Daisy was already awake, sitting up in bed giving Professor a detailed account of a birthday party. She looked up when Lizanne appeared in the doorway and accepted her presence there without any real surprise.
“Mommy is sick,” Lizanne said. “So I’m the deputy today. Tell me the plan.”
Daisy got out of bed, opened her wardrobe, and pulled out a pink and gold princess dress without hesitation.
“It’s Saturday,” she said, as though that explained the logistics of the day.
Getting Daisy into the dress involved more steps than Lizanne had anticipated. An undershirt first, then the dress itself with twelve small buttons up the back. Lizanne ended up kneeling on the floor while Daisy stood perfectly still and Biscuitwatched from the bed with what Lizanne could only interpret as professional judgment.
“It’s tricky,” Daisy said.
“I’m finding that out.”
“Mom does it fast.”
“Your mom has had more practice.”
“You’ll get practice,” Daisy said, in the tone of someone conferring a gift.
Lizanne did the last button and stood up. Daisy smoothed the skirt, checked her reflection, and nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Now breakfast. Although I should have showered.”
“Oh.” It hadn’t even occurred to Lizanne that the child might need a wash first. Deciding to ignore this oversight, she moved on to breakfast.
“Can we eat in the big house?”
“Yes, that is actually a good idea, so I can keep an eye on your mommy as well.”
Together, they made their way to the main house. Fortunately, Lizanne had always been a cereal aficionado and Daisy soon found one she liked. With Daisy squared away, she turned her attention to Rose’s breakfast. She would need something with protein.
The truth was, she didn’t really cook. Trina had done the cooking on the days the housekeeper was off, and when it was just Lizanne, she would eat up something from the freezer. That wouldn’t do.
Lizanne stood at the counter and thought about what she could actually pull off. An omelet. She had made one years ago in a Burbank apartment on a two-ring stove.
She found a pan, found eggs, found cheese. Good so far.
Daisy dragged a chair over to oversee the operation, then fetched her bowl.
“Mom likes over easy eggs.”
“I see,” Lizanne mumbled and cracked two eggs into a bowl. She pushed the trash can open and dropped the shells in when she saw it. Torn pieces of a card, white with a cartoon elephant on the front. Why was it torn?
She reached in and grabbed a couple of pieces while Daisy was busy poking her finger in the eggs to get out a piece of shell.
The card was signed Papa and the address on the back identified the sender as Jeremy Planter. Daisy’s father. She gulped but dropped the pieces back before transferring the eggs onto the pan.
As the eggs cooked, she looked at the trash can again. Why hadn’t Rose told her about this? And what did this mean? What did this man want? For all she knew, he hadn’t paid any mind to Daisy at all. And now he was back?
The heat was too high. By the time Lizanne came back to herself, the eggs had adhered to the pan in a way that made their future very clear. Then the smoke alarm went off.
It was a continuous shriek that bounced off every surface in the kitchen. Daisy’s hands went to her ears and her face crumpled—not a tantrum, just genuine fright.
“My ears!”
Lizanne killed the heat, threw open the windows and lifted Daisy down from the stool she’d been standing on.
“Hey. Look at me.” She waited until Daisy looked. “It’s just the alarm doing its job. It’s telling us the eggs were a disaster, which they were. The noise stops in a moment. Want to help me make it stop sooner?”
