Three Women at the Water's Edge Read Online Free PDF Page A

wealthy conservative, thought Monica very classy indeed. And it was true: She was thin while Daisy was fat, and chic and breezy while Daisy was slack and slow, and quick to impressive righteous indignation while Daisy was quick to yawn or laugh. There could be no doubt that she was better in bed than Daisy was; Daisy didn’t care much about that anymore. Monica’s conversation was surely better, too. And it was even probably true that she loved Paul much more than Daisy did. One of the times Daisy had seen Monica, Daisy had been coming out of a jeweler’s; she had just bought a silver comb and brush for a friend’s new baby. She had left her own children with a babysitter that afternoon, but still had them on her mind. She wanted to stop by a department store and buy Danny some new socks and Jenny some more rubber pants, and she would surprise her children with a new toy: a turtle they had been wanting, that chimed when you pulled its string. Well, she had come out of the jeweler’s, feeling happy, with the new baby present in its white-and-silver wrapping filling her hands, and the thought of the children’s faces when they saw the turtle, and there, right across the street, she saw Paul and Monica come out of a restaurant.
    Monica was wearing sexy high boots—Daisy felt she would have tripped and fallen and probably killed herself wearing such boots—and a long floppy brown sweater that on Daisy would have sloped and clung. Her hips looked smaller than Daisy’s nonpregnant waist. Daisy stood absolutely still on the pavement, staring at the girl; Paul didn’t interest her, she knew what he looked like. It was this girl who fascinated Daisy. And she saw the girl smile at something Paul said to her, and reach up in an impetuous rush to kiss Paul’s mouth, right there in public. She looked like such a happy girl, so happy to be there with that man, so obviously in love, it made people watching smile to see. Even Daisy smiled. She recognized the sweet rush of adoration that had to be expressed by touching; but in her case, she realized, she now always reached down, not up—down to the short squirmy bodies of her son and daughter.
    Paul and Monica walked off, arm in arm, oblivious of Daisy’s stunned observation, and Daisy watched them go, thinking how happy the two people were, and how she would not want Paul to not have that. Who would want to take such a thing away from anyone, it was so rare. She thought that if she could generously, honestly want that for Paul, why couldn’t he also want happiness for her?
    But the trouble was, Daisy thought, that Paul didn’t care what Daisy wanted anymore; he had gone past that. He had come to regard Daisy as the enemy; he wanted to escape her, or to obliterate her.
    And he did not love the children, either, they both knew that. Well, he had never been around them much, had seldom held them, and it’s hard to love something one doesn’t know. Daisy had wanted Paul to be there at Danny’s birth, she had begged him to take part in the natural childbirth classes and in the delivery. But Paul had thrown up in the delivery room; it was not the sight of Daisy’s pain that nauseated him, but the shock of blood and excrement oozing from between her long slim legs. When Jenny was born, Daisy asked one of her best woman friends to come hold her hand and count and coach her, while Paul went to the friend’s husband’s house to drink; Danny stayed with a sitter. So, Daisy thought, she wouldn’t miss him, then, when the new child was born.
    But DAMN HIM! How could he leave his family, how could he leave a child he hadn’t even seen? Was he mad? Was he insane? Hard-hearted? He had had some tenderness in him once. Didn’t his overwhelming love for Monica leave anything for his own family?
    Daisy twisted again, and the afghan fell off onto the floor. She shivered, and wiped her tears on the pillowcase. It was almost three o’clock, she ought to get up, she ought to do something.