Chapters (59)
- Cover
- About the Author
- Praise
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- January
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- February
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- March
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- April
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- May
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- June
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- July
- Forty-One
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Author’s Note
- Ladies of the House - Reader’s Guide
- Questions For Discussion
- Excerpt
At her question, a wave of exhaustion overtook me. Concealing had taken an enormous amount of emotional energy, and I had tapped out of my reserves. Had Gregory felt the same, near the end? I forced myself to face her. “Like the fact that our father paid for our tuition with money that wasn’t his, Wallis. Is that important enough for you?”
Her jaw hit the floor, her hands slowly rose and landed on the top of her head. My chest tightened as I waited to see how she’d handle this news. I prepared myself to console, to act as a sounding board, perhaps even to absorb her anger. But, to my surprise, after she blinked a few times, her arms fell to her sides and she went back to firing. “You love Atlas. All these years, you’ve loved him. I know you have—”
Wallis was obviously deflecting. Wearily, I crossed the half dozen steps that separated us and joined her on the other side of my desk. “Did you hear me? Gregory stole to pay for our colleges.”
“I understood you the first time,” she said, quiet but firm. “Deep down, I think...we all suspected something like this might be around the corner.”
“Suspected, not expected. Now I’m doing gymnastics to keep it secret.”
“Why?” When I didn’t answer, she continued. “Seriously, Daisy, why bother?”
“Do. You. Remember,” I said, purposefully spacing out the words, wondering how she could be so calm, “the sound the brick made as it crashed through Cricket’s window?”
“There are other things,” she said, affecting my slower cadence, “that take precedence.”
I stifled a groan; I didn’t know how much more I could handle of my sister’s fearless, defiant optimism regarding me and Atlas. “The love I have for him is my problem, not yours.”
“Really? This is how you’ve been thinking about love all this time? As something to be endured? As something that can be replaced by other things? Dodo, I can’t think of anything sadder.”
“All my happiness,” I insisted, tapping the back of one hand on the palm of the other, “cannot rely on one person. Think of what happened to you when Blake left. What you went through. Extrapolate, then, what might happen to me if I was to rest every single one of my hopes with Atlas. I kissed him, Wallis.” I said it before I knew I was going to. “At the wedding months ago. I kissed him, and he didn’t kiss me back.”