Better just rip the Band-Aid off now. Accept there wasn’t a fairy tale to tell.
Chapter Seventeen
It was after nine the next evening when Daisy finally pulled down her street on her way home from work. She felt exhausted and drained of all emotion, probably caused in large part by the late-night crying session with her sister Benny, who’d been stunned when Daisy came home early last night. Sharing her grief had helped ease some of the pain, but the bulk of it clung to her.
But she’d gotten through it before. She could do it again.
Even if every minute at work under the censuring eye of her boss, the constraint of following every recipe to the letter, the lack of feeling like she had anything of real substance to offer, had nearly sent the tears falling again. But the thought of having Shannon see her break for even one moment was enough to pull her through the worst. At least until Monday, when another day started, another week of her feeling like she was going nowhere.
It was enough for her to go to bed and never want to get out again.
It took Daisy a moment to notice the other three cars parked in front of her house when she pulled up. Benny’s MINI, Payton’s new SUV, and Kate’s sedan. The lights inside the house were also on.
She wasn’t up for company. Not when all she wanted to do was grab the kids from her aunt’s, crawl into bed, and pull the covers up over her head and sleep through the next month.
Not when the only reason they all had to be here was to form a posse to try and cheer her up, thanks, undoubtedly, to her sister’s loose lips.
Benny was dead meat.
Not seeing much choice, Daisy climbed out of the van and slowly trudged up the driveway. Sure enough, all three women were seated on the couch, a box of donuts open on the coffee table in front of them.
“There you are,” Benny said when she walked in. “Just so you know, the kids are already upstairs and, despite their efforts to fight it, all sound asleep.”
That was something. She had barely managed to keep it together this morning before seeing them off next door, and the last thing they needed was to see their mother fall apart before their eyes. Again.
“That’s great. Thank you,” she said, hearing the weariness in her own voice. “And I know you’re probably all here to try and make me feel better, but the only thing that will help me right now is sleep.” Possibly mixed with a few more tears.
Payton jumped up—well, more like pushed herself up quickly, her burgeoning belly slowing her down as she bounded over to give Daisy a big hug. “We’re here because we wanted to show you our love and support. We’re here because we’ve all been where you are and know how much it hurts, and we don’t want you to think you’re alone.”
“She’s right,” Kate said. Her red hair bound in a knot on the top of her head, she looked as tired as Daisy felt, which wasn’t surprising with a one-month-old at home. “We love you and are here to show our support. And”—she glanced at the others—“to talk.”
Hmm. Talk?
She set her purse down and came to join them on the couch. “I’m not sure how much I feel like talking.”
“That’s fine. You can listen. We’ll do the talking,” Benny said.
“Benny told us about what happened between you and Jack,” Payton said, easing back down onto the couch. She rested her hand on her belly, absentmindedly rubbing it as she continued. “And although you know Jack and I go way back, I promise I’m not here to make excuses for him. I think I can understand the reasons why you didn’t want him interfering in the loan, getting himself more and more involved in your life. After what you went through with Leo, I get why you’d want to prove you can do this yourself. But…” She glanced at Kate.
“Well, letting someone help you, someone who cares about you and wants the best,” Kate continued. “Letting them help you doesn’t make you weak or dependent. It just makes you stronger with that support. Believe me, these past couple of months, taking maternity leave and having to rely solely on Dominic for our financial needs hasn’t been easy. I might have woken up in a near panic more than once. Or it was Marianne demanding to be fed,” she added, smiling.
“And maybe I haven’t had to rely on anyone in the financial sense,” Payton said, since she’d grown up knowing she had a massive trust fund to take care of her. “But I’ve had to learn to rely on other people these past few months to do things that I always did myself. Don’t even get me started on the pain I endured asking my mother to take over the planning of the Vaughn Foundation’s annual fall benefit that, with the baby coming and fall semester starting up, is now impossible.”
Daisy laughed. “What are you talking about, Payton? You hate doing that luncheon and have told us a million times how you’d love to find a way out of it.”
She grimaced. “Okay. Bad example.”
Benny interjected. “The point is that you have this amazing talent, Daisy. You’re a creative genius in the kitchen and, thanks to the seminars you’ve attended and tireless studying on the subject over the past few months, you have a solid grasp of what it takes to run a business. But starting up is hard for anyone and you shouldn’t think any less of yourself for having to ask for help. Whether it’s from Jack or from any of us who want to help you.”
Kate nodded. “We all want to help you do whatever we can to get your business off the ground. Your talents are wasted at that bakery. Believe me, as someone who’s left a well-paying junior partnership to jump to a more flexible job with a lot less money, taking that jump can be scary. But we’re here for you.”
Daisy was speechless, staring around at the faces of the women who were smiling encouragingly at her. It was a good reminder that even though just two years before, when Leo took off, leaving her and three young kids alone with no money, no house, nothing to their name, she would never feel that alone and scared again.
This was her family. They would be there to support her.
She remembered how she’d felt just that afternoon at work as she’d started making the Friday special, banana bread with walnuts, using the bakery’s most basic recipe. As she’d sifted the ingredients together, Daisy had been thinking about how a few ounces of melted Mexican chocolate and a scoop of sour cream might make it outstanding.
Not that her manager would want to hear it.