Daisy Darker

by Alice Feeney

wonder if other people look forward to seeing their families but dread it at the same time the way I always seem to.

Part of me still worries that I was wrong to come, but it didn’t feel right to stay away.

When the tide comes in, we’ll be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. When the tide goes back out, I doubt we’ll ever all be together again.

When my mother looks in my direction, I feel cold. She is a woman who never hides her seasons; she is winter all year round.

Complaining is my sister’s not-so-secret superpower. She is a walking frown.

The soundtrack of her life is little more than a series of moans stitched together into a symphony of negativity, which I find exhausting to listen to.

Nana grins. “My dear, I’d rather be dead than normal.”

think my parents thought they were happy for a while. She stole his joy and he stole her sorrow, and they balanced each other’s emotional books that way for years.

Dad is struggling to take his eyes off of her. He treated her so badly when they were married, but I believe he loves her now just as much as he did then, possibly more. He collected regrets while she gathered resentment. Sometimes people don’t know they’re in love until they’re not.

“Nancy, my beloved daughter-in-law, you gave me three beautiful granddaughters, for which I will always be grateful. I am leaving you my drinks trolley. Like you, it’s now an antique but still good for holding liquor.”

“Everyone you know is both good and bad, it’s part of being human.” I think I was too young to understand at the time.

Fear is something we have to feel to learn and learn to feel.

and when I think of all the horrific things she has seen, it scares me. Rose knows how to end lives as well as save them; sadly, it’s part of her job.

“Maybe,” Dad said, and we cheered. When my mother said “maybe,” it meant no, but when my father said “maybe,” it meant yes. One word, two meanings. We might have only been children, but we were more aware than anyone that our parents spoke different languages.

Her gifts were like her love for us and always came with a sense of economy. We

I’d seen enough posters on enough doctors’ office walls to know it was a very poor likeness.

And I wondered how and why this rather ugly internal organ had become the universal symbol for love.

my education. But my sisters learned a lot of things that I didn’t. Things about real life, and social skills, and boys. I have always been a little awkward around real people. I don’t know how to talk to them, and even now, I still prefer the company of characters in books. I suppose it is a hangover from my childhood, when I was so often drunk with solitude.

The problem with growing up with parents who say yes to everything is that it doesn’t prepare you for the real world, which often says no. I’ve never known my sister to work hard for anything or anyone, not even herself. The reality of hard work being a prerequisite for success meant she was doomed to fail.

Forgiveness is easier to ask for than permission,

And I didn’t want to die never having been kissed. When you know you can’t make long-term plans, it’s easy to let yourself make short-term mistakes.