"Ellie Sanderson and I have been friends for years, darling. Didn't you know?" Daisy produced a key from somewhere—*where did she get a key?*—and let herself into the shop. "She called me last month to tell me what a wonderful job you've been doing. Said you'd really found your place here. I was so proud I just had to—oh, you've done wonders with the shop!"
Daisy swept into Bloom & Vine like a hurricane making landfall, exclaiming over the arrangements and the window displays and the "precious rustic charm" of the exposed brick walls. Marigold followed in her wake, clutching her picnic basket and trying to gather her scattered thoughts.
Her mother was here. Her mother was here, in Harmony Glen, in the life Marigold had built specifically to escape the chaos of being Daisy Bloom's daughter. And she was acting like this was normal. Like she hadn't spent the last year barely remembering to return Marigold's phone calls.
"I'll just put my things up there and freshen up." Daisy was already heading for the back room. "That train was endless. You wouldn't believe the man who sat next to me, absolutely no concept of personal space. And I desperately need to?—"
"Mom. Stop."
Something in her voice must have registered, because Daisy actually paused and looked back at her daughter with an expression that was almost, but not quite, uncertain.
"What's wrong, baby?"
"Why are you really here?"
"I told you?—"
"The real reason."
Daisy's smile wavered. Just for a second. Just enough for Marigold to see the cracks beneath the polish.
"Can we talk about it later?" Daisy asked, and for once her voice was soft. Tired. Real. "I promise I'll explain everything. I just… I need a minute, sweetheart. Please."
It was the "please" that got her. Daisy Bloom didn't say please. Daisy Bloom breezed and charmed and expected the world to rearrange itself around her desires. But this Daisy—this version of her mother standing in the middle of Marigold's carefully organized shop with her mask slipping—looked genuinely fragile.
"Fine," she said. "But we are talking about this. Tonight."
"Tonight. Absolutely. I promise." Daisy's smile bounced back, bright and deflecting. "Now, tell me about this man who's making you glow. Is he here in town? Is it serious? You know I always thought you should?—"
"I have plans today."
"Plans?"
"A picnic. With…" She hesitated, realizing she was going to have to say this out loud. "With the person I'm seeing."
"The person you're—oh!" Daisy clasped her hands together. "A date! Baby, that's wonderful! I want to meet him. I want to meet him immediately. We can have dinner! All three of us! We'll?—"
"Mom—"
"Don't 'Mom' me, Marigold Rose Bloom. I am not going to spend my first visit to your new town sitting alone while you gallivant off with some?—"
The bell above the shop door chimed.
They both turned.
Thallos stood in the entrance, backlit by the morning sun, a bottle of wine in one hand and a slightly bemused expression on his unfairly handsome face. His golden-brown eyes found Marigold first—warm, questioning, concerned—before shifting to the woman standing beside her.
"Am I interrupting something?" he asked.
Daisy made a sound that Marigold had heard before. Many times. Usually right before her mother did something impulsive and complicated and entirely outside the bounds of appropriate social behavior.
"Oh," Daisy breathed. "Oh, my."
"Mom," Marigold said, with the kind of desperate warning that never, ever worked. "This is Thallos. Thallos, this is my mother. Daisy."
Thallos's eyebrows rose almost imperceptibly. He knew about Daisy—Marigold had told him about her mother's chaoticlifestyle, about the years of cleaning up messes, about the complicated tangle of love and frustration that defined their relationship. But knowing about someone and meeting them were very different things.
"Mrs. Bloom." He stepped forward, offering his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
