“It’s really not,” he said. “It’s a small thing. I have your number.”
“Oh. Yeah, feel free to ... text.”
“I might even call you.”
A strange rush went through her body. Was this flirting? No. She was not flirting with Zach. And he was definitely not flirting with her.
But what a completely disorienting and exhilarating realization. She could. She hadn’t chosen for Jonathan to walk out the door, but now that he had, she was free to imagine a life that looked however she wanted it to. She could flirt with Zach. Or the next guy who walked in. And maybe things would be okay. Maybe she and the other discarded wives had actually done something. Something magic.
Was it normal to be euphoric in the middle of your life falling apart? She suddenly felt like she might be. This was an ending. One she never would’ve chosen. One she and her kids were suffering for. It was like she’d gone bungee jumping and someone had cut the cord. There was an exhilaration in the free fall. Though that was just what you thought before you hit the ground and died.
She couldn’t discount that.
Psychosis was a real possibility here.
“I’ll let you get back to it.” Zach gestured at the stage.
“Yeah. Thanks,” she said.
The rest of rehearsal went well, with only one forgotten-line meltdown by one of the kids, and she watched from inside the theater as her children went into the lobby, peering through the window as Jonathan greeted them. She just ... She didn’t want to have to face him unnecessarily.
It was better to keep him far away. Through a window, if possible. It wasn’t always. Of course not. He was the father of her kids.
And a stranger. And the man she had loved since she was sixteen.
All those things.
She waited until everyone had cleared out and then picked up the multiple bags she carried all the time and walked out to her car, feeling empty-handed despite them, because the kids weren’t with her. She was so glad she wasn’t going home to an empty house. During any other time in her life, she would’ve said she craved being alone. Now it just felt sad, her rattling around with her thoughts.
It was atrocious, truly.
“Nora sent a message:Daisy, I need to know what you want.”
The text popped up on Daisy’s car system, the message from Nora read to her in a robotic voice as she pulled out of the parking lot.
“Nora sent a message:Teriyaki chicken?”
Daisy responded. “Is that a question?”
“Nora sent a message:I don’t know. Is there something better that I should be getting?”
“Soraya sent a message:I’m getting teriyaki noodles.”
“Not salad?” Daisy asked.
“Nora sent a message:I asked the same thing.”
Soraya and Nora must be together, which was strange and hilarious, because Daisy would have said the two of them would never, ever willingly hang out alone.
There was a saying about strange times and strange bedfellows. It had never felt more apt than it did now. But as she listened to robotversions of Soraya and Nora banter in text, Daisy experienced a riotous sense of relief. Like everything might actually be okay. Or at the very least, tonight would be.
It was a short drive back to her house, and she pulled in and unlocked the door, then went inside and did a cursory cleanup of the kids’ trinkets strewn all over the house.
There was more of her own detritus than usual too—likely a reflection of her mental state.
But she didn’t have it in her to be hard on herself right now. Everything felt hard.
She made a quick call and checked in with her mother, then made another to her grandma, and that was when Soraya and Nora knocked on the door.
