Penn.
Penn.
And to know he did not speak of me, even to someone with whom he probably spent long hours with nothing to do. It's soul crushing, except it's not supposed to be. I told myself I wouldn't ask, and then I asked. I told myself a positive answer was good, and a negative answer was neutral.
What a lie.
"Daisy," Peter says, voice pained. He feels bad for me, and that makes me angry. Indignant. Embarrassed.
Impending tears sting my nose. "Help me with the bathroom cabinet, ok?" I ask, voice shaky, volume a little louder than itneeds to be. I turn on my heel, heading with purpose toward the master bath. The house is silent for a few seconds, the only sound my footfalls, and then behind me there is movement. The swish of pants, the thud of footfalls heavier than mine.
I enter my room and cross it, stopping just before the open entrance to my bathroom, and the mess that lay beyond it. Peter hovers in the bedroom door, looking unsure.
Belatedly, I realize I'm inviting a man into my bedroom. A man who isn't my fiancé.
"Duke won't mind that you're here," I rush to say, in case propriety is what has Peter pausing. "He has meetings all day. All week, really. He can't help me."
Not that I asked him. Duke would have, I'm sure. Or, he would've suggested I hire somebody, or maybe even hired somebody without telling me, and they would've shown up and surprised me.
Something flashes across Peter's face at the mention of Duke. He did that before, the first night we met at Summerhill. At the time I was confused, but now I know he was in the military with Penn. Penn must have said things about Duke, shaping Peter's opinion of him. But if Penn mentioned Duke, how could he have not mentioned me?
"Right, of course. The fiancé," Peter says, stepping into my room. He stops and looks around the space. "This is not what I would've expected from looking at you."
I look down at my sundress, the long cardigan I've paired with it to combat the slight chill in the air. It's typical attire for me. "My best friend Vivi calls my room 'Daisy's dark side.'"
The room is moody, with touches of femininity. The headboard of my bed is made of smoky glass tiles and framed in ornate gold. The wall behind it is papered in a matte black with flora in colors of ivory and bronze. On my nightstand is a Tiffany lamp in shades of green, books stacked four high below it.
"I can see why," Peter says, moving deeper into the room. He stops beside a bookshelf I painted black, pointing at the shelf that is mostly framed photos. "May I?" He gestures at the pictures.
I nod as I come closer to his side, and he skims his gaze over the most important people in my life.
"Mom and Dad," I explain, pointing at my smiling parents. My dad wears a flowered shirt, my mom's in a flowy dress. "On a cruise they took a few years ago, before her diagnosis."
Peter's eyes slice to mine. "Diagnosis?"
A lump blossoms automatically in my throat. "Stage four uterine cancer. We didn't find out until it was too late. She"—I swallow back the emotion that comes with saying the words—"she's chosen not to fight. The odds of winning weren't favorable, and she didn't want to spend what time she has left feeling awful."
Peter looks stricken. "Daisy, I'm sorry you're going through this. That's terrible." His hand lifts as if he's going to reach for me, but halfway into the motion, he thinks better of it and drops his arm. It puts an odd feeling in my chest to see him this distraught. I know he is a nice person, but I didn't take him for somebody with this much empathy. Maybe he had someone in his life who has been through something similar.
"Me and my best friend, Vivi," I say, moving on before the reality of what my mom is going through brings me all the way down. "From high school. It was the homecoming football game, that's why our faces are painted blue and white."
Peter nods, reaching for a framed photo sitting back from the others. He holds it for a moment, bouncing it up and down as if it weighs more than a few ounces.
"Penn," I explain, and his head bounces up, gaze expectant, as if I've called him by name. "That was me and Penn, when we were eleven, at the county fair. My parents took us." We atecotton candy and funnel cakes, and Penn puked disembarking the Tilt-A-Whirl.
Peter stays silent, replacing the photo on the shelf. He is quiet when I mention Duke, he is quiet when I mention Penn. Why is that? Does he simply have nothing to say, or is it more?
Peter moves away from the shelf, and together we walk to the entrance to the bathroom. He looks over my head, eyes bulging. "Daisy," he says, "this is worse than you let on."
My teeth capture my lower lip. "Yeah. It is."
Old, ugly tile sits in piles around the space. I wasn't lying when I said I had to use the pry bar to pry off the cabinetry, but I didn't say I was also using it and various other tools to remove the tile from the walls.
He steps around me, striding to the shower with the glass door thrown open. "Is this even usable?"
"There's a second bathroom with a shower. I've been using that."
Peter nudges one of the piles of tile, and they make a tinkling sound as they knock together. "I guess the pry bar is your new BFF."
