Beautiful Little Fools(8)

I’d known it was coming. Known since I’d met him. But still, hearing him say it out loud now felt like a punch, and I could barely breathe. He could not leave me. And so soon. How could he leave me so soon?

“Come to New York,” he said, his words tumbling out in a rush. “We can see the city together and get married there before I ship out at the end of January. You know I can’t offer you much now. But after the war, I’ll work hard, make a good life for us.”

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself there, walking the streets with Jay. I’d been to Chicago before but never to New York. Even Chicago was so big, it made me feel small, anonymous. In Louisville everyone knew Daisy Fay, but in a big city, I could be anyone. I could be no one at all.

“I don’t know,” I said softly. What would Daddy say if I just left, like this? Worse, what would Daddy do? Jay didn’t have money, or a family name. As he said once, he only had himself to offer me. I loved him, I did. But Jordan’s words echoed in my head again: he’s not the kind of man you’ll marry. “I want to. I really do, but…”

“I’m not good enough for you,” Jay said softly.

“No!” I put my hand to his cheek and stroked his face gently. “Don’t say that, Jay. You must never say that.” But I felt an ache in my chest, an unfamiliar feeling of worry about my future. “It’s not that at all. It’s that… Rose is gone. I can’t just leave without saying good-bye.” That much was true. If I were going to follow Jay, marry Jay, I would not just abandon my sister without even an explanation. I’d promised her we would decorate the Christmas tree and I’d water her lettuce while she was away. “I’ll come to New York,” I promised him. “I’ll marry you. But after Christmas. I need to stay here to have Christmas with Rose.”

In response Jay held my cheeks in his hands, pulled my face in closer to his, and kissed me. It was a hard kiss, a hungry kiss. A kiss that seemed to make a promise I wasn’t sure that Jay could keep—that he alone would take care of me. That he loved me enough that anything was possible.



* * *



I HAD NEVER known what it was like to need someone, to feel a physical sensation of emptiness without someone. But once Jay was gone, I felt this hollow, this relentless pain in my stomach. It was hard to breathe and it was hard to eat, and I picked at my food during enough meals that Mother threatened to call Dr. Simms.

A week after Jay left, Jordan came over. Mother must’ve summoned her because she’d spent the whole evening before worrying I truly was ill when I refused to attend the Hillets’ winter ball, which I always loved. The following day, Mother announced she was going to have lunch across the river in Jeffersonville with her old aunt. And then, Jordan was here. She lay across my bed with me, stroking back my hair as I cried. She truly was the best friend I’d ever had, and I felt guilty now that I’d ever been cross with her.

“It’ll be okay, Daise,” Jordie said softly. She twirled a strand of my hair around her delicate finger the way she always did, leaned back against my pillow, and sighed. “Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to. You’ll see.”

“You’ll look after Rose when I’m in New York, won’t you, Jordie?” It occurred to me now I was asking Jordan to care for Rose the way Rose had asked me to care for her lettuce. Oh! Her lettuce. Had I even remembered to water it once since Jay had left? Rose had asked me for one simple thing. One good thing. And I couldn’t even manage that.

There was a knock on my bedroom door, and Fredda called my name. She sounded frantic, which wasn’t that unusual for her. Our longtime housekeeper had a flair for the dramatic. “Daisy!” she yelled again. I rolled my eyes at Jordan, got off my bed, and went and opened the door.

Fredda stood there in the hallway, her face ashen.

“Did you see another rat in the kitchen? I can go get Daddy’s gun.” I was only half joking.

She held out her shaking hands—she was holding a telegram. “Daisy,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “Oh, Daisy. There’s been a train accident.”





Catherine 1917

NEW YORK CITY




“I HAD TERRIBLE TROUBLE WITH the train,” I said to my sister, Myrtle, first thing, before I hugged her even, at Grand Central. “There was an accident with another line heading out of Chicago, and they closed the tracks for four days. I must look a mess.” I tried to fluff my bangs with my fingers, but it was no use. My hair was a limp, rotting strawberry. The station in Chicago, where I’d been waiting for the tracks to reopen, had been freezing, but the train had been hot. I felt covered in dried sweat and grime.

“Well, you made it, at least,” Myrtle said, smiling wanly. “George read me the paper—sixty deaths in that crash. It was so bad, half the bodies weren’t even recognizable. Imagine. Those poor souls. Torn apart, just like that.” Myrtle grabbed me in a hug and held on tightly, fiercely. She smelled of an odd mix of flowers and diesel, nothing at all the way I remembered her smelling when she still lived in Rockvale, on the farm with me and Mother and Father. But Myrtle had left Rockvale to marry George, six years ago. Mother died a year later. Myrtle had been begging me to follow her to New York ever since, and finally I’d saved up enough money—and gumption—to join her.