Daisies Read online

  For days after the incident, Gwen would not talk—could not talk. She had nothing to say. She lay in bed all day staring at the wall, cared for by Faye while Willie was off at work. Her brain wanted her to sort out her sudden inabilities, but exploration of the affliction was stopped short as though the neuropathway to healing was blocked off to her, the mental throughway unconstructed and thusly untraversable. So she drank when she was told to drink, ate when she was told to eat, and bathed when Faye managed to pull her from the bed and into the bathroom.

  The way Gwen’s behavior affected their kids, no one could say, and Willie’s worry for his family from the cab of his truck became the only company he kept. When he was younger, he used to think things. He used to see color. He used to imagine his journey into the world and all the possibilities that waited to be grasped by his proficient hands. Especially when he was falling in love with Gwen, the specifics of life took on an achingly wonderful concentration. The sound of a Whip-poor-will’s song at dusk could bring tears to his eyes, and with each inhalation of air he felt lighter, as though he were capable of transcending gravity. Back then, even if he didn’t care to try, it was as though nothing could stop him from achieving his wildest dreams. Once Willie and Gwen were married, Willie found brief moments of clarity when his work was finished and bills were paid and Gwen seemed happy. But after the appearance of Butch and Sheila, whom he loved with all his heart, Willie found himself lost in a haze of fear for his wife, his children, their finances, and his own inabilities. From one delivery point to the next he would drive, eyes on the road, hands on the wheel, and mind capable of only perfunctory thoughts. He used to sense his presence in the world. Now he felt as though his body took up no space whatsoever and the voice that came from him with an occasional recycled joke and a faint smile were not his own but a tool for getting through the workday like the uniform he wore or the truck he drove. Was this the way life was supposed to be? He longed to talk to someone day after day, the lonesomeness in his stomach gnawing at him, hungry to be satiated.

  “Mr. Barnett, I swear you tell me that same joke every time you drop by my store,” Sissy Clemens sighed, leaning up against Willie’s truck in her most flirtatious pose.

  “Guess I’ll have to see about rethinking the give line,” Willie promised.

  He tried not to look at Sissy the way she wanted him to. But she was hard to miss, the loose curls of her chestnut hair dangling about her face like little smiles challenging the universe to bring them down, the large breasts that pushed against her starched white-collared shirts, the work jeans that showed off her rear, which was perfectly plump, like a swollen loaf of bread dough ready to be kneaded.

  Sissy threw her head back in a laugh. “Why don’t you come in for a bite of lunch, Mr. Barnett?”

  Willie liked the way she called him Mr. Barnett, the way she treated him like a man despite his young age. “I’ve got six more deliveries and a two-hour drive back to the city.”

  “And what have you got to put in your stomach in the meantime?”

  He lied. “My wife made me a sandwich just this morning and packed it with a soda pop.”

  “Ain’t she thoughtful?” Sissy smirked. “Tell me about this wife of yours.”

  “She’s a good woman.”

  “Pretty?”

  “Is to me.”

  Sissy smiled and pursed her lips. Then she said, “Come on in anyways.”

  “What for?”

  “For me.” And Sissy stared at Willie with challenging eyes.

  Willie ached to be touched, to touch. Domesticity had left hollow chords strung throughout his body that had shriveled up from lack of use and craved to channel the blood that once coursed through them to places in Willie’s mind and extremities deserted but not forgotten. But giving over to these desires was not a possibility. The man he’d been raised to be would bid Sissy a polite farewell, climb into his truck, and drive away, and that’s what he did. That’s what a man of principle did.

  Gwen slowly recovered from her catatonic state with the help of a set of new front teeth, courtesy of a fundraiser at church, and Diazepam, little white pills that a doctor in downtown Oklahoma City had prescribed her to take as soon as she felt anxious. And though the raw of reality had been painful before, the blessing was that it brought on a callus that covered the whole of her now, that made her impervious to the world, made her the woman she needed to be. Her house would be in order. Her garden would be pristine. Her husband would be tended to. Her children would be taken care of. All of this, regardless of what else might come, not because this is what she wanted but because this is what was. Her life was not hers. She could see that now. It never had been, only her girlhood allowed her to believe momentarily that it was. In truth, it belonged to the pieces of existence one tries to possess. This was the reality for all humans, she realized. And happiness only came from the ability to accept it. She could laugh again with these thoughts in mind, tucked away in that fleshy shell around her. She could feel gratitude for Butch’s dirty diapers and the mud Willie tracked into the kitchen and the beans and corn bread she had to feed her family more than once a week because of their financial straps. Gwen praised the bugs that fed on her vegetables and the fruit those same vegetables bore. She gloried in her anger and her fear because they rarely showed their faces nowadays, and she liked their occasional visits, like long-lost friends who were gone way too soon. Yes, just like her husband, Gwendolyn Sue had grown up. She was a woman now, and for the rest of her life she would rely on this truth to see her through, and it would.

  How could Sheila and Butch know what they had been born into? As the years passed and they grew, they only ever knew two parents, a man and woman, who were respectful and kind to one another. Yes, there were the occasional arguments that broke out between Gwen and Willie, but just as sure as a dispute was bound to occur, so was a quick reconciliation. For Gwen and Willie loved one another. And this deliberate action on their part was the most precious of heirlooms they would pass down to their children and their children’s children, worth more than a bulging bank account or the swath of the prairie land they were raised up on, even if it would take decades for these seeds they’d planted ever so unknowingly to bear fruit.

  Part Two

  He Loves Me Not

  Sheila Barnett wanted a car with air-conditioning. Of all the things she could have dreamed for, from her adolescent perspective, the most important was an air-conditioned vehicle. When her family drove around town, she imagined hiding herself, lying down on the floorboard of their tank of an automobile until they were out of the city. But people would still see Gwen proudly perched behind the wheel of the ’48 Plymouth she and Willie had inherited from Grandma Faye, and they would know the truth Sheila couldn’t help but believe—the Barnetts were poor! Gwen and Willie denied this, of course. Around Sheila’s eleventh birthday, they had moved out of the old farmhouse and bought one of the new brick numbers on 106 South East, across the street from Faye, who sold the Barnetts’ farm after the death of Willie’s father. And besides reminding Sheila about their lovely new homestead, to further dispel the idea they were hardly destitute, Gwen always forced Sheila to recall the new clothes she received every year—two new outfits at the beginning of the school year, a couple more at Christmastime, and then, of course, there was always the Easter dress Sheila was allowed to select for that grand occasion. Sheila even had her own room now, far more than Gwen ever had growing up.

  If it weren’t for the lack of air-conditioning in the car, Sheila might have actually believed what Gwen and Willie were trying to convince her about her life: that it was good. But she was sixteen years old and oftentimes it seemed easier to be cross with them instead of behaving like a “lady,” so more often than not, she folded her arms, stuck out her bottom lip, and pouted.

  “Why can’t we get a convertible?” Sheila sighed. Gwen had taken Sheila and Butch with her to pick up their week’s supply of groceries. “At
least if we had a convertible, we’d have a reason to have the windows down.”

  Butch, who was in the backseat and more annoying than ever at the age of fourteen, piped in. “Then you’d just complain about your hair getting messed up.”

  “Would not. Momma, tell him to shut up.”

  Gwen cocked her head to look in the rearview mirror. That was all she needed to do to get Butch to behave.

  “I’d wear a scarf. I’d buy all kinds of fabulous scarves if we had a convertible. I’d save up every dime I got for them.”

  Gwen said nothing, turned down Sparrow off of Fifth, and pointed the car in the direction of home. This was a relief to Sheila. She had seen no one from school. Of course, that didn’t mean they hadn’t seen her. Then, like the worst imaginable nightmare coming true right in front of her green eyes, Sheila suddenly spotted Peyton Duke’s parents’ car waiting at the next stoplight.

  “Oh, God. Oh, God! Momma, turn around! Do something!”

  Gwen wasn’t quite sure what to make of Sheila’s sudden squealing.

  “Momma, that’s Peyton Duke’s car! Momma, please!”

  But Gwen pulled up to the stoplight right next to the Dukes’ shiny, brand-new 1970 Cadillac Deville, and Sheila instantly froze in place. She wanted to die. She dared not look at the car next to them. Maybe they wouldn’t notice the Barnetts. But, who was they? Was Peyton in the car? Sheila couldn’t help but look, her eyes moving to the side of her head before she actually turned her head to peer in the direction of the Cadillac. And there he was, Peyton Duke, sitting in the backseat while his parents drove up front. Quickly Sheila’s eyes darted away. He was looking right at her. He had smiled. Sheila didn’t know what to do.

  Peyton Duke was every girl’s dreamboat. He had fine blonde hair, blue eyes, and a mouth of straight teeth, surrounded by thin, kissable lips and framed by two perfect dimples. He was over six feet tall with a muscular body as the result of playing every sport their high school offered, from football to track and field. And now, he’d just smiled at her. Oh, she must look awful, Sheila thought—just awful! And there was nothing she could do about her hair, which was probably a tangled mess of red curls from riding around with the windows rolled down all day, and her makeup, what little she was allowed to wear, was probably worn off by now.

  “Butch, you stop that right now,” Gwen corrected from the driver’s seat.

  Sheila was paranoid. “What? What was he doing?”

  “Makin’ faces at the car next to us.”

  “Oh, God!” Now, Sheila thought, she would never be able to face Peyton again. She might as well drop out of school and become a nun. Maybe she’d just start to work as one of those telephone operators at one of the big buildings downtown. That’s what she’d do. She’d just drop out of school and get a job. That way she could save her money and buy a decent car and wear women’s clothes and high heels and all the makeup she wanted. Girls did that, even girls who were only sixteen like her. She might still have to live with her parents until she saved up enough for an apartment of her own, but she could talk Willie into that. He was always more agreeable than Gwen. Then one day she’d be on her lunch break, eating a little sandwich from the drugstore and drinking a soda pop through a straw, and Peyton would see her, and he wouldn’t even know who she was. He’d have to ask where he knew her from, and when she told him about leaving high school early to become a professional, he’d laugh. Then he’d ask her out, and they’d kiss and fall in love and get married.

  But before Sheila could dream further, the light changed colors and the Barnetts and the Dukes parted ways, them heading in the direction of the Twin Hills Country Club and all the mansions in that area and the Barnetts heading to their much simpler suburb. Sheila let her arm dangle out the open window, feeling the breeze. She wouldn’t drop out of school. She wasn’t ready to start working just yet. Peyton would just have to laugh at her if he saw fit. It wasn’t the end of the world.

  When the Barnetts arrived home, there was Willie edging the grass, careful not to cut into Gwen’s daisies, which had been transplanted from the farmhouse. Willie moved over to his family with a gentle smile stretched across his face. “You need help unloading?”

  Gwen shook her head. “Butch and Sheila can get it. Yard’s looking nice. How was work?”

  “Same ol’, same ol’, babe.”

  Sheila liked the way her daddy called her momma “babe,” not that she’d ever let them in on that fact. Her daddy always talked to her momma like she was just the most important person ever in the whole world, like Gwen was God or President Nixon or something. And Gwen did the same right back. It was sometimes infuriating for Sheila to listen to the two of them talk like even if the whole world was burning down around them everything was just dandy.

  Sheila carried a couple of bags of groceries into the house and set them on the counter then hurried to her room, where she fell back onto her twin bed and stared up at the cottage cheese ceiling. She always liked the ceilings in her parents’ house because of the glitter that had been mixed in with the paint. And every time she stared at the thousands of Styrofoam granules swirled across the ceiling of her room, she found some new image in them, like looking at clouds. Today Sheila’s mind kept racing to thoughts of Peyton Duke, however. Four years ago, she had experienced her first period. After that came all the hair and the breasts and the desire between her legs. No matter how much she had queried Gwen about what was normal when it came to “growing up,” Sheila still felt confused—sick to her stomach most of the time, in fact—when she thought about the opposite sex, particularly Peyton. And was that normal, to think about Peyton Duke for what seemed like every minute of every day? And was it normal to want to kiss him and wrap her arms around him but then also to want to hurl at the very sight of him? She pulled her pink, lace pillow in close, turning over to stare out the window at her daddy and the daisies and the world outside, which she swore she’d never be able to understand in a million years.

  “Ruby McAllister and her son are paying a visit to Faye next week?” Gwen asked skeptically as she set a refilled glass of iced tea in front of Willie. The Barnetts were sitting around the kitchen table eating a dinner of cornbread, beans and pork, and mashed potatoes, a weekly staple among the three meals a day that Gwen prepared seven days a week.

  “That’s what my momma said when I was trimming her yard this afternoon.”

  “Well, I’ll be. That’s a long trip all the way from Missouri. And isn’t Darrel in Vietnam?”

  “He’s done with his service is what she told me.”

  Sheila listened intently to the conversation, though she tried to act as though she couldn’t care less.

  “Headed back to college to finish his degree, apparently,” Willie continued. “How old would he be nowadays?”

  “At least twenty, maybe twenty-one,” Gwen responded. Then she got up to fetch more milk for Butch’s empty mug.

  “Bet he’s seen some things,” Willie mused. “They just can’t seem to get that mess straightened out over there.”

  “How long he been in Vietnam?” Sheila asked.

  “Now don’t forget, there’s shortcake and strawberries for dessert,” Gwen said, ignoring Sheila’s question. Gwen was always making sure nobody ate too much, declaring the existence of some dessert halfway through supper, then placing a ration on dessert so that both dessert and supper might stretch out over two or even three mealtimes via leftovers.

  Sheila decided not to ask her question again, least she seem too eager to hear more details about Darrel McAllister. If Gwen even detected the slightest interest by Sheila over anything adult, she was usually banished to her room. She probably would be sent away regardless if Darrel and Ruby visited and he started talking about Vietnam. Sixteen, and she was still considered a child. Of course, that couldn’t keep her from listening at her doorway like she always did and hearing whatever was said. It’s not like she cared about Darrel and Ruby anyway. Ruby flit
ted about like she was some stupid high school girl herself, acting all charming and like the world should just bow down to her, but it was off-putting because she wasn’t in high school, she was a prune of a woman now at fifty-something, way past the age for giggling and bashfully grabbing her mouth in faux shock at just about anything said. As for Darrel, he was a redneck farm boy who probably couldn’t add two plus two. Sheila had known both of them all her life, being as they traveled down from Missouri to visit her Grandma Faye, who lived across the street. When they were younger, she and Darrel and Butch had probably even played in the mud together out at the old farmhouse. The last time Sheila had seen either Darrel or Ruby was when Darrel was heading off to Vietnam on his first tour. It had to have been three years prior, at least. He’d been drafted. She remembered her father offering him a beer out on the back porch one afternoon before he left and the two of them talking at least until the sun went down.

  Gwen had gone from refilling Butch’s glass to removing food from the table, just to be sure there was no chance for seconds. “Bet they spend all weekend doing ceramics together,” Gwen said, referring to Faye and Ruby’s love for casting, painting, and firing all manner of ceramic miniatures they sold or gave away to anyone who expressed the least bit of interest in them.

  “Well, momma’s been eager to fill up that new kiln of hers since she got it.”

  “She’s bound to burn the house down with that thing one of these days. Don’t know why she even does it. She can hardly be making any money at all with what she charges for those little figurines of hers after you add up all the time she puts into them.”