Page 51 of Fake it With Me

We ate and talked. The conversation flowed easily like it always did. Daisie told us about her friend Emma’s upcoming birthday party and how they were going to have a bounce house and a petting zoo. Liza asked questions, genuinely interested. I watched them interact with that familiar ache in my chest.

This was what Daisie needed. This warmth, this attention, this maternal presence that I couldn’t give her no matter how hard I tried.

After dinner, Liza kept her promise and helped Daisie with her hair. They disappeared below deck to the stateroom where Liza had apparently left some hair supplies. I gave them their space. It was girl time. And while I knew how dangerous it was to let Daisie get close, a little hair time couldn’t hurt. And if Liza did want to visit and see Daisie after our contract was up, then I would allow it. God knew it was unlikely I would actually find a woman to have a relationship with.

I could hear them laughing and chatting. It made my heart sing.

I sat down at the table and thumbed through my emails. I tried to focus on what I was reading, but I found myself eavesdropping. Daisie was asking Liza about makeup. I cringed and waited.

“Makeup can be really fun,” Liza said. “But the best way to use it is to enhance what’s already beautiful about you, not to change your whole face. You know what I mean?”

“I think so,” Daisie said, though she sounded uncertain.

“Like, you have these gorgeous blue eyes. Just like your dad’s, actually. If you wanted to wear makeup someday, you’d choose colors that make your eyes stand out even more. Not because your eyes need fixing, but because they’re already beautiful and you’re just highlighting them.”

“Oh! Like when you highlight words in a book?”

“Exactly like that! You’re highlighting the good stuff that’s already there.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. She got it. She understood the balance I was trying to strike with Daisie. Not shielding her from the world completely but teaching her to navigate it with confidence and self-respect. I did not want Daisie getting her makeup tips from Sasha.

“What about like… Kim Kardashian?” Daisie asked. “She wears a lot of makeup, right?”

“She does, yeah. And you know what? That’s her choice, and she looks great. But she also has a whole team of professional makeup artists who do it for her. It’s literally their job. And even then, sometimes she goes out with no makeup and she looks beautiful that way too.”

“Really?”

“Really. The point is, makeup is a tool. Some people love using it, some people don’t care about it at all, and both of those choices are totally fine. The important thing is that you feel good about yourself, with or without it.”

“Do you wear makeup?”

“Sometimes. Like tonight, I put on a little mascara and some lip gloss because we’re having a nice dinner and I felt like it. But most days? I don’t wear any at all.”

“My friend’s sister wears a lot of makeup and she said she’ll show us how to put it on so boys will think we’re pretty.”

“Don’t worry too much about what other people think,” Liza said.

Crisis averted. We would have to address the makeup situation soon enough, but I hoped I had a good five years before we had to have that conversation. I decided to stop eavesdropping and went up above to watch the rest of the sunset.

When they emerged twenty minutes later, Daisie had her hair partially pulled back with some kind of braid situation that looked complicated and made her look older than seven. She was beaming, running to show me.

“Look, Daddy! Liza made me beautiful!”

“You were already beautiful, kiddo. But yeah, your hair looks great.”

Daisie ran to look at her reflection in one of the windows. Liza came to stand beside me at the railing. The sun had fully set now, stars beginning to appear in the darkening sky.

“You’re good with her,” I said quietly.

“She makes it easy.”

I felt it again, that sense of rightness and completion. Like this was how things were supposed to be. The three of us together, sharing moments like this.

This was the life I thought I was going to have when I settled down with Sasha. Family dinners on the boat, a wife who loved spending time with our daughter, moments of simple joy that didn’t require anything more than being together.

Sasha had stolen that from us. From Daisie and me both. She had painted this picture of what our life would be and made me believe in it. Then she ran away when reality didn’t match her fantasy.

Standing here with Liza, I could almost taste what I had lost. I could almost believe that maybe it wasn’t too late to have the dream after all.