I sniff, dragging the back of my hand under my nose. Vivi snags a paper napkin from a nearby dispenser and hands it to me. I offer a thankful, shaky smile, and say, "I don't want to intrude."
Daisy shakes her head. "Not an intrusion. I'd be grateful." She tips her chin at Vivi. "I can't stand Vivi. The only reason I accepted her invitation to come here was because I feel bad that she doesn't have any other friends."
A straight-faced Vivi nods in the affirmative. "I've been guilting this broad into friendship since the mid-2000s."
Through the well of emotion at someone making a special cake just for me, without even asking me why, comes laughter.
"I won't take no for an answer," Daisy says, and without waiting for a response, she steers me to an empty table in the corner. "This is our table. Every weekat this time, we meet. If Sal sees someone sit down anywhere close to the time when we're supposed to arrive, he shoos them away with one of those old-fashioned brooms."
More laughter. These women are kind. Vivi is still a bit of an enigma, but I think underneath that tough exterior, she's nice.
"I'll join you," I relent. "But only if you promise I'm not interrupting. You could be doing very important work, like solving world hunger."
"Nah." Vivi waves her hand. She threads her purse straps over the back of a chair and plunks down. "We judge people and talk shit."
Daisy takes her seat, and I fill the third. "We're like the early version of those old ladies you see sitting on a park bench gossiping about the town as it lives life around them."
"Tell us why you're crying," Vivi says. "You're pregnant, so it could be for anything. I once cried because I got peach ice cream and the carton said it would have real pieces of peach, but there weren't any."
"That actually makes me feel better. I know the tears are due to hormones, but they seem so...soirrational. I was never a crier before this."
"I wasn't a lot of things before I became a mother," Vivi states. "Welcome to becoming a person you never knew you could be. For better or worse."
"Ok,Mallory." Daisy sends a hard look at Vivi. I get the feeling her role in their friendship is to wrangle Vivi, be the calm to her chaos. Daisy seems to be a genuinelysweet person. "Tell us why we walked in here and found a pregnant lady in tears."
For an event that changed the trajectory of my life, I don't talk about it with new people very often. But if Hugo can be brave and have a conversation with David Boylan, I can be brave and explain to these two friendly faces why they found me in tears.
"Today would've been my little sister Maggie's twenty-sixth birthday. She died when she was twelve, and every year I bake her favorite cake and sing happy birthday to her. I'm not at home, obviously, so Adela offered to make it for me, even though they don't have the flavor on the menu."
The look on Daisy's face is one of pure sorrow, and though Vivi shares the expression, there's something else there, too. Empathy.
"My mom told me," Vivi says quietly. "I'm sorry. For your loss, and for my behavior at the festival."
"You really were quite bitchy." The words sound wrong with Daisy's sugared tone.
"I'll make up for it," Vivi promises. "With food. I can cook the pants off you."
"That's sort of how I ended up in this predicament," I joke, rubbing my belly.
Vivi howls. "I like you, Mallory."
"You have to like me. We're members of a club we didn't ask to be in."
Vivi crosses her arms, a defiant look moving over her face. "Fuck that club."
Daisy's eyebrows raise. "Not to interrupt the sisterhoodvibes you two have going right now, but I don't know what you're talking about. What club?"
"The murdered loved ones club," Vivi answers, voice dull. Somebody else might flinch at Vivi's harsh language, but I know she doesn't mean it badly. It's how she guards herself against the tremendous pain. Survival. The only way to deal with the pain is to learn how to interact with it.
Daisy gasps, gaze snapping back to me. "What is Vivi talking about?"
Quickly, I fill her in. No details, just the skeleton of what happened. No muscles or sinew, no organs or skin. No heart. If I rarely disclose what happened to Maggie, then I almost never talk about the details of the day. I still can't stomach them.
"And that's why I'm here," I finish.
Daisy drums her nails on the table. "This all makes a lot more sense now. Penn told me you'd sent an email?—"
"Many emails," I interject.
