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
“Daisy.” He sighed my name, as though to say, come on. “This is ridiculous. I want to call a truce. So, can we? Just—can you not speak about me or my mother? I see you’re going on shows, speaking to media. Can we move on with our lives and leave each other be?”
“No,” I said. I had no plans to speak on the Darleys, but he didn’t need to know that.
“If you come forward with something about me, something I maybe said to you, or to Wallis, I’ll have to discredit you. I’ll have to say you lied.”
“Yes,” I said. “I suppose you would.”
“I’m a good person, Daisy,” he said. “I’m always trying to be a good man, and to do the best for the people I love.”
“So you did love my sister,” I said. “I think maybe you still do.”
“She’ll always be that person for me,” he said. He admitted this like he was admitting to a crime. “There will always be something there. But I can’t be the person who fell in love with her, and also be a senator from South Carolina.” He looked irate now, as though the way of the world was my fault, as though I had built our current reality from scratch. “I had to choose.”
Before I made my way back through the hall, threaded through the crowds around the statues of humans far better than I’d been, I drew myself to my full height and mustered one last line:
“You chose wrong.”
July
July
Forty-One
We were enjoying morning coffee and soft Sunday light on Cricket’s couch. I was borrowing her reading glasses to scour the front page of the real estate section of the Post. “Bo told me it’s here,” I said.
“There you go,” Wallis said, pointing to a thumbnail picture at the bottom of the paper. “Oh, God, it looks like they painted it.”
“And they changed the windows,” Cricket said, squinting, lips pursed.
“We’re going,” Wallis said. “We have to see it.”
“Open house begins in an hour,” I said.
“I just need to brush my hair,” Cricket said.
“Atlas landed earlier this morning,” I said, folding up the paper and tossing it aside. “He wants to come see me.” When I’d gotten his text, my reaction had been decidedly muted. I recognized the necessity of the meeting, but I dreaded it just the same. I knew what he was going to tell me. Regardless, tomorrow was my first day at the new job, and I was determined not to spend the rest of my minivacation a wreck.
“You’re done waiting for him,” Wallis said. “If he wants to see you so badly, tell him to meet you at the house.”
We’re going to the house on P. I’ll be there in an hour. Then I’m booked for the rest of the day.