Daisys decision, p.20
Daisy's Decision, page 20
They settled in at the small table, and Daisy opened a tin of butter cookies that someone had left for them. Valerie took a sip of her tea and said, “We missed you at the reception. Is everything okay?”
Actually, no. Everything was not okay. Everything was very, very wrong. “Ken and I had a pretty serious disagreement. I couldn’t face him. I had to leave. I’m sorry I missed the reception.”
Valerie shook her head. “You don’t need to apologize to me. I’m just here to see if you need anything.”
She smirked. “What I needed was for Ken to give me some support and sympathy. What I got was a lecture and a sermon.”
“You said, ‘lecture and a sermon’?” With her hand over her chest, Valerie chuckled. “I’m sorry. I’m sure this is no laughing matter to you. But, honestly, that’s what you get from Ken. Well, when he says anything at all, that is.”
Daisy had some personal theories, but she suddenly wanted a third party’s insight. “Why do you think he’s so quiet?”
Valerie shrugged and smiled a self-deprecating smile. “When I was younger, I thought it was so he could make himself sound somehow more important whenever he actually did condescend to speak with us mere mortals. You know, like handing down words of wisdom.”
“You don’t think that anymore,” Daisy prompted with a hopeful grin.
Valerie shook her head. “No. I think Ken Dixon grew up way too soon. I think he was deeply insecure as a child, thinking he could never measure up to his brothers or his father.”
“Really?” Daisy asked, seeing the truth of it even at the instant Valerie said the words.
“Really.” Valerie nodded. “And I believe he is very, very smart, and thinks about absolutely everything from every possible angle, hoping to live a life that’s true and pure.”
Daisy nodded. “I completely agree.”
Valerie grinned, enjoying Daisy’s obvious interest in this particular subject. “Ever notice something? He’s always thrown himself into physical activity that doesn’t require a lot of talk or explanation. I believe that’s because he’s terribly shy, and conversation drains him. But peace and quiet restores his soul.”
Daisy thought about how Ken silently threw his body into things like martial arts or framing out a house. He just as silently cast a hook or manned a grill. “That makes so much sense.”
Valerie sat back and said, “So it isn’t really surprising that you felt like he gave you a little sermon. Whenever it’s not some quick witticism, it’s always some profound thing or other. But you know as well as I do that he doesn’t mean anything by it.”
Daisy knew that. She’d had an emotional, knee-jerk reaction to his words—or lack of them. Now, she didn’t know if she could possibly build a bridge back to who they were before she walked out on him. She didn’t know if she had the emotional wherewithal to try.
She sighed. “I know. But, tell that to the emotional, hormonal woman three days ago when she might scratch your eyes out for looking at her sideways.”
“Gotta love the hormones.” She reached over and took a cookie out of the tin. “I hope you guys get back together. You two are perfect for each other.” She lifted her teacup. “But, regardless, I hope we can stay friends.”
Daisy smiled and took a sip of the tea. “Thank you. I really appreciate that.”
Sitting at her desk, Daisy hung up the phone and made a notation in the file. Then she opened the email that had just arrived from Toby at Dixon Contracting and Design. Just the thought of Dixon Contracting made her heart beat a little faster. She opened the email.
Dear Ms. Ruiz:
Ken Dixon asked me to contact you to confirm arrival at the job site for the Osborne Family house at 7:00 a.m. this coming Friday, 4 Sept. We have 8 carpenters and 15 laborers scheduled to work that job through 6 p.m. on Monday, 7 Sept.
If these details have changed, please contact my office right away. Find my direct line below my signature.
Signed,
Toby MacDonald, Assistant
She had received two other communications from Toby in the last couple of weeks, which kept her from worrying that Dixon Contracting would withdraw their support for the coming house. But she couldn’t help but wonder if Ken or his brothers also personally planned to work on this house. She shot a quick email back confirming the information and thanked the company for their support.
Daisy hadn’t seen or heard from Ken since the wedding. She hadn’t reached out to him, either. She completely understood his perspective, but she didn’t appreciate the way he went into logic mode immediately while she lay there crying. She needed him to put his arms around her, and instead, he preached at her.
In hindsight, though, it occurred to her she should have told him what she needed. With his arms around her, wrapping her up, she would know everything would be okay. In the end, nothing was okay. Everything was wrong. She didn’t know how to bring it back to right.
She imagined she couldn’t do anything about it at this point. Ken had made it clear what he thought of her emotional reactions.
He’d also had a glittering diamond ring on him. Why had he had a ring in his pocket?
She stood and rubbed her belly. She had started to swell slightly. In the mirror, she could easily see her baby bump, but clothes still hid it well enough. She had received a summons from her grandfather last night and knew that her mother must have told him. She did not look forward to going to see him today. Knowing she’d disappointed him was almost more than she could bear.
After she gathered her purse and turned off her computer, she walked to the front. Beverly returned from lunch just as she made it to the lobby. “Hey. I’m headed to my grandparents’. I don’t know for certain if I’ll be back today.”
Beverly glanced at her watch. “Sure. Do I need to do anything for Friday?”
“Nope.” She pushed open the door. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you.”
On the drive, Daisy tried to decide what to say to him and how to say it. She prayed for God to give her words, but she didn’t receive any kind of divine guidance. She pulled into the drive behind their sedan and took a few deep breaths before she walked up to the door.
Her grandmother answered, smiling ear-to-ear. She didn’t even stand five feet tall and had short, curly, salt-and-pepper hair and bright brown eyes. “Daisy! I’m so happy to see you!”
“Of course, I won’t miss a chance to have lunch with you, Abuela.”
Daisy bent and hugged her, then let her grandmother lead her into the house. She could smell the spicy tang of meat grilling. Her grandfather stood by the sliding glass door that led from the dining room to the back porch.
“Daisy. Glad you could make it.”
“Abuelo, I was happy to get the invitation.”
“Is that so?” He gestured at the table. “Your grandmother has some things to finish in the kitchen, but we can sit.”
He acted very cool, not his normal loving, warm self. She mentally shored up her courage, reinforcing it in anticipation.
“I’m guessing Mamá told you about my situation.”
“Si, si.” Daisy marked his emotional state by his reflexive reversion to Spanish. Her grandfather rarely spoke anything other than English. His eyes stayed hard. “She did not share the details, only the circumstance. She said if I needed more information that you would explain yourself.”
“I see.”
He tightened his mouth and prompted her with, “This is your opportunity to explain yourself.”
She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “I am pregnant and due in February.”
He gave one sharp nod of his head. “And? The father?”
Maintaining eye contact, she said, “Has nothing to do with this.”
“One might think the father has everything to do with this.”
“Yes, one might think.” Daisy lifted her chin. “Nevertheless.”
He raised his eyebrows and gestured in her direction. “You dare to speak so flippantly to me?” She wondered if he realized he had switched from English back to Spanish again. “So disrespectful?”
She gently shook her head. In Spanish, she said, “Abuelo, I have absolutely no disrespect for you at all. I love you, and I’m sorry that you’re upset with me.”
“No.” He tapped the top of the table with his finger. “We are not going to discuss your emotional state right now. We’re going to discuss actions and reactions. So, explain to me why you would become pregnant by a man who now will have nothing to do with the child.”
She licked her lips and tried to formulate words that would properly explain the situation. “Unfortunately, I didn’t know he was married. He wooed me with promises and plans that he didn’t mean, but I believed. Maybe I just wanted to believe. Maybe I ignored the clues. When I first discovered I was pregnant, I went to talk to him, and that’s when I found out for certain.”
She’d had two solid weeks since her emergency room visit and had time to think about exactly how she felt about this baby. She knew she spoke the complete truth with the next words out of her mouth. “I spent weeks scared and sad and angry. I even, to my shame, contemplated how easy everything would be if I just wasn’t pregnant anymore. But I have been on my knees for the last two weeks giving everything over to God, and I can tell you that I love this baby, and I am thankful that the father wants nothing to do with the child or with me. He is not a good man.”
Unexpectedly, tears filled her grandfather’s eyes. “I wish you had made a different decision.”
She pulled a verse from Romans eight out of her mind. “All things work together for good, though, don’t they? God can use this. I’m not proud of myself, but I’m very much looking forward to meeting my baby.”
“Granddaughter, when I gave you the mission that I had spent my whole life building, I trusted you to maintain a certain character and hold yourself to a certain moral standard. This tells me I was wrong in trusting you.”
Her breath hitched. “Abuelo, do you think I have a loose moral code? I made a single mistake one time and was seduced by a very skilled liar. I love God, and I serve Him. Everything I do day after day is to serve Him. The Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I’m sorry my sin is something that’s manifesting physically. But the fact is, no man is good. No, not even one.”
She just quoted three different Bible verses in one conversation. If he didn’t accept her words, then he had thrown a veil over his own eyes that prevented him from grasping it. And if it meant that he revoked her position as Executive Director of his ministry and handed her a bill for law school, then so be it.
He held his hand out, palm up. She looked at the wrinkled skin the color of soft leather for several moments before she put her hand in his. He squeezed tightly as tears fell from his eyes. “I am proud of your courage today.”
When he let her go, her grandmother came into the room with a meat platter next to a pile of corn tortillas. “Time to eat, yes?” she said with a grin. “I made you lingua.”
“Thank you, Abuela, it smells amazing.” Her grandmother knew how much she loved beef tongue. As she set out her roasted pepper sauce and a pitcher of water, Daisy noticed that her grandmother never mentioned her grandfather’s obvious emotional state or the tense air around them. It made her wonder how much she knew and how much she’d heard.
By the end of the meal, they didn’t treat her any differently than they always had. When she left, they both hugged her goodbye.
Ignoring the other women in the waiting room, Daisy turned the page in her book and continued reading the details about what to expect during the sixteenth week of pregnancy. From the picture in the book, she should already show a little more. She ran her hand over the slight swell of her stomach and wondered if it was normal to still be so small. She’d have to ask Dr. Reynolds.
“Daisy?” She glanced up and spotted Valerie.
Her heart immediately started racing, and her mouth went dry. “Uh, hi, Valerie.” She glanced around but did not see Brad. “What are you doing here?”
Valerie gestured at her much larger stomach swell. “I’m here for my monthly appointment.” She raised an eyebrow and looked at the book, then pointedly at Daisy’s stomach. “What are you doing here?”
Her face flooded with heat and sweat beaded her upper lip. Even her scalp heated up. She hadn’t seen Valerie since having coffee with her two weeks ago.
“Same.” She cleared her throat. She had not prepared herself for this conversation. “I, uh, see Dr. Reynolds.”
Valerie carefully sat in the empty chair next to her and turned her body toward her. “Because?”
Unexpected tears burned her eyes. “Because I’m pregnant. Sixteen weeks tomorrow.”
Valerie gasped. “I’m seventeen weeks tomorrow. Are we seriously only a week apart?”
“Yeah, uh, looks that way.”
With a grin, Valerie grabbed her hands with both of hers. “How exciting is that? Does Ken know? What did he say?”
“Daisy Ruiz?”
Silently thanking God for the reprieve, she pulled her hands free and grabbed her book as she stood. “That’s me. I’ll see you later.”
She went through the appointment with edgy nerves fluttering through her stomach and down her arms into her hands. Her fingertips felt ice cold. She could barely answer the doctor’s questions. Her mind focused on Valerie and how she could possibly explain everything.
The doctor checked the placenta on an ultrasound and made sure everything still looked good. The baby’s heartbeat filled her ears, sounding very fast and very loud.
“I don’t think the subchronic hematoma is going to give us any more problems.” She smiled and wiped the ultrasound gel off Daisy’s stomach. “If you start bleeding again, just go straight to the ER. But call here first.”
Daisy got dressed, then went to the appointment desk and made next month’s appointment. Once she fully checked out, she headed back out into the waiting room to leave. When she saw Valerie sitting in a chair by the door, she stopped short.
When Valerie saw her, she smiled and stood. “Hey, there. I thought we could have lunch. Are you free?”
With a heavy sigh, Daisy said, “I am free.”
Valerie raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “But you don’t want to be?”
Steeling herself for a conversation that needed to happen, she shook her head. “It’s okay. Let’s go.”
Soon, they sat across from each other in a little cafe. It was early still, only 11:15, so they had this corner of the dining room to themselves. Valerie squeezed lemon into her water and stirred it with the striped paper straw. Daisy tried to think of a way to start the conversation.
Valarie leaned toward her very slightly and, in a low voice, asked, “Does Ken know you’re pregnant?”
She guessed that she could start there as well as anywhere. “Yes.”
“Oh. He does.” Valerie sat back and laced her fingers together, placing them in her lap. She looked puzzled and thoughtful for a few seconds, then said, “I have a hard time reconciling the Ken I know with this situation. The Ken I know doesn’t abandon his girlfriend when she’s pregnant, no matter what kind of fight they had.”
She thought of a dozen things she could say. Most of them she’d practiced in the car on the way here. All of them sounded wrong. Finally, she said, “It’s not Ken’s baby.”
“Oh!” As Valerie assimilated that fact, all the puzzle pieces clicked into place then immediately tumbled into disorder again. She gasped and slapped her hand to her chest. “Oh, Daisy.”
She’d expected revulsion, not sympathy. Unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes. “I’ve loved Ken forever. I really think I’ve loved him since the very first second I ever saw him. All through college, I thought about him. I’ve compared every man I have ever known to him. And then I started dating this guy I met at one of my fundraisers. He swept me off my feet, completely pulled the rug right out from under me.”
Valerie pulled a packet of tissues out of her purse and handed her one. She dabbed at the tears streaming down her face. “But?”
She took a long sip of ice water and finally blurted out, “But he was married. And when he found out I was pregnant, he made it clear how he felt about it.”
Her friend reached across the table and took her hand in both of hers. Her skin felt cool, smooth compared to her own hot and sweaty palms. “Listen, Daisy, I understand.”
She shook her head. “How can you understand?”
With intense, focused eyes, Valarie said, “Because when I lived in Savannah, I dated a married man. I even moved in with him.” Valerie pressed her lips together. “Let’s just say it ended badly.”
Daisy gasped. “Is he the one who—?
With a nod, Valerie said, “Who beat me for a year then threw me off a balcony? Yes. He was married, too.”
Suddenly, it occurred to her that Valerie would not condemn or judge. Valerie would listen and be her friend. “I don’t know how to get Ken back. I said something, and he reacted, and now we’re here.”
“What happened? What did you say?”
“It’s not important. I was emotional and stupid.”
Valarie grinned. “It’s hard to imagine you being stupid. I can see emotional, but stupid is a stretch.”
Daisy shook her head. “What happened was stupid. I wish I could go back in time and change everything that happened.”
Releasing her hands, Valerie sat back and said, “If it helps, he’s completely miserable.”
“At least we have that in common.”
Valerie licked her lips. “Did you guys break up because he found out you’re pregnant?”
More tears. “No. He said he loves me and loves my baby.”
A waitress served their soup and salad. Daisy tried to regain her composure while she went through the ritual of presenting dishes and offering pepper. When she left, she said, “I don’t quite know how it happened. But knowing he’s miserable gives me hope that it can be rectified.”
