“How Tom’s in love with her, I’m guessing?” his dad replied.
Tom swung his head around. “What? I’m not in—” He stopped, staring at Martha and then his dad and Laura, who were all watching him, heads tilted to one side. “Oh my God,” he said, a calmness slowly moving through his body. “I’m in love with Daisy,” he said. “I am absolutely in love with her.” He started to laugh, the feeling now so completely all-consuming that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized it before.
Of course he was in love with her. He was fairly sure he had been for quite some time, in fact. How long? The exhibition? The shopping trip? The ceilidh? That very first night, when she’d grabbed his hand and pulled him into the early morning fog? He couldn’t pin it on one moment. Instead it was as though the second their two worlds had collided, a seed had been planted within him, and it hadn’t stopped growing since. Every shared experience, every conversation, every interaction he’d had with her had nourished it, until it was just there, a part of him.
“Oh my God, I love Daisy Douglas.”
A smile broke across Martha’s face as Laura and Tom’s dad locked eyes and shook their heads.
“Finally,” Martha said, and at that she pulled the mask toward her and put it back onto her face.
Chapter Thirty-One
Daisy
On the afternoon of Daisy’s wedding, it was impossible for her not to think of Alanis Morissette. Rain was hammering against the window of her hotel in the heart of London and she got it now, why everyone complained about the lyrics. Because it wasn’t ironic at all, was it? It was just bad luck.
Daisy didn’t mind. She liked the rain, but she knew that in his separate hotel room Zack would be fuming. He would take it personally. He wouldn’t feel the way Daisy did right now, which was that if she had a bit longer, she’d take herself for a walk in it. Feel the rain pounding down on her head and face and arms, and embrace it. That was the kind of person she was, and these days, she was trying to accept it.
Dan, Daisy’s mum and Clara were all arriving a bit later. Until then, as the minutes slowly counted down to her wedding, she was entirely alone. What should she be thinking about? She was sure she should be running through some type of to-do list, worrying about anything they’d forgotten, but her brain couldn’t keep up with that. She’d done everything she could, and now it was just going to happen. It was small, anyway; thirty people in a garden. The food was selected. The table plan was done. The venue was ready for them. It pretty much felt like any otherday, except she was in a hotel room with a dress zipped up and hanging from the bathroom door, waiting for her. And except that, for the first time since that one morning on the bus, she was hopefully going to see Tom again.
Daisy shook her head. She wasn’t allowing herself to think about that. Checking the time again, she got into the shower and did all the same things she did every day. Everything felt unremarkable. Perhaps that was a good sign? She washed and conditioned her hair, shaved her armpits and her legs and doubled the amount of shower gel she’d normally use. She did all of it because she wanted to look her best, and it didn’t matter who that was for.
Unzipping her dress, Daisy stood back and stared at it. This was when the excitement should really be building, but she hadn’t chosen a dress to get excited about. She took it off the hanger and pulled it on.
Daisy had checked her phone a few times, waiting for some sort of update from Clara, but nothing had come. Leisha had landed that morning and she was so sure that a message would have arrived. The only thing Daisy could deduce from the silence was that something terrible had happened; that there was a chance she may not have her only bridesmaid on her wedding day. Or that she would, but that she’d be heartbroken. There wasn’t any other explanation for it, and while Daisy had suspected it from the beginning, she felt devastated on Clara’s behalf. She didn’t deserve the disappointment of Leisha not being who she said she was.
“Knock, knock,” her mum said and Daisy looked out the window, where the rain had now eased and the sky was beginning to turn a dusky blue. She opened the door, relieved. A distraction from her own brain was just what was needed.
“Perfect timing to do my zip up,” she said, as her mum stepped into the room wearing a beautiful emerald green dressthat Daisy hadn’t seen before. “Wow, Mum. You look incredible,” she added. It wasn’t just the dress. Everything about her looked different, and Daisy understood why. She understood, because she felt it herself. “Incredible, and so much lighter,” she said, reaching in and hugging her.
Her mum did her dress up and silence fell around them.
“I’ve been going through Dad’s stuff,” she said. “I thought it was about time.”
Daisy nodded. She hadn’t realized that her mum had yet to go through his stuff, but she’d also never mentioned it. “I found some things. Some watches. They were in a box, hidden in the bottom of his wardrobe.”
Daisy frowned. “Why were they hidden?”
“I suspect they might be worth something,” Daisy’s mum said. “Billy From Next Door did a quick Google and it looks like they might be worth quite a lot, in fact. I’m going to get them valued.”
Daisy nodded. Her dad having a secret box was the least of her worries, but it made sense that he might. Made sense in the same way that everything about him was secretive, and that must have been a pretty miserable way to live.
Within minutes the room went from serene and peaceful to entirely chaotic. The hair and makeup artist Daisy had booked last minute when she remembered the photos—or photographer—turned up and got to work. Dan arrived, and a lump formed in Daisy’s throat as she realized that the only other time she’d seen him look so smart was as a young boy at their dad’s funeral. How complicated grief could be. It wasn’t just their dad she felt sad for though, it was them. The two of them, sitting in the front row, so unsure of what lay ahead of them.
Dan wolf-whistled as he took in Daisy sitting in the chair as Jimmy, the makeup man, did the finishing touches to her face. “Looking good!”
“You can’t even see me.”
Dan laughed. “Fine, I’m guessing.”
Jimmy finished his work and Daisy looked in the mirror. She’d asked for Taylor Swift eyeliner, red lips and minimal everywhere else, and he’d done exactly as she requested. She looked how she’d imagined she might look, but better.
“God, thank you. It’s perfect.”
“You were a perfect canvas, sweetheart,” he said back.
He set her hair into waves, covering it with so much toxic hairspray that Daisy began coughing and asked him to stop. And then, like the fairy godmother, he was gone, disappearing amidst the fumes.
