“With abook?” he said, laughing as hard as she knew he would when she was done. “I’m sorry, is that actually you in there or has some stranger dressed in Daisy’s body come to pick me up? You’d never do something like that.”
“I know! I don’t know what came over me. They were just so awful and drunk that I figured they probably wouldn’t rememberorcare.”
“Orthe opposite,” Dan said. “In my experience, drunk men aren’t the best targets for violence, with a book or otherwise.”
Daisy could feel the familiar rush of adrenaline filling her body, the same way it had that day. “It just felt so good! To be that wild and free,” she said, not realizing that that was what was missing until she said it. She thought it was meeting Tom that had started an unsettling change in her, that had causedeverything to feel just a tiny bit different ever since, but maybe it wasn’t just him. Maybe it was also what she did that day.
“I bet,” Dan said, and she was so happy he was home. Now that he was back, everything could go back to normal.
“Nothing has felt right with you gone,” Daisy blurted out. “I don’t want that to feel like pressure. I’m glad you went away. I’m so happy for you. I just didn’t realize how much I love having you around.”
“Well I’m happy to be back, sort of,” Dan said. “But also... that needs to come from insideyou, my friend.”
“What does?” Daisy asked, frowning.
“Happiness.”
Daisy turned in slow motion to stare at her brother as she slowed at a roundabout, and he laughed.
“It’s true. Most of us never stop to ask ourselves if we’re okay. If we’re happy. We just keep going. So...areyou?”
Daisy’s mouth had turned dry. She and Dan laughed together and checked in about their mum, but they didn’t talk. Not like this. She pulled out onto the motorway, leading them back toward Stoke Newington. It was like he’d gone away and aged ten years. Or had he been like this before and she’d just never noticed? Continued to see him as the little brother he once was, without acknowledging the moment he grew up.
“Am I what?”
“Are you happy? You don’t need to answer me, you just need to start asking yourself. And please can we go past a Marks & Spencer on the way to yours? I needfruit.”
Daisy had successfully avoided any further chats with Dan about his trip, and she wasn’t especially proud of herself for it. She’d ask; she just needed to get through Christmas Day. And her wedding. She was going to need more strength than she could currently offer, but it was Dan. He’d be okay until then.
Instead, to show how pleased she was to have him home and probably, more realistically, to distract herself, Daisy threw herself into making the best Christmas roast she could. Her mum happily allowed it because it meant she could talk at Dan in the sitting room while Zack lit candles and played carols and every so often appeared in the kitchen to half-heartedly offer some assistance. Daisy knew better than to actually accept because he didn’t really mean it. She was happy, anyway. In that moment, preparing Christmas Day lunch for her family, she could honestly say she was happy. She even checked as she added the potatoes to a pan full of hot goose fat, sprinkling them in Maldon salt flakes. She asked herself the way Dan had advised her to and yes, there was nothing more she could possibly want. Nothing. Especially not Tom. She hadn’t thought once about how he might be spending Christmas. Whether he and Sophie might be cuddled up with Martha on the sofa watchingThe Grinch, hands interlocked.
“Are you going to do Dad’s carrots?” her mum had asked, and Daisy had said that of course she would. She always did. Her dad had done the greatest roast carrots glazed in honey and orange, and every time Daisy made them, her mum would look all proud and say they tasted just the way he made them. It was a small thing Daisy could do to bring her mum some peace within a meal.
Dan came through to help her lay the table.
“Needed to escape for a minute,” he whispered, and God it felt so nice to have her brother there. To be able to joke with him about the intensity of their mum. “She’s cried about ten times.”
“She really missed you,” Daisy said. “I don’t think she knew what to do with herself.”
“Well sheshould,” Dan said, with more anger than Daisy had ever heard from him. “She can’t put that on me. It’s fucking bullshit.”
Daisy watched as he threw place mats down on their table, his jaw locked. He reached for the white wine on the counter and downed some before putting it back.
“It is, I agree,” Daisy said, keeping her voice steady as she waited for a stillness to wash over her. She’d never seen Dan like this before, and it was unsettling. Unsettling, while also being a little too reminiscent of her childhood. How quickly she knew to stay calm to stop something from escalating. It seemed to work, as Daisy watched Dan’s shoulders relax. That was, until their mum walked into the kitchen.
“I was wondering where you got to?” she said to Dan, moving to stand beside him.
“Just helping with the table.” He locked his jaw, walking past her to get knives and forks. She followed him and he swung back around. “You go relax, Mum, we’ll call when it’s ready.”
“I’m okay,” she said, smiling and not moving as Daisy watched, her chest tightening as her eyes scanned Dan, an energy building inside her. He stood with his hands on the forks and took in a deep breath with his eyes closed, before exhaling and turning back to the table.
“Shall we put on the Mariah Carey album over lunch? Dad used to love that one,” their mum said.
“Of course, if you want,” Daisy interrupted as quickly as she could to stop Dan from responding.
“Well you’d probably both like it,” she added. “Like he’s here.”
Dan walked out of the room, having only done the forks, and Daisy released the air in her lungs at the sight of him leaving.Well done, Dan. Good control.
