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I’m not sure we could have been friends, Daisy, but I like you. I really do. You are so much more than I expected.
“You deserve each other,” I say, “and I mean that in the least sarcastic way possible. There was a time when I thought the same about Liam and me, though possibly with a little more sarcasm. We deserved each other.”
“Like Bonnie and Clyde?”
“You’re joking, but yes, I tried to frame it that way. Pretend I wasn’t his victim. We were partners in crime, who’d screw over everyone but each other. That was the fantasy. The truth is that the one who got screwed over most was me. Ran away at sixteen to be with a drug dealer. I wanted to escape my proper little upper-middle-class life and release my inner badass. Didn’t work out that way. Never does. Which didn’t keep me from making the same mistake with Liam. Agree to captivity and tell myself it’s my idea.”
Two beats of silence pass. Then Daisy says, “Tell me about Maeve.”
Still on the floor, I pull in one knee, my hands hooked around it. “Your grandmother was the toughest, meanest old broad I ever met. I mean that as a compliment. God, she was something else. I admired her, and I wish she had been my grandmother, but only in the way most grandmothers are—someone you visit and leave again. Living with her was an entirely different thing. Especially when she was getting sicker by the day, frustrated by all the things she couldn’t do anymore.”
“And taking out that frustration on you.”
I don’t answer that. It’s a statement, not a question. I’ve been watching Daisy’s face as I talk about Maeve, and I don’t see shock or anger there. She knows what her grandmother was, and she loved her anyway. Having known the woman, I get that. I really do. I loved her a little bit myself.
“Were you good to her?” Daisy asks, and there’s a note in her voice that I could sneer at, but I don’t.
“If I wasn’t, do you think she’d have let me stay?” I ask.
Silence. Daisy nods, slowly, and I add, “I wasn’t the perfect granddaughter, but I did my selfish best for as long as I could, and in the end, she died holding my hand. You know what the last thing she said to me was?”
I lean back on my arms and look up at Daisy. “You aren’t my CeCe.”
She blinks, and her mouth opens, but I continue, “Final words. And I’ve thought about that a lot. At first, I thought she meant I wasn’t the girl she remembered. Eventually, I realized she meant exactly what she said. That she knew I wasn’t you, and she wasn’t accusing me of anything—she was getting in the last word. One final jab from Maeve Turner. She knew I wasn’t you, and she’d known for a while.”
I laugh. “Here I was, so smug about pulling one over on everyone, and I’m not sure who I actually fooled. Maybe the lady at Tom’s shop? Tom knew. Maeve knew. I wouldn’t put it past Maeve to have known from the start, just figured if she could get free nursing from me, she’d take it. She didn’t die mistaking me for you, if you’re worried about that.”
Daisy starts to speak, but a distant noise cuts her off. Her head jerks up. She follows the sound. Then she goes still. The sound finally comes clear. Police sirens.
“They took their sweet time, didn’t they?” I say. “Here I was, thinking they were ignoring your call, when they were just being considerate, giving us time to chat.”
Daisy snaps out of her trance and runs to the front door. She slams it shut and turns to me.
“You need to go,” she says.
