said, “Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” Daisy said, through cold lips. “But I need to speak to my mom for a minute.”

“Of course.” After a worried glance at her face, he said, “I’ll get Judy,” and hurried down the hall in his slippered feet.

Daisy went to the kitchen. The black marble countertops, white cabinets, and clear glass subway-tile backsplash had all been the height of decorating style in the early 2000s. Now they were starting to look a bit dated. Arnold’s wife had cooked for him, and Judy had never been much of a cook and hadn’t cared enough to redecorate. She and Arnold ate most of their meals out.

“Daisy?” Judy Rosen wore loose-fitting velour pants, a fine-gauge cashmere sweater, and her usual full face of makeup. “Is everything all right?”

Daisy stood on the other side of the breakfast bar and set her hands on the counter, leaning forward. “I need to ask you something.”

“All right,” her mom said, her voice hesitant, her expression suddenly wary.

“Did Danny ever tell you anything about Hal? About things Hal had done in high school?”

Judy just stared. Daisy tried again. “Did he ever tell you about a party on the Cape, the summer after they graduated from Emlen?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Judy said, but Daisy saw the way her mother’s eyes flickered briefly to the left, like she couldn’t quite hold