Chapter 1: Daisy 1 Daisy 2019 Daisy Shoemaker couldn''t sleep. She knew, of course, that she was not alone, awake in the middle of the night. She''d read Facebook posts, magazine articles, entire books written about women her age consumed by anxiety, gnawed by regret, tormented by their hormones, fretful about their marriages, their bodies, their aging parents and their troublesome teenagers and, thus, up all night. In bed, on a Sunday night in March, with her husband''s snores audible even through her earplugs, Daisy pictured her tribe, her sleepless sisters, each body stretched on the rack of her own imagination, each face lit by the gently glowing rectangle in her hands. Picture each worry like a gift. Put them in order, from the mildest to the most intense. Imagine yourself picking up each one and wrapping it with care. Picture yourself placing the gift under a tree, and then walking away.
Daisy had read that technique on some website, or in some magazine. She''s tried it along with all the others. She had imagined her worries like leaves, floating down a stream; she pictured them like clouds, drifting past in the sky; like cars, zipping by on the highway. She had practiced progressive muscle relaxation; she played, in her noise-canceling headphones, murmurous podcasts and Spotify mixes of soothing, sleep-inducing sounds--the chiming of Tibetan singing bowls; Gregorian chants, whales moaning to one another across the vast and chambered deep. She had swallowed melatonin and slugged down valerian tea, and trained herself to leave her phone charging in the bathroom instead of right next to her bed, with the ringer turned up in case her daughter, away at boarding school, should need her in the middle of the night. Thoughts of Beatrice made her sigh, then look guiltily over her shoulder to make sure she hadn''t woken Hal. Hal was still sleeping, flat on his back, arms and legs starfished wide. They had a king-sized bed, and most mornings Daisy woke up clinging to the edge of her side.
Hal, while not unsympathetic, had been notably short on solutions. "What do you want me to do?" he''d asked, sounding maddeningly reasonable and slightly indulgent. "It''s not like I''m pushing you off the bed on purpose. I''m asleep." He''d given her permission to wake him up. "Just give me a poke," he''d said. "Shake my shoulder." Probably because he knew she never would.
Sighing, Daisy rolled over to face the window. It was still dark outside, the sky showing no signs of brightening, which meant it was probably two or three in the morning, the absolute pit of the night. She had a big day coming up, and she needed to try to sleep. Breathe in, two, three, four , she coached herself. Hold, two, three, four. Breathe out. She exhaled slowly, trying, and failing, not to think about how the dean had sounded when he''d called to inform them of Beatrice''s latest transgression, which had involved gathering up the members of the Emlen Feminist Liberation (pronounced Ef-el) and spray-painting the word RAPIST across a male classmate''s dorm-room door. "Unfortunately, this is not Beatrice''s first infraction of our honor code," the dean had intoned.
"We''ll need at least one of Beatrice''s parents to come up here to discuss this." "Okay," Daisy had stammered. "Although--would you mind calling my husband? You have his number, right?" She wanted Hal to handle this. Hal was the Emlen graduate in the house, the one whose own father had attended the school, a loyal alumnus who donated money each year, in addition to paying Bea''s tuition. He''d know what to do. and, if the dean called, Hal would hear the news from the school and not her. "Of course," said the dean. Daisy had hung up, her legs watery with relief, thinking, Hal will fix this.
Hal will talk to him. He''ll figure it out , and by the time he comes home, everything will be fine. But Hal hadn''t, and it wasn''t. Two hours later her husband had stormed into the house, wearing the blue suit and red-and-gold tie that he''d left in that morning and a thunderous look on his face. "They''re probably going to expel her," he said. "We need to be there Monday morning. Don''t look so happy about it," he''d snapped before Daisy had even said anything, and Daisy turned away, her face burning. He brushed past her, on his way to the stairs.
"I''m very disappointed in her. You should be, too." "But." He was already halfway up the staircase. When she spoke, he stopped, his hand on the railing, his body telegraphing impatience. "Did the boy do what she said?" Hal turned around. "What?" Daisy steeled herself. She hadn''t talked to Beatrice yet--her daughter was ignoring her texts, and every phone call she''d made had gone straight to voice mail.
"Don''t you think we should hear her side of things, too? To find out what really happened?" Hal shook his head. "Whatever happened, Beatrice isn''t judge and jury up there. She vandalized school property, she accused someone, in public, of something he might not have done. And," he concluded, like he was making a closing argument in court, "she''d already been in trouble." Daisy bent her head. It was true. Even before the incident, Beatrice had been on academic probation for cutting classes. Her daughter ran an Etsy shop on which she sold tiny felt replicas of pets for a hundred dollars apiece.
She had made it very clear, to her parents and the school''s administrators, that she preferred crafts to academics. "Maybe Beatrice just wasn''t a boarding school kind of kid," Daisy ventured. This was a point she''d made repeatedly when they were deciding whether to send her, a decision that was no decision at all, because, practically from the moment of her birth, Hal had been planning on Bea going to Emlen, which he, and his father, and both of Daisy''s brothers, had attended. "You''ll carry on the family tradition," he''d said, to which Beatrice had rolled her eyes. Hal believed the experience of boarding school would make their daughter strong and independent. Daisy thought that Beatrice was too young to be away from home, and that she''d be going to college soon enough, so why rush her out the door? "And Beatrice doesn''t even want to go," Daisy argued. She''d tried to explain to her husband the particular tenderness of the fourteen-year-old girl. She remembered being that age and feeling as if she was moving through the world like a snail or a turtle whose shell had been removed: freakish and vulnerable; naked and weird.
At least, that was how she''d felt, although she suspected that her daughter was made of sterner stuff. Still, she''d made her case: that girls their daughter''s age were especially susceptible to any insult or injury, that even the smallest slight would wound Beatrice terribly, and that she would carry those hurts with her forever, the way Daisy herself did. But Hal hadn''t listened. "It''s not up to Beatrice," Hal said, in a tone that was pedantic and ever-so-slightly patronizing. "It''s up to us to do what''s best for her." They''d gone around and around, and Hal, as usual, had prevailed. He''d gotten Bea to write an essay through some combination of cajolery and outright bribery, and Daisy suspected that he''d upped his annual gift to the school to an amount that could have ensured the acceptance of a hunk of rock. Beatrice had gotten into the car willingly, had been chatty and even excited on the drive to New Hampshire.
But after she''d arrived, her phone calls consisted of one-word answers ("How are your classes?" "Fine." "Do you like your roommate?" "Sure."). On her first-semester report card, she''d gotten straight Cs and a dozen unexcused absences. Hal continued up the stairs, muttering about how that was the last donation he''d ever be giving Emlen. Daisy waited for the sound of the bedroom door closing before calling her daughter, who finally deigned to pick up. "What happened?" Daisy asked. She wasn''t sure if Beatrice would be angry, or sad, or ashamed.
Given the vagaries of fourteen-year-old emotions, any of those, singularly or in combination, wouldn''t have surprised her. But Beatrice sounded calm, even--could it be?--happy. "They''ll probably kick me out. You and Dad have to come up here." She lowered her voice. "The dean wants to talk to you." Daisy said, "Do you think there''s any chance they''ll let you stay?" "Probably not!" Beatrice didn''t just sound pleasant, Daisy realized. She actually sounded cheerful.
"It''s fine, though. Now I can tell Dad that I tried, but that this isn''t for me." Daisy''s mind sped backward to a memory of her daughter at two and a half, in a tiny pair of denim OshKosh overalls, with a striped pink-and-white T-shirt underneath, determinedly trying to climb the garden stairs, falling on her diapered bottom each time. No, Mumma, I want to do it my OWN self. They''d called her Trixie back then, and Daisy could still see her, on her first day at kindergarten, posing proudly with a backpack that looked as big as she was. She could remember the powdery, milky smell of Bea''s skin when Daisy would kiss her good night; the weight of her as an infant, like a warm, breathing loaf of bread, when she''d finally fall asleep in Daisy''s arms. She could remember, too, getting teary at some Disney movie or another when Beatrice was four or five, and her daughter staring at her curiously, asking why she was crying. "Because it''s sad," Daisy had said, gesturing toward the screen.
Beatrice had patted her mother''s forearm with her plump starfish hand. "Mumma," she''d said kindly, "those are not real people." Timidly,.