“Yeah, you kind of made vows about that,” Nora said.
“Thank you.” Soraya reached across the table and grabbed Nora’s arm. “Thank youfor saying that, Nora. Because that’s how I feel, and no one seems sufficiently upset about it.”
“I’m sorry.” Daisy realized it was her turn, but she wasn’t particularly in the mood to talk about it. “I quit. The construction company. I’m not working for him anymore.”
Nora’s eyebrows lifted. “What happened that made you quit?”
Daisy looked away for a second, trying to ... ground herself. Suddenly the room didn’t feel real. “I think he might be marrying her. I saw a big purchase from a jewelry store on his business account.”
“That’s so screwed up in so many ways,” Nora said.
“I know. And I think this is how he was telling me. I couldn’t stand it, not anymore. Ever since he walked out, everything has been his decision. Everything. He decided we were done, that he was moving out and moving on, he decided—Notthis. I decided this.”
“Good for you,” Soraya said.
Daisy wasn’t sure it was good for her. She might make way less money at the apothecary, and it was definitely not going to be as flexible, and it might lead to the collapse of her husband’s business and therefore her children’s legacy. That wasfine.
“So now I just have to take a day job where I don’t get to be home and balance that with the Youth Musical Theater of Oregon and the big production we have coming up and, oh—he was going to build sets.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Nora said.
“I am worried. We don’t have a big budget, and the kids are doing so well with rehearsal, but we can’t do this if we don’t have sets.”
“Black-box theater?”
“Seven Brides for Seven Brothersisn’t black-box-theater appropriate,” Daisy said. “And I have my mom and my grandma and the kids and ... What did I just do? How am I going to live?”
“Daisy.” Soraya stared at her with uncharacteristic focus. “How are you going to live if you don’t get a real, decent settlement from him? How are either of us going to live? Everything is really messed up whether you keep working at his construction company or not. At least you have your pride.”
“Do I?” Daisy laughed. “Because my high school sweetheart left me, broke my heart, and looked at me like I meant nothing. I don’t feel like I have pride.” It had been the most lowering moment of her life. He’d told her he was leaving, and she’d had to vomit. He’d acted like nothing had happened, like she hadn’t been sick because of him. Like she wasn’t broken because of him.
She’d seen people give more empathy to total strangers than Jonathan had given her after he’d dropped that bomb.
Nora put her hand on Daisy’s. “You have us now.”
Soraya looked like she might cry. “I haven’t felt like I’ve had anyone. All of my friends, my mother, everyone just thinks I’m stupid for kicking him out. For staying apart.”
“I don’t think that,” Nora said. “I think what you want matters.”
Soraya covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. “I’m not familiar with that concept.”
“This is so ... It’s so ridiculous,” Daisy said. “Your husband sent a picture of his penis to another woman at church. My husband left me and is already buying major jewelry for the twenty-five-year-old he’sshacking up with, and we have all these ... worries and fears and pain because of them, and they don’t even care.”
“You’re not sociopaths,” Nora pointed out.
“Neither is Jonathan. He’s doing a great impression of one right now, but he’s not one. I don’t think my whole life was a lie. Whatever he’s telling himself right now, though ... I don’t know. And it’s killing me. I hate that. I hate it for all of us.”
Nora would deflect and say Ben wasn’t really gone. Maybe he wasn’t. Daisy’s trust in men was at an all-time low.
“The store is open.” Nora looked down at her phone.
“Yes.”
But she found she couldn’t move now that she had made this decision.
“Come on,” Nora said. “We’re all going together.”
So Daisy let herself be collected like she was a child and dragged out of the coffee shop.
