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Back Ladies of the House Save as PDF
Chapters (59)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Praise
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. January
  7. One
  8. Two
  9. Three
  10. Four
  11. Five
  12. February
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. March
  21. Thirteen
  22. Fourteen
  23. Fifteen
  24. Sixteen
  25. April
  26. Seventeen
  27. Eighteen
  28. Nineteen
  29. Twenty
  30. Twenty-One
  31. Twenty-Two
  32. Twenty-Three
  33. Twenty-Four
  34. Twenty-Five
  35. May
  36. Twenty-Six
  37. Twenty-Seven
  38. Twenty-Eight
  39. Twenty-Nine
  40. Thirty
  41. Thirty-One
  42. June
  43. Thirty-Two
  44. Thirty-Three
  45. Thirty-Four
  46. Thirty-Five
  47. Thirty-Six
  48. Thirty-Seven
  49. Thirty-Eight
  50. Thirty-Nine
  51. Forty
  52. July
  53. Forty-One
  54. Epilogue
  55. Acknowledgments
  56. Author’s Note
  57. Ladies of the House - Reader’s Guide
  58. Questions For Discussion
  59. Excerpt

This astounded her. “He didn’t kiss you back? That can’t be right.” She shook her head until she saw how perfectly serious I was. “God! He’s such an idiot. Sorry, sorry, I know you love him.” She stepped closer now, rubbed my arms. “You’ve been so steady,” she said, more tender. “You’ve been like a rock, and I’ve just been crashing against you, battering you with every bit of my broken heart, and you didn’t say one word.”

“Yes! Exactly!” I moved away from her and began to pace my already worry-warn carpet. “I have pushed this down. I have done this because I had to. What good would it have done if we both suffered like you did? Do you think it wasn’t hard for me? You pity me because I’ve endured this? You can’t think of anything sadder than the way I choose to cope with this? I have soldiered on, despite the fact that the one man I love most in this world is with another woman. But do not—do not—feel sad for me, Wallis. I don’t want your pity. You needed my strength, and I gave it to you, day after day, week after week.”

“I never asked for that,” Wallis said, urgent, attempting to reach me through my pacing. “You think strength means pushing everything you felt down so far it was hidden from me? God, Dodo, I’m sorry, I love you, I adore you more than anyone in this world, but you’re so wrong.”

“No.” I pivoted at the corner, resisting her words. I didn’t want to be wrong. If I’d been mistaken, how many days had I wasted?

“Yes.” She pressed on. “Daisy, you asked what good it would have done if we both suffered. Telling me the truth about Atlas would not have compounded our pain. That’s not how pain works, and that’s not how love works. We would’ve leaned on each other and shared the load.” I stopped and blinked up at the ceiling, willing the tears not to fall. “I’m so sorry, Dodo,” she said. “If you felt like I was demanding something from you, I’m sorry. I wasn’t asking you to carry all my burdens. I was just asking for you. To be with me. To be my sister.”

She was right—she’d never explicitly asked. No one had asked me to build the guardhouse. I recalled my father’s books and photographs that I’d thrown away, everything I’d asked Atlas to bury, all that I’d withheld from the people I’d loved the most. I had believed I was protecting my family, but hoarding secrets, stashing away all the discomforting aspects of my past and present, had also made me feel safe.