Janice Macdonald - Out Of Control

“How long have you known her?” Nick asked.

Toby shrugged. “We grew up together, like, but I didn’t really get to know her until about a year before the old man died. She was kind of lonely then, no one else to turn to.”

He’d started cutting the meat into wafer-thin slices, every move careful and exact. A muscle twitched in his cheek, his jaw was tense. Anger offered another clue that Toby still had a thing for his ex-wife. People got incensed at those they didn’t love, of course, but there was a certain quality to the kind of anger that was all mixed up with having once loved the person who has caused your wrath, making it burn with a particular intensity. Toby was clearly smoldering.

“Naturally, she forgets all that now. She’s got all her hippy friends who are happy to listen to her. Hell, it’s cheaper than paying rent, right?” He shook his head. “To be honest with you, Daisy drives me nuts, but…I dunno, sometimes I think it’s too bad we can’t just make things work again. I mean, we have a kid and everything…but Daisy’s so damn stubborn.”

And you’re in love with her, Nick thought. Was it mutual? Maybe just a sticky patch on the matrimonial road? His own experience had proved, ultimately, to be less sticky patch than insurmountable block. He realized that he felt sorry for Toby. If he could have come up with some words of wisdom, he would have.

“You haven’t met Daisy yet, right?” Toby asked.

“Tomorrow.”

Toby rolled his eyes. “Good luck. She’s not the easiest person to be around these days.”

WHY HAD SHE AGREED to meet the guy? Why? It was four o’clock and Daisy was in the kitchen on the phone with a hysterical Amalia, mindlessly devouring a bowl of Wacky-cake batter. She put the bowl in the fridge, leaned against the door and breathed slowly.

“Amalia, listen to me, okay? Just listen.” She moved to the table and sat down. “I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up over this dream—”

“I tell you, Daisy, it was so real. You should have been there to see your father’s face. Please promise me you will tell Mr. Wynne there is no book.”

“I’m meeting him in an hour.” She scratched a spot of hardened candlewax from the tabletop. “Look, don’t get mad, okay? This whole dream thing? You just seem to be, I don’t know, overreacting a little. Are you sure something else isn’t bothering you?”

Amalia started crying. “You didn’t hear Franky’s voice. You didn’t see his face. Oh, Daisy, please—”

“Okay, okay.” God, next she’d be driving Amalia to the emergency room. “Look, it’s okay. I’ll tell him it’s off. I promise. Just calm down. And use your inhaler. I’ll call you later.”

She put the phone down. From Emily’s bedroom, she could hear the thump, thump, thump of the stereo. It matched the thump, thump, thump of her heart. She had a headache. The parrot squawked, regarding her, head to one side, with its bright, beady eyes. It squawked again, a shrill, ear-piercing demand for attention.

“You do that one more time,” she said, “and I’ll chop off your head.”

On the counter Baba looked up at her reproachfully from the cover of Forgiveness. She’d left the book there after speed-reading a chapter following an argument with Emmy earlier.

She regarded the parrot. “I didn’t mean what I just said. I’m sorry. Really. I know you’re hungry. I’d squawk, too.” She walked to the hallway. “Did you clean Deanna’s cage?” she called.

But, of course, Emmy couldn’t hear her over the stereo. She went back to the kitchen and fed the parrot. Deanna was a green Amazon. Emmy had wanted her so desperately that she’d promised to stop asking whether she could, please, use makeup like everyone else she knew. In the three months since Deanna had taken up residence in the corner of the kitchen, the parrot had heard Daisy nag Emmy so often that it had started squawking, “Clean the damn cage.”

Emmy appeared in the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?”

“Heat up the soup if you’re starving, otherwise wait till I get home. I’ll do that baked chicken and potato thing you like.”

Amalia was always telling her that she should get Emmy to cook for herself, which was true. But food, good food, was a big deal with her, and she enjoyed cooking for other people. As a child, she’d grown to endure the weird combinations her father had mixed up like the paints in his artist’s palette. Broccoli with maple syrup, eggs scrambled with cranberry sauce. He didn’t like being bound by convention; just because salmon wasn’t usually served sprinkled with powdered sugar was no reason why it couldn’t be served that way. “If you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat it.”

She glanced around for her keys. “I have to go meet Nicholas Wynne.”

“Why d’you say it like that?” Emmy had hopped up onto the counter and was swinging her legs. “Nicholas Wynne,” she said, imitating Daisy’s voice.

“Isn’t that his name?”

“Yeah, but when you go to Kit’s, you don’t say, ‘I have to go meet Kit Niemeyer.’”

“Well, it’s different.”

“How?”

“Emmy, don’t bug me, okay? I’ve got stuff on my mind.”

“Want a peanut?” Deanna inquired. “Want some toast?”

“And you’ve got to start feeding her,” she said, with a glance at the parrot which was hanging upside down from her perch. “It’s not fair to leave it all to me.”

“Did Dad talk to you about me living with him?” Emmy said, her voice elaborately casual.

Daisy’s hand tightened around her purse, but she forced herself to remain calm. She figured Emmy had probably been rehearsing the words for some time. “He said he was going to,” Emmy added.

“Well, he didn’t,” she said carefully. This topic came up periodically, usually after they’d disagreed about something, and then it was dropped. She was fairly certain Emmy had no wish to live with her father, fairly certain, in fact, that it was mutual—Toby didn’t want a fourteen-year-old daughter cramping his lifestyle. Still, she had a knot in her stomach.

“He said he was going to,” Emmy repeated, popping a grape into her mouth. “He promised.”

Daisy glanced at the clock. She was going to be late. She looked at her daughter. “What’s the reason this time?”

Emily sighed. “I’ve told you like a hundred times. It’s only fair. You’ve had me for fourteen years. Now it’s his turn.”

“Quit banging your feet against the cabinet,” Daisy snapped. “And get down off the counter. What’s another reason?”

“He has air-conditioning in his apartment?”

The question mark at the end of the sentence and the faint smile on her daughter’s face told Daisy this wasn’t anything to lose sleep over, but she felt irritated anyway. Last week, Toby had asked her for a loan because the brakes had gone on his truck and one of his fillings had come loose, so he’d had to fork out money for the dentist and he was coming up short on the rent. But he’d pay her back, no problem.

She suspected him of putting Emmy up to this. She should call his bluff.

“Emmy.” She studied her daughter. “Maybe it seems like nothing to you when you talk about wanting to live with your father, but it gets me right here.” She poked a finger at her chest. “I know we’ve been fighting a lot lately and I’m not always the easiest person to live with, but I love you and I honestly try my best….” Her nose stung with tears and, not wanting to win a sympathy concession from Emmy, she just stopped. In an instant, Emmy was off the counter, her arm around Daisy’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetie, more than anything else in the world. And don’t be sorry. You have a right to feel the way you do.”