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

coffee for herself, she held the door, and Daisy followed her back outside, out to the beach stairs at the top of the dune. A pair of wooden benches were built into the platform at the top of the six flights, a comfortable spot for people to sit and catch their breath and brush the sand off their shoes, with views of the bay to both sides.

“Careful,” Diana said, as Daisy grasped the lintel on the top of the post, which wobbled alarmingly under her hand. “That post is loose. Michael’s been meaning to fix that forever,” she said. “It’s like the joke about the cobbler’s children with no shoes, right? Nothing around here gets fixed as fast as it should.”

They sat on the benches, facing each other, as more clouds rolled in and the wind picked up, blowing the patchy grass almost flat. Daisy waited for Diana to say something, to offer an apology or an explanation. When Diana didn’t speak, Daisy decided to begin.

“I told you how when I met Hal, he was an older man. A lawyer. A partner in a big firm, with a big house. And I was twenty years old. My dad had died, my mom had no money, I was thirty thousand dollars in debt, and… well.” She looked down at the water. “I was dazzled by him. For a lot of reasons. He swept me off my feet. He was everything I thought I’d ever wanted, and would never get. You know? The answer to all my prayers.”

“I can imagine how appealing that must have been.” Diana’s voice was dry. “A man who comes along and looks like he can give you anything you want.”

Daisy sighed. “Back then, I thought I was fat. Hideous. I wasn’t—not really. Sometimes I look at pictures of myself, back then, and I get angry that I ever felt bad about myself. But, at the time, it felt like my friends, my roommates, they were always the ones guys paid attention to. So I had no self-esteem, and a dead father, and a mother who was falling apart…” She swallowed, realizing that it still hurt to talk about that part of her life. Realizing, too, how self-indulgent and whiny she must sound, to someone who’d survived what Diana had survived. “Hal wanted me. More than that. He needed me. He made that clear. And I liked being needed. I liked feeling important to someone.” She sipped her coffee, then set her mug down. “I think he tried to be honest with me, in his way. He said that he’d been wild when he was younger. That he used to drink. He gave me the idea that there were things that he’d done, things he wasn’t proud of.”

“But he didn’t say what they were?”

Daisy shook her head. “He never said. And I never asked. But I understood the deal. I would… I don’t know. I’d be a civilizing influence, and I wouldn’t ask questions. I’d make a home for him. Have babies. Well,” she said, and smiled sadly. “That was the plan, anyhow, even though it ended up being baby, singular. I would cook…” She looked up, meeting Diana’s eyes. “I was happy. You know?” Diana nodded. Daisy sniffled, and swiped at her cheeks with her sleeve. “That’s the shitty part. I’m trying to help Beatrice to grow up and be a strong woman. I’m trying to be a role model. And I thought—I mean, I had a business, and I volunteered, and I thought…” Her voice trailed off. “I thought that I was doing fine. That I was happy, and that I had the kind of life I wanted. That I wasn’t dependent, the way my mother was. And sure, there were things that happened that I don’t think about, or didn’t, until all of this stuff in the news…” Daisy waved her hands, a gesture she hoped encompassed her history, and current events, the damage that had been done to her; the same kind of damage it seemed like every woman who’d ever drawn breath had endured. “And now all I see is what he did to me—to us. That I was dependent. That I could have been more, and done more. That Hal hurt people. He hurt you. And he kept my world very small.”

“Hey.” Gently, Diana put her hand on Daisy’s forearm. “Beatrice is great. You’ve done a good job with her.”

Daisy was crying in earnest by then, tears rolling off her chin to plop on her lap. She waved away the compliment. “Please. You hardly know her.”

“I can tell. She’s confident and curious and smart. Smart enough to figure out what I was doing, anyhow. I think she’s terrific.”

“She makes clothes for dead mice.” Now Daisy was crying and laughing at the same time.

“She does. And she’s got blue hair, and old-lady clothes. It’s fine. She’s one hundred percent herself. And she wouldn’t be that strong, she wouldn’t have the courage of her convictions, if she didn’t have a mom like you.”

Daisy made herself breathe deeply, and sat up straight, squaring her shoulders, feeling the wind coming off the water. “Are you going to tell the police?”

Diana shook her head. “If that had been my plan, I would have had to tell a long time ago.”

“So what, then? Do you want him to say he’s sorry?” As soon as Daisy spoke the words she heard how insipid they sounded, how meaningless, and she wished she could take them back. “No. Never mind. Do you think—if he actually did something to make it right…”

Diana was looking at her curiously. “What would that be?”

“I don’t know,” Daisy said. “Like, if he took a leave from his job and went back to Emlen. If he volunteered there, and told the boys there what he’d done, and worked with them, and the teachers, so none of them would ever do a thing like that?”

Diana cocked her head. “Would he do it?”

“I don’t know,” said Daisy. She was