Yes, Daisy thought that much was obvious as her clothes dampened with cool sweat, and she fought the urge to vomit from nerves.
As if reading her reservations in her wide eyes, the doctor smiled. “It’s just a conversation, Daisy. Nothing to be frightened of.” She opened a notebook and turned to a fresh page, jotting Daisy’s full name across the top. “Do you mind if I call you Daisy, or do you prefer Ms. Burdan?” She set her phone down, her words causing the spectrogram on the screen to bounce with every recorded syllable. “I hope you don’t mind if I record our conversation. It helps to verify my notes when I write my reports.” While the doctor asked permission, her actions presumed consent.
“That’s fine,” Daisy said, figuring any proof of her presence on this plane could work in her favor if anything happened to her.
“Everything we discuss, beyond my final report confirming your fitness to participate, is completely confidential.”
Daisy’s stomach churned. What if she gave the wrong answers and they kicked her out?
“First, I need to confirm that no one has coerced you. Are you here of your own free will, Daisy?”
The question was straightforward, but the answer was not. Yes, she’d willingly gone with the driver and walked onto the plane. But she hadn’t fully known what she was committing to.
Looking around to assure they were alone, Daisy whispered, “I can’t unlock my seatbelt.”
Dr. Kawanja tilted her head in concern. “May I?” She easily released the buckle.
“Oh.” Embarrassed, Daisy flushed.
The doctor smiled and clicked the buckle securely closed again. “Sometimes, when we’re nervous, things seem more difficult than they actually are.” She poised her pen over the paper and looked at her expectantly.
Heat climbed her cheeks. “Yes. I chose this.”
Dr. Kawanja scribbled a note on her tablet. “Good. Now, tell me a little about yourself. Family background, childhood… Whatever feels relevant.”
Daisy wrapped both hands around the teacup and stared into its amber depths. “There’s not much to tell. My mother raised me, mostly alone.”
“Mostly?”
“I have a dad, but I haven’t seen him in years. He was never really a parent. Just a stranger who believed himself entitled to stop by unannounced. My mum raised me. She worked at the same laundry where I work now. She…” Her words seized in her throat as the familiar paralysis that always accompanied her grief returned. “She passed away…two years ago.”
“I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“Pulmonary fibrosis.” The medical term was clinical enough to act as an emotional shield. “The doctors said it was most likely from the chemicals at the laundry, from decades of breathing in bleach and solvents. We wear masks now. But when my mother started, those rules didn’t exist.”
“Losing her must have been difficult for you.”
Difficult.
Such a small word.
Not enough to describe how horrific it had been watching her mother drown on dry land.
Daisy could still hear her wet coughs. Still smell the eucalyptus mixing with the copper scent of blood. In the end, those stringent smells were all that was left of the soft woman she’d known. Her mother couldn’t speak without hacking, and it became a waiting game.
The kind of smell one never forgot. Sometimes, Daisy caught the same sweet-rotting stench of death on others. It was enough to make her knees buckle, the memory of loss so painful it could physically take her down with no warning at all.
“Yes,” Daisy said, clearing the lump from her throat. “It was difficult.”
Dr. Kawanja made a few notes. “Tell me more about your father.”
“He wasn’t around much, only showed up here and there, when I was little.”
“Do you wish he’d been around more?”
Daisy could almost smell the whiskey and motor oil that always clung to his clothes and skin. As an adult, she sometimes caught a whiff of those things in other places, reminding her of him, always giving her that same uncomfortable pit in her stomach.
“No.” He’d always shown up out of the blue, bringing chaos the moment his boots set foot in the door. “My mother moved differently when he was around. Carefully. Like her body hurt.”
