Page 162 of The Professor's Wife

The water was strange because she hated mess. She could turn the van upside down searching for a missing hair clip or one of her dresses, but the second she found it, she cleaned everything she had disturbed. She wiped the counter after making toast. Rinsed the sink after brushing her teeth. Dried the metal afterward because water spots annoyed her. She folded the dishcloth into a neat square over the handle and became genuinely offended when I left it bunched beside the stove. Because how fucking dare I?

She washed more than anyone I had ever met.

Hands before food. Hands after food. Teeth after coffee, even when I told her that was worse for her teeth. She scrubbed her face before bed, even if we were parked in the middle of nowhere and the water tank was running low she’d pour a few drops in her hand and get to work. She carried a bar of soap in a little metal tin and checked the lid three times before putting it away so it wouldn’t leak over her things. She kept wipes in her purse, disinfectant beneath the sink, and a small bottle of hand cream she used after scrubbing her skin raw.

I was glad she didn’t touch her face.

I loved the way the sun touched her skin, how it woke up the freckles across her nose. And those tiny crinkles at the corners of her eyes — the ones that told me whether her smile was real — I loved those most of all.

Soap. Damp skin. That faint scent from the cream she rubbed into her arms and legs because the road dried her out.The van used to smell like old canvas, fast food, gasoline, and my father for years.

Now it smelled like Daisy.

I noticed every time it didn’t.

She kept her clothes folded. Her books stacked. Her shoes paired beside the door. If she spilled something, she cleaned it before it had finished spreading. Once, she knocked coffee across the table and went at the wood so hard with a rag that I had to take it from her before she rubbed the finish off.

“Daze, it’s gone.”

“It’s sticky.”

“It isn’t.”

“I can still feel it.”

She couldn’t.

Neither could I.

I let her wipe the table again, like she was trying to exorcise a demon from the wood.

She hated grease on her fingers. Hated crumbs in the bed. Hated the smell of food clinging to the curtains. She made me open both doors after I cooked bacon and complained that every shirt she owned smelled like my breakfast.

Then she climbed into my lap and ate half of it from my plate.

She didn’t care about my sweat, her release, our crazy hot fucking. She didn’t scrub her skin when I coated it in my release. On the contrary, she fucking loved it.

Daisy made no fucking sense.

I loved every bit of it.

She could leave six glasses of water around the van but wouldn’t leave a single spoon in the sink. She saved food she didn’t want, wrapped it carefully, and put it in the fridge even if there was only one bite left. Days later, I would find it untouched. If I threw it away without asking, she searched for it.

She checked the door after I locked it. She watched my hands when my voice changed. She apologized before I was angry. She folded everything she owned and placed it beside her bag every few days, then unpacked it again before morning.

She never said she was leaving.

She only made sure she could.

I had been collecting these things without meaning to. A hundred small pieces of her. Habits. Reactions. Strange little rules she followed without seeming to know she had made them.

I noticed because I watched her all the fucking time.

There was no point pretending otherwise.

Daisy had become the first thing I searched for when I opened my eyes. Before the road, the map, the weather, or the fuel gauge. Before I remembered where we were or how far remained between me and the island.

I woke and found her.