Something She's Not Telling Us - Darcey Bell Page 0,33
story about bad luck. Some people will feel sorry for you. Other people will blame you for what happened, though they might not know it.
And there’s nothing you can do to change their minds.
9
Charlotte
When Charlotte was pregnant with Daisy, the doctors made her spend the last two months in bed. The anxiety and boredom were torments. The only way she could cope was by imagining the summer day when she would bring her daughter (by then they knew it would be a girl) to Love in a Mist, the farm that provides most of the flowers for Charlotte’s business.
In Charlotte’s fantasy, Daisy was around five or six, the age she is now. She imagined her little girl running through the flower farm, her bare feet hardly touching the earth as she raced past the rows of zinnias and snapdragons. She imagined her stopping in front of a gorgeous pink dahlia.
Often, at that moment, Daisy kicked hard, as if she couldn’t wait to be born and see for herself.
She arrived three weeks early, underweight and frail.
Maybe those kicks meant something else: Not yet. Please. Not yet.
The birth was more painful than Charlotte expected, but painless compared to the agonizing intensity of her love for Daisy. And even that pales beside Charlotte’s burning need to protect her.
Daisy was three the first time Charlotte took her to the farm. It was mid-August, Charlotte’s favorite time, when the garden goes crazy after its midsummer nap.
Charlotte had been so excited, she didn’t sleep for days. Eli warned her not to expect too much. Charlotte hates it when he warns her about something she’s worried about already. Anyway, what could go wrong? Daisy could walk long distances. She enjoyed walking. And when she got tired, she was still light enough to carry. She would like Matt and Holly, who ran the farm—and whom Charlotte adored. She could play with the cake-baking app on Charlotte’s phone while the grown-ups had lunch.
Each time they passed the blazing red poppies and blue cornflowers massed on the median strips along the Palisades, Daisy asked if they were there yet.
The first time Charlotte heard Daisy cough was on the highway. The air was thick with pollen. A light green film coated the windshield during the few minutes it took to buy water at the rest stop. Charlotte rolled up the windows. Daisy looked content, spaced out, napping in her car seat.
Unless Charlotte drives miles out of her way, it’s impossible to reach the flower farm without passing the farm where she and Rocco grew up. Long after Andrew John knocked down the charred ruin that used to be their house and built his extraordinary modern home farther up the hill, Charlotte would still avert her eyes when she passed.
Too many memories. Too much grief.
It hurt her that she couldn’t tell Daisy: Look, there’s the place where Mommy and Uncle Rocco lived when they were your age!
And yet . . . and yet . . . if you didn’t know, you’d be amazed by the extraordinary beauty of Andrew John’s land, by the way in which he’d consolidated and transformed a few barely sustainable farms into a valley that was protected, magnificently landscaped, fertile—and completely organic.
Walking from the road to Matt and Holly’s house, they passed banks of hydrangeas and butterfly bushes, rows of lipstick-colored dahlias with deep burgundy leaves, velvety spires of the snapdragons for which the farm was known.
Matt and Holly squatted to greet Daisy.
Holly said, “Great to meet you, Daisy. Your mom says such wonderful things about you.”
Already extremely—worryingly—polite, Daisy said, “Nice to meet you too.”
Matt said, “Got a little cold?”
Daisy shook her head.
Already the trip seemed like a big success. Charlotte chose to ignore Matt’s question about Daisy having a cold.
Matt got a phone call he had to take. Holly was almost done preparing lunch. Maybe Daisy and Charlotte would like to take a walk in the garden.
Holly said, “Check out the cleomes. Kids either love them, or they’re terrified, I guess because the plants are bigger than they are.”
Charlotte decided to say nothing and just let Daisy experience the garden, to wander where she wanted and see what she wanted to see.
Charlotte heard her cough. One cough, then another. Charlotte told Daisy to drink from her water bottle, but the dry little cough continued.
Daisy looked up at the cleome plants. Some were twice her size. She and Charlotte had watched Alice in Wonderland. Did Daisy think she’d fallen down the rabbit hole—and shrunk?