Wallis came back with word that Bo had accepted her apology, but that Collette Reed was not yet awake to receive ours. We would have to send flowers and a card. As Wallis ordered the car, I calculated how many orange tulips it would take to mop up our mess.

Twenty-Five

“Family meeting,” I said from my sister’s doorway, though I wasn’t sure this could be considered such, as Wallis was prone in her bed, Cricket beside her, caressing her hand. “What are we going to do about this?”

“About what?” Wallis’s back was to me, her pillow muffling her voice. “Blake’s gone. Nothing left to do.”

“I meant about you,” I said. On the plane, I’d reiterated to myself the importance of keeping the tuition news to myself. Wallis, and now Cricket, too, had enough to deal with. I also wasn’t ready to talk about it, wasn’t even sure how. In the taxi, I proposed ways to keep us both occupied and distracted: an activity, a movie, a hike along Rock Creek, even the mediocre open mic night at the bar down the street. But Wallis had found fault in all my suggestions, and stubbornly remained despondent, her eyes lonely and blank. “We’ve got to figure out a way to piece you back together.”

“It’s not some switch I can flip,” she argued. “If it were so easy to get it together don’t you think I would’ve done it by now?”

I was tired, scruffy, in need of a shower. I’d eaten a dense, flavorless muffin in the airport before we’d boarded, hours ago. It had been the opposite of nourishment. Still, I couldn’t let up. “It’s excruciating for me to see you in this pain. Please,” I begged, circling to the other side of the bed. “Remember, my God, there is a silver lining here. And I know you may not want to acknowledge it,” I said as she burrowed deeper in her pillow. I raised my voice. “But think of what might’ve happened if he’d kept you strung along for months and months, through the campaign. Or worse! Think of if you’d gone through this election with him, only to discover who he really is after you’d given up everything.”

“I’ve already given up so much,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, dropping to my knees, reaching out to tuck back hair that had fallen over her eyes. “What have you given up?”

“My heart, Daisy. My time. You know, he told me to wait for him until after his mother got reelected. Then he just wanted us to wait until after the confirmation hearings. And so I waited because I believed him. I believed in us.”

“Cricket?” I looked up at my mother, pleading. “Ideas?”