Marrying Daisy Bellamy (17 page)

D
aisy hunkered down at her computer, laboring over a shot she was considering for her new portfolio. She'd decided to take her last rejection from the MoMA program as a personal challenge and was now trying hard to regain her confidence. Giving up was not an option.

Persistence had a price. She had to steal hours whenever she could, and sometimes she felt guilty, opting out of family time or social time in order to work.

The labor was absorbing, though, and the result was often its own reward. The image currently on her screen was a complex composition, one that had taken her days to capture and hours to edit it to perfection. She had wanted a particular view of the Avalon Free Library, a solid Greek-revival stone building surrounded by a park-like grove of giant horse chestnut trees.

When the sun was just so, and there were people and dogs in the park, it looked like an image out of a dream. An interesting dream at that, maybe something the artist Seurat might have painted. A patina of nostalgia overlay the picture, yet it didn't have a sheen of cheap sentiment.
Instead, it seemed to capture the life of a community for a moment in time, expressing the story she wanted to tell.

She had such mixed feelings about Avalon. It was the place she called home, where she found support and connection to the friends and family she loved. Still, there was a part of her—a secret, reckless part—that sometimes yearned for a different life. Living in Germany with Charlie had been an incredible adventure, but instead of satisfying her wanderlust, the trip had left her hungry for more.

Something in her picture of Avalon expressed that subtle, inner restlessness, shaded by patient adjustments made with her editing program, and she had a sense that this shot was important to her as an artist.

The screen door snapped like a mousetrap, startling her.

“Hey, babe,” Logan called, coming in from the backyard with Charlie. “My buddy here and I were talking about going to the Hornets game this afternoon. What do you say?”

“Yeah, Mom,” Charlie chimed in. “Say yeah.”

The prospect of an afternoon at the ballpark tapped into that same push-pull of conflict she'd been feeling. Family time with Charlie and his dad was priceless, yet her time for working on the portfolio was limited. She had a wedding to shoot tonight, meaning a tight turnaround between game and work. She'd have to ditch the portfolio for the rest of the day.

“Well,” she said, “I was putting the finishing touches on these library shots.” She gestured at the screen, curious to see what they thought.

“Nice,” said Logan.

“Pretty, Mom,” said Charlie. “So can we go?”

She regarded them both, so alike in their rusty haired, green-eyed adorableness and plaintive expressions. “Sure,” she said. “I'll finish this some other time.” She swiveled around in her chair to save her work, clicking “Yes” to the pop-up query on the screen.

The moment she did so, she realized her boneheaded mistake. The window had said “Discard all changes?” And she had just obliterated hours of painstaking, impossible-to-replicate work.

Her heart sank down to her churning stomach. There was nothing—
nothing
—quite so frustrating as knowing the work had been lost, along with the energy that had inspired it. “I can't believe I just did that. I discarded all my editing and I'm back to the raw file.”

“Looks pretty much the same to me,” Logan commented with a glance at the screen. “Come on, we'd better go.”

She literally bit her tongue. It was not Logan's job to understand and commiserate over her costly blunder. If not for Logan, she wouldn't have had the entire Saturday morning to work, anyway. “So. A Hornets game.” She forced brightness into her tone.

“It's George Bellamy Memorial day, according to the schedule,” Logan reminded her.

“Oh, man,” she said. “I'd totally forgotten about that. Of course I wouldn't miss it.”

“Who is George Bellamy?” Charlie asked, putting on his beloved Hornets cap.

“Great-granddad's older brother. We never got to meet him because we were in Germany when he came to town.”

“Will we see him today?”

“No, he died. A memorial means people will remem
ber him, especially today.” George had left a legacy to the city, funding the ballpark in perpetuity.

“I hate when people die,” Charlie remarked.

Daisy winced at the bald truth of his statement. Time had blunted the searing sharpness of losing Julian, but every so often a reminder reared up and caught her unaware, stabbing her in an unseen place. “George was really old,” she said. “And sick. Great-granddad is going to be really happy to see us at the ballpark today. We should get going.”

She checked herself in the mirror. Legs recently shaved, hair washed this morning. Not bad. Since starting this new thing with Logan, she'd embraced her girly side again. Personal grooming took on new meaning. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” she said to her reflection.

 

The Avalon Hornets were the town's pride and joy—a bona fide professional team in the Can-Am league. They were having a great season, too, and the club boasted a hot new pitcher named Danny Alvarado, so the crowd was substantial and parking scarce.

“Check it out,” Logan said, regarding several rows of bleachers near the third base line. “It's like a Bellamy family reunion.”

“Wow, I'm glad you reminded me to come,” Daisy said. “Thanks, Logan.”

“No prob.” He slung his arm around her shoulders, drew her close.

Her dad and brother were there, along with her grandparents and a bunch of aunts, uncles and cousins. Within moments, they were seated in the midst of everyone she loved.

“Hey, you made it,” her dad exclaimed, his face lighting up. “Get over here in the cheering section.”

Daisy struggled to shake off her frustration with work. She sat back, determined to enjoy the company and the game.

“My goodness,” her grandmother Jane murmured, settling next to her, “you two are quite smitten with each other these days, aren't you?” She indicated Logan, who was busy showing Charlie how to toss a piece of popcorn in the air and catch it in his mouth.

“I guess we are,” Daisy agreed.

Her grandmother gave her hand a squeeze. “You seem happy. That makes me happy.”

Daisy was learning, day by day, to redefine happiness for herself. It was no longer an effortless embrace of each day but a concerted choice. She tried to pay attention to the game. The plays were being called by a semi-celebrity, Kim Crutcher, a sports commentator whose husband pitched for the Yankees. But Daisy's focus kept coming back to Logan. She observed how naturally he fit in with her family, as though he was already one of them. He leaned toward her dad, saying something that made him laugh.

A vendor passed with a tray of cold beers for sale. Probably only Daisy could read the wistful yearning in Logan's face. He had his demons but kept them in check. She knew it wasn't easy, and hadn't been all through the college years, when the next party was only a dorm room away.

His chief motivation sat by his side, swinging his feet and eating popcorn. Charlie idolized his dad. As Daisy watched, they each sipped their root beer in unison and
belched at the same time, celebrating their success with a fist bump.

“They're quite a pair,” her grandmother observed.

“They sure are.” She gave a little laugh. “Whoever thought Logan and I would date?”

“What's wrong with it?”

“We've done everything out of order—first the baby, then coparenting, and…now this.” She and Logan were hard to define. The little family they'd made brought her a feeling of security, and after everything that had happened, she knew this was something to cherish.

Her grandmother smiled. “Life happens to us in as many ways as there are people. The important thing is that it happens.”

“Charlie's so nuts about his dad. I love how the two of them are together.”

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“How do you feel about Charlie's dad?”

“I…” It was the first time anyone had directly asked her that question. “He's been wonderful. He makes me feel lucky we're together. I'm pretty sure that this is meant to be.”

Olivia, seated on her other side, leaned over and said, “Does that mean what I think it means?”

Daisy flushed. “Maybe it does.” It did feel good to finally push away the heavy burden of grief, storing it in some shadowy corner where she wasn't compelled to feel it all the time. Heartache was not a good way to go through life. She was grateful to Logan for pulling her out of the darkness.

Sometimes, she reflected, love simply happened on its own, like a rainbow…or an accident. Or like Julian. Other times, she was learning, it was up to her to make
love happen, to build it layer by layer. Watching Logan with her family, she knew she owed it to him—and to Charlie and herself—to try.

 

By August, they were talking about moving in together. Daisy wasn't sure who broached the topic first. Perhaps it had been Logan, jokingly referring to his house as a glorified place to check his email and pick up his laundry delivery, because he was never there anymore. Or it might have been Daisy, looking in her fridge one day and realizing the contents had changed entirely.

“It's full of man-food,” she said one morning, rummaging around for the grapefruit juice.

“What do you mean, man-food?” Logan asked, glancing up from his iPhone.

“Just, you know, food guys eat.”

“Like what?”

“Bacon, for one thing.”

“Who doesn't like bacon?”

“That's not the point. I like bacon myself, but I never buy the stuff unless it's turkey bacon.”

“Turkey bacon.” He shuddered. “If you like bacon, you should buy bacon.”

“And this,” she said. “Five varieties of cold cuts. Flavors of mustard not found in nature. Whole milk. It's guy food.”

“Okay, guilty as charged. What do you want me to do about it?”

“Nothing. I was making an observation.”

“So what did you use to keep in your fridge?”

“Yogurt. Veggies. Soy milk.”

“Girl food. No wonder Charlie wants me to live here.”

Oh, God. “Did you bring it up with him?” she demanded, ready to panic.

“Come on, Daisy. What do you take me for? When we tell him, we'll tell him together.”

“Of course,” she said. “Sorry. I know you'd never do something like that.”

“Good. So, about Charlie…when do you want to have that talk with him?”

“First we have to figure out what to tell him.” The prospect made her stomach flutter, and she realized this talk was really more for her and Logan, not Charlie. She wished she could borrow some of Logan's ease with the whole situation.

“That's a no-brainer,” he said. “We tell the kid we love him and each other, and we want to be together all the time. He'll be down with that. You know he will.”

Logan was right. Their son loved nothing better than having the three of them together. Truth be told, Daisy felt the same way. When she was with Logan and Charlie, she was in her right place in the world.

“He'll want specifics,” she pointed out. “Like whose house we'll live in, and where he's going to put his stuff.”

“I've been thinking about that,” Logan said. “My place would work best. This is a rental, and it's pretty small. We'll all move to my house on Caliburn Ave.”

Logan's house was in a gentrified neighborhood of older homes, with shade trees and sidewalks on both sides of the street. Daisy's rental was in a slightly funky, bohemian little area of town, filled with nice people who had more imagination than money. Logan's neighborhood was a haven for the upwardly mobile, which she found slightly ironic. He had been born to the O'Donnell shipping fortune. Had he stuck with his family's plan, he
could live anywhere he wanted, but he had something to prove. He wanted to make it on his own.

She related to that entirely. Both her parents had been supportive of her from the moment she told them she was going to have a baby and would be a single mother by age nineteen. Either one of them would have gladly helped her in any way, providing whatever she needed.

She had opted for independence, getting her own place, balancing school and work and Charlie. It had been harder that way but ultimately the rewards were greater. Being a good mom to Charlie meant making a life on her own.

And now here was this new opportunity. To be a traditional family with Logan.

What a concept.

“All right. Let's figure out how and when to tell him.”

He laughed and pulled her into a bear hug, picking her up until her feet left the floor. “Sweetheart, that's the easy part. And I have a great idea.”

She shut her eyes and let his laughter fill her up, knowing she was ready at last to go forward toward a future she'd never imagined.

N
ight pressed in around him, and his head was too heavy to lift. His arms and legs, also too heavy. Even his eyelids—glued shut. He tried to move his jaw. No success. Holy shit. Was he in a coma, then? He'd read of cases in which a person appeared to be in a coma, yet had enough cognitive function to be aware on some level.

No way, he thought. No freaking way would he let that be his fate.

A sound came from his throat. He was pretty sure the sound came from him. He couldn't form words but emitted a throaty rumble. Then he managed to open his eyes to slits, blurred by his lashes. The wheelchair that had been his home—his
hell
for the past year—slowly came into focus.

He tried his best to shake off the vestiges of the dream. The nightmare. But really, it was neither; it was the memory that haunted him, waking or sleeping. The dream, which looped over and over in his head, tortured him with a reminder that he had escaped death, only to find himself in hell.

His mind played through the events that had brought him here. He hadn't made it out of Colombia. He'd been blasted out of the chopper, he'd fallen from the sky.

He had been so disoriented in those early hours after the incident. Lights had flashed in his eyes; a strange feeling of numbness claimed his body. He remembered trying to figure out where the hell he was. What about the unit? Were they looking for him?

When he'd first come to, he'd found himself in a white room. Whitewashed ceiling and walls, white blinds covering a single window. White sheets covering his unmoving legs. A white door swinging open, a guy in a white coat.

Yes, Julian had thought. He was in Medical.

“Move your feet for me,” said the bored-looking doctor.

Why would the doctor talk to him in Spanish?

“Try, please. Move your feet,” a voice had repeated, still in Spanish.

A guy in olive-drab fatigues had come into the room. He wore a flat cap and had a full beard, and was armed with a semiautomatic pistol and a belt heavy with clips. The stenciled webbing on his chest identified him as Palacio. A deputy of some sort. “He's awake, I see. Lucky dog, surviving a fall into the ocean like that. We'll see if his luck holds with Don Benito.”

Slowly it had dawned on Julian that he wasn't with the good guys anymore. He was a prisoner, and the hospital was part of the drug lord's empire. Benito Gamboa was served by a private militia that was better funded than the state's military. Apparently Palacio was part of Gamboa's security force, and the doctor was probably on the payroll, too. Or maybe he wasn't a doctor at all. The
white coat might mean he was a lab tech for the cocaine production operation. Or a torture specialist, maybe.

In those first hours of captivity, Julian had willed his feet to move, but they weren't there. He could see his bare legs and feet, livid with cuts and bruises, but they didn't even seem attached to him. “I cannot,” he'd said.

“Try again.”

His legs were useless. Not even numb. Just…gone. “I cannot.”

The doctor took out a long-needled syringe. And then another. The mysterious injections went in. Then the doc had jabbed the needle into first one toe, then another. Then into Julian's ankle in its most tender spot; no sensation came through. He set his jaw, but his mind was screaming in wordless denial. He remembered his late father's ordeal, becoming paralyzed in a single second. It was a kind of death.

Somehow, he had managed to detach, going away in his head to a different place. To Willow Lake, its surface as still as glass. As still as Julian, who took himself away from the shock of waking up a prisoner, paralyzed. He was that lake water, unmoving, unruffled by the slightest breeze.

“Well?” asked the deputy.

“No function or feeling in the lower extremities.”

“I'll make a note for the interrogators.”

The statement had been chilling in its very matter-of-fact nature. Julian understood then that he would be tortured.

The doctor had cleared his throat, seeming uncomfortable. “The standard protocol is a course of physical therapy to restore whatever functionality we can.”

“This is not a service offered to a prisoner. Maybe
he is not as lucky as I thought. Don Benito will decide whether or not to keep him alive.”

The doctor had said nothing. A week later, Julian had been manhandled into a wheelchair, blindfolded and transferred. In the ensuing months, he'd been moved repeatedly, treated in ways he couldn't even conjure up in his worst nightmares.

Long ago, he'd lost all hope of rescue or release. They were keeping his existence a secret, fearful of reprisals from U.S. or multinational forces. He wasn't sure why he was still alive, for what purpose. They were killing him slowly, with indifference and neglect, punctuated by torture sessions that left him breathless.

Julian closed his eyes again, praying the nightmares and memories would give way to the only thing that was keeping him alive—a dream of Daisy, and home.