Daisy plucked, p.17
Daisy, Plucked, page 17
Since her dad died, Christmas dinner consisted of pasta and frozen garlic bread, which they would eat in their pajamas while watching cheesy movies like White Christmas and the claymation version of Rudolph. This year, though, Hana’s uncle had joined them, and they ate a more fitting Christmas dinner, and the movies came afterwards. They dressed casually this year, barely a step above pajamas, but Hana was still irritated by the change in the fragile routine she and her mother established. The two of them were trying to heal and continue their lives, and Dennis was just a reminder of the empty space her dad had left. She spent most of Christmas dinner fantasizing about life if Dennis had died that day instead of her father.
If her father were still here, he would ask her if she liked her presents, especially the new clothes from Noriko, and her mother would smile indulgently at him. He would insist that they say grace over their food, though he didn’t do it for every meal. He would ask Hana about school and Noriko about the patients she was working with, and he would care about their responses. He would mention how lucky he was to have his favorite girls with him, and Hana would pretend to be embarrassed and annoyed, and Noriko would blush like a schoolgirl.
Dennis had stayed over as well because the three polished off a few bottles of wine, and he claimed he was too drunk to drive. Hana didn’t really believe him, but she had been too buzzed the night before to put up a fight. But now it was almost time for breakfast, and he was still here, expecting to be fed instead of leaving like he was meant to. Like he was supposed to.
Breakfast was awkward, and Hana ate as quickly as she could before excusing herself by saying she had some reading to do for one of her spring classes.
She walked down the hall towards the stairs, but at the last minute she walked past them to her father’s office. She tried the door and found it still locked, so she jumped up until she knocked the key off the top of the door frame.
When she unlocked the door, she almost expected the knob to stick, but the door opened easily. It wasn’t that Hana wasn’t allowed in the study. It just felt wrong going in without her father. Noriko had locked the door the day after Mark died, claiming she didn’t want anyone to have access to any of his old files, and Hana couldn’t think of a single time either of them had gone in there since. It felt taboo for them, like Noriko flirting with her late husband’s brother or not buying the big Christmas tree.
When Hana pushed the door open, dust danced in the thin strip of light streaming through a gap in the curtains. No one, not even their housekeeper, had come into this room after Noriko locked it, not even when Hana found the key on top of the doorframe a few years earlier. On the desk there was an empty whiskey glass, a stack of files, and one open folder. The strip of the folder that was exposed to light was bleached almost white, though the rest of the desk was seemingly unbothered.
Hana closed the door behind her and took a seat at the desk, blowing on the layer of dust coating the dark, shiny wood. It kicked into the air, and Hana covered her mouth to stifle the sound of her cough before she looked at the open folder on the desk.
It was a file of death threats against her father, all from Jake Hansen. Laid out in black ink, partially redacted by the sun, were detailed reasons why her father was a terrible human being that Hansen wanted to kill. She didn’t know who was reading them in here, if her own father was reviewing threats against him or if someone was looking into things after his death.
Hana had been shielded from a lot of the media circus surrounding Hugh Stanley Stewart, an all-around terrible person her father had represented when Hana was ten. When he was arrested for killing Courtney Brennan, Jake Hansen’s girlfriend, Mark Holm defended him, citing a lack of concrete evidence. When Stewart walked free and went on to kill another woman, Jennifer Hiller, Mark refused to represent him again, and the next lawyer he acquired couldn’t get him off again.
Reading through Jake Hansen’s letters, Hana understood some of his rage. The mere idea that someone else might have been involved in her father’s death was sending her into a spiral, so if she knew exactly who was responsible for letting her father’s killer walk free, she would probably be violent too.
She read through the letters quickly, trying not to flinch at the violent things Hansen was describing that he wanted to do to Hana’s father. When she got to the last letter she paused, reading it over again and trying to figure out why it felt so different from the others.
The first two dozen letters were detailed, angry, and clear about why Mark deserved the things Hansen wanted to do to him. A dozen of them were written the year after Stewart went free, and another dozen were written during his trial and conviction for killing Hiller. The last letter was dated January 15th, 2016 — just over a month before Hansen killed her father, and the tone wasn’t the same as the others. She was rereading it when one of the lines stood out — “I want you to feel the same pain Courtney did. I want you to know what it feels like to have your stomach carved open.” It was gruesome, but that wasn’t what made it stand out. He said the same exact thing in one of the earlier letters. Hana spread out all the older letters and started scanning them, realizing that a majority of Hansen’s final threat was repeated from older letters, Frankensteined together until it read like something new. The grammar was corrected in a few places too, like whoever wrote it couldn’t help but fix the mistakes. The only new part of the letter referenced Noriko, even though in the earlier letters, he focused all his rage on just Mark, never bringing his family into it.
Unless Hansen went through a transformation in the two years between his last two letters to Mark, he didn’t write this letter. Hana wasn’t sure who would have been able to fake it, who could’ve been angry enough at her father to write this letter and scare him. They would need access to all these letters and the ability to get it to Mark in a way that would lead people to believe Hansen wrote it.
Hana didn’t realize how hard she was shaking until she tried to pick up a pen to make a note on the final letter. The first few words she wrote came out shaky and unsure before she was able to calm herself enough to finish the note, but it took a lot of effort to get the sentences out. She dropped the pen back on the desk when she was done and rose onto unsteady feet to make her way out of the study. She locked the door behind her and dropped the key in her pocket — if she tried to put it back, she would definitely draw her mom and uncle’s attention. She couldn’t deal with that right now.
Hana was only one step up the stairs, the study key burning a hole in her pocket, when her mother and uncle came from the kitchen. Dennis’ overnight bag was slung on his shoulder, and they were laughing at something Noriko said. Hana tried to keep the angry look off her face.
“Hana! Good timing, your uncle is just about to head out,” Noriko said.
“Bye, Uncle Dennis. See you later,” Hana said, continuing up the stairs. Noriko apologized to Dennis, but Hana made no move to turn back or say a better goodbye.
She was barely able to hide the key to the study in a drawer of her vanity when her mom appeared.
“What’s the matter with you?” Noriko asked.
“Hi Mom, thanks so much for knocking. Sure, you can come in my room,” Hana snarked back.
Noriko crossed her arms and stared down Hana. “Sorry, I thought we were being rude today. I was just following your example.”
“Have you ever read the threats Jake Hansen sent dad?” Hana asked. Noriko’s face shifted, going from disapproval to surprise to the barest hint of soul deep pain before landing on a resigned expression.
“I have.”
“Why didn’t dad represent Hugh Stewart for his second case?”
“I ... why are you asking me this?”
“I always think of him more during the holidays. So now I’m thinking about this.”
Noriko studied Hana, as if she was waiting for her to crumble, to take back her question and say she didn’t want to know. But Hana was growing up, and the more she saw her mother as a person and not just a mother, the more she had to wonder about her father. Noriko eventually sighed and came to sit next to her daughter.
“Stewart came from a wealthy family. For his first trial, they hired your father’s firm. Your father ... he usually didn’t take murder cases. But this one — well, no other attorney had the bandwidth for it, and Landon told Mark that if he did well on the case Landon would make him a partner.”
“And the second case?”
“Working the case for Stewart was ... hard on your dad. He knew that Stewart was guilty. But the prosecution’s case was flimsy at best. Mark believed in a fair trial, and everything they had was circumstantial. Stewart was found not guilty, and your father made partner and tried his best to forget about all of it. But he swore to me and to everyone at the firm that he would never do a murder trial again. When Jennifer Hiller was found dead ... He was beside himself for months. When the Stewarts tried to hire him for their case, he told them to go to hell. They went with Marchino & Yega instead, and Yega didn’t have as easy of a case as Mark did. Your dad regretted getting Stewart off every day until he died.”
“What do you think made Hansen finally kill Dad?”
“I don’t know. I’ve asked myself the same question a million times. He was unstable. The best I can guess is he was working himself up to killing Mark for a long time, and something small finally made him snap. I wish I had the answers, but I don’t.”
“Maybe it’s best we don’t know,” Hana said.
Noriko patted Hana’s thigh and stood to leave the room, but she turned back in the door frame to say one last thing to Hana. “I know the holidays are hard. And I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you ahead of time that things would be different this year, but there’s no need to take it out on your uncle.” Noriko closed the door before Hana could respond.
Hana fell back onto her bed and tried to slow her racing thoughts, but it was useless. She picked up her phone and saw a text from Daisy.
Daisy
Still want to hang out today?
Hana
Absolutely. What are you thinking?
Daisy
Something out of the house. A walk maybe?
Hana
Cobbs Hill? We can tag the water tanks and cross “do something mildly illegal” off your senior year bucket list?
Daisy
You had me at mildly illegal. I can drive. Pick you up in 20?
Hana
Sounds good, see you then!
Hana got dressed quickly before heading downstairs with a messenger bag slung over her shoulder. Her mother didn’t say anything when Hana first passed her, but after she went into the garage and came back in, Noriko eyed her wearily.
“Seeing Daisy?” she asked.
“Yeah, we’re gonna go do something. Not sure what exactly,” Hana replied. The lie came as easy as breathing. She put on her shoes and hoped her mother wouldn’t ask too many questions.
“Okay. Will you be home for dinner?” Noriko asked.
“Probably. See you.” Hana headed out the door before Noriko could say anything else. She had to wait out in the cold for a few minutes, but it was worth it to avoid awkward small talk with her mother.
“So what has you feeling so rebellious?” Daisy asked once the car door closed behind Hana. For a minute, Hana considered telling Daisy the truth — that Noriko knew they were dating, that someone else had written the last threat Jake Hansen made against her father, that Noriko and Dennis were becoming more than family — but she didn’t. She took a deep breath and decided on a half-truth instead.
“Just ... holidays, you know?”
It wasn’t untrue, and Daisy didn’t need the burden of Hana’s problems. She was too happy and carefree and innocently naive to deal with the intricacies of the world Hana was facing.
“Yeah, I get it,” Daisy responded. “My dad still cries every Christmas because he misses my mom, and I remember the first Christmas after she died, we didn’t even get a tree. The only reason we did any celebrating at all was because my grandparents picked up Will and I.”
Sometimes Hana forgot Daisy had lost her mom since she died before Hana met the Polos. They always seemed complete with just the three of them, and she wondered how different things would have been if Mrs. Polo was still around.
“Yeah. So clearly the only way to deal with this is to ignore my feelings and do something vaguely illegal,” Hana said.
Daisy laughed and reached over to squeeze Hana’s hand before returning it to the wheel. “Something vaguely illegal is definitely the answer.”
“So how was your Christmas? Did you and Will manage to get drunk before your dad noticed?” Hana asked, quick to turn the conversation away from her problems. The rest of the short car ride was spent talking about Daisy and Will’s Christmas antics, which Hana only half listened to. Anxiety was creeping in her chest and making her feel twitchy, and she needed to get moving and do something before all of her anxiety latched onto the truth and dragged it out into the light. As soon as Daisy put the car in park on the curved road around the reservoir, Hana was already up and out of the car.
“Feeling antsy?” Daisy asked.
“Just very excited to finally break out the spray paint,” Hana joked, swinging the bag at her side. Daisy smiled and scanned the park before holding her hand out for Hana to take. Daisy’s paranoia hurt Hana, but she ignored it like always. That was the price of loving Daisy, and Hana was willing to pay it.
The day was cloudy, making it feel like it was much later than early afternoon, and the trail was empty as they walked, only the echo of their steps around them. The path was muddy, but not yet frozen like it should’ve been that time of year.
“It’s kind of eerie, isn’t it?” Daisy said as they walked up the final uphill stretch.
“It’s because the forest is so quiet in the winter,” Hana responded. They got to the end of the path and stared up at the water tanks, and Daisy leaned into Hana’s side.
“Where do we want to write something?” Daisy asked.
“What do we want to cover up is the real question,” Hana said.
Daisy was silent for a moment, staring at the graffiti as they circled one tank and then the other. “It’s kind of sad, isn’t it? To be making art that you know will be covered up?”
“I don’t know, I think it’s kind of exciting.”
“Oh?”
Hana stopped in front of a picture of a girl painted entirely in shades of blue. “To know that what you make will be changed by someone new is kind of exciting. You get to have your impact and other people get to decide if it should stay or not.”
Daisy smiled at her. “You’re so weird sometimes. I love that about you.”
Hana laughed and reached into her bag to take out the can of spray paint. She shook it, and the clink of the ball rattling around in the can echoed through the silence around them.
“What should we write?” Hana asked. Daisy shrugged and took the can out of Hana’s hand, shaking it a few more times before drawing a small, sloppy daisy next to the girl’s face. She held it for too long in a few spots, and the spray paint dripped down the cold metal.
“Oops,” Daisy said, watching the drops of paint race each other to the frost-covered ground and run out of momentum halfway there.
“Well, at least it’ll get covered up eventually,” Hana said with a smile. Daisy laughed at that before standing on her tip toes, placing her left hand on Hana’s shoulder to balance before writing “D+H” above the blue girl’s head. It was just high enough that it would be inconvenient to reach, and Hana watched the concentration of Daisy’s face while she tried to keep the paint flowing steadily.
“There. That should stay for a while,” Daisy said triumphantly. Hana smiled at the girl she loved, and her heart clenched, overwhelmed by guilt. She wished she could go back in time and grab the version of herself from that stupid Halloween party by the shoulders, shaking her until some semblance of sense was knocked into her thick skull. Daisy was still admiring her handiwork, and before Hana could say anything, Daisy leaned back up to start writing “forever” under their names. Hana took a step back, knocking a rock down the hill behind her, and when it crashed into another rock, she gasped.
“Shit, was that someone else? We should go,” Hana whispered.
“Oh God, um, okay, what do we do with the paint?”
“Give me it.” Hana grabbed it out of Daisy’s hand, popped the top back on, and threw it in her bag. There was silence again, but Hana still ushered Daisy back to the main path before leading her back to the car. When they reached it, Daisy let out a laugh of relief and Hana joined in.
“So what did the graffiti end up saying before we were interrupted?” Hana asked.
“Just ‘D+H for,’” Daisy responded.
“Fitting. Our time on the earth is indeterminable after all,” Hana said sagely. Daisy laughed at her serious tone, and Hana smirked back.
“You’re ridiculous,” Daisy said. Hana laughed a little, but it felt forced.
She didn’t know how much time she would have with Daisy or with anyone. Maybe Daisy would wise up and leave her, or maybe she would finally be brave enough to let Daisy go. Maybe one of them would die the next day in a terrible accident, like Hana’s father and Daisy’s mother. There was no knowing, only the unfinished sentence clinging to the side of the water tank, waiting to be completed or covered over and over and over again.
Chapter 15
Daisy — August 2019
Daisy slept over at John’s after the party, and even though she had to show up to work exhausted the next day, she didn’t regret it for one minute. She fell into an easy rhythm with John that was completely different from her relationship with Hana. The rush of a simple, meaningless crush was all-consuming, and Daisy let herself get wrapped up in it. She became friends with all of John’s friends, and the rest of July and start of August slipped away with more parties, dates, mornings lifeguarding at camp, and a few awkward dinners with Noriko, Dennis, and her dad where Daisy tried her hardest not to look at the empty seats at the table.
