But the daisies kept coming.
As they did, I thought it was that he forgot he was sendingthem, and the minute the bill showed, he’d cancel them.
I didn’t allow myself to think further on that.
For a number of reasons, I’d wanted to call.To apologize.
It was what a good Southern woman should do, for one.
But it was whatIwanted to do.Me.Daisy.For him.Marcus.To make it better.To take it back.To let him know that I wanted to belike Shelby fromSteel Magnolias.Strong like her.Strong enough toknow that it was better to have a little bit of something wonderful than alifetime of just plain nothing.
Then explain to him that he had to go because I couldn’tallow myself to have a little bit of something wonderful knowing it’d be takenaway.
I was just not that strong.
It wasn’t just about a man like Stretch knowing he shouldn’tleave me with my mother, and doing it anyway.Maybe because he had no claim tome.But mostly, I reckoned, because he wasn’t strong enough either.
And it wasn’t just about Miss Annamae giving me all I neededto live my life right, but not being around long enough for me to show her I’dlistened to every word.
It was about being the kind of girl that the only good thinga man had given her was a really fantastic boob job and no matter how much shefought and scratched and worked for a little hint of peace in her life, shestill got herself raped on the blacktop of a parking lot.
So I didn’t call Marcus.I didn’t apologize.I didn’texplain.I thought it best to leave him be.
I didn’t care what he did for a living.He deserved better.
Much, much better than me.
The bruising was gone, most of the scrapes had healed, and Iwas going to go back to the stage next Saturday.
I’d wanted to do it that night but Smithie was not big onthat idea.He wanted me to take more time.He wanted me to talk to some womanLaTeeshahad found, a woman named Bex, who worked at somerape crisis center.And then he wanted me to give it a month or two, still paidleave, and he also wanted me to move in with him andLaTeeshafor a spell.
I’d put my foot down.We’d had words.
After sharing I was a pain in his ass, he’d given in butonly if I’d give it another week.
I could do that so I’d agreed.
But I didn’t think of any of that.Not right then, coweringon my ass in the corner of my darkened bedroom, some man I didn’t know in myliving room who another man I’d insulted had watching my apartment to keep mesafe.
I just stared through the dark at the door, doing it likethe fool I was, the coward, quaking on my ass in the dark.
I heard the knob on the door jostle and then Marcus calling,“Stay where you are, honey.”
That wasn’t hard since I couldn’t move.
There was some muted scraping before light poured in fromthe living room as the door opened and I winced at the bright.
Almost before it illuminated the room, it was gone, and Istared as Marcus’s tall shadow moved toward me.
I thought he’d stop, and with him there, his man outside, Itried to pull myself together.The humiliation of cringing in a cornerbeginning to dawn, the feel of it spreading over me.
He didn’t stop.
He made it to me, bent low, gathered me up and then he wentright back down.Situating himself exactly as I had been in the corner butwithout the trembling and with me in his lap, held close to his chest, one armtight around me, the other one slanted up my back, fingers in my hair, pressingmy face to his throat.
I felt his strength.His warmth.Smelled hints of hiscologne.
“What happened?”he whispered.“Nightmare?”
