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
Thankfully, Cricket returned, arms stacked with pizza, and beckoned us into the kitchen. I could barely get a box onto the counter before she was offering its contents to Atlas and encouraging him to have first pickings. We squeezed ourselves around the table that Cricket had placed in the part of the kitchen she referred to as the breakfast nook, using plates and silverware that were too fancy for pineapple and ham. I tried to make something that resembled normal human dialogue. Cricket, Atlas, and I discussed the weekend, the weather, the new restaurant a few blocks over with the amazing pho. Wallis’s eyes glazed over. She picked at pepperoni, peeled her cheese off her slice, poking, never really ingesting.
“Daisy told us about the piece you’re writing,” Cricket said to Atlas. “How’s it going?”
Atlas folded his napkin into a miniature square. “It’s going,” he said, not sounding at all like himself. “We’re... well, part of the reason I wanted to see Daisy tonight is that my editor and I have decided to push the publication date.”
So, the article wouldn’t drop just as I was returning to work. This felt like a blessing.
“My editor,” added Atlas, “wants me to follow up on a couple things.”
“What things?” My relief vanished.
But Cricket interrupted whatever answer Atlas was preparing. “Since you have more time, Atlas, you should interview Daisy! She worked with Gregory, and she would be a wealth of knowledge.”
“Great idea,” said Wallis, rousing. “Daisy should do it.”
“I...have asked,” said Atlas.
My mother and sister spun toward me.
“Definitely not,” I said. Folks are out for blood, Miles had told me not so long ago, and they’ll settle for yours. When they looked disapproving, I sighed. “I’m not really in the market for notoriety right now.” I meant to come off light, breezy, in spite of the circumstances, but Atlas didn’t smile. He turned his eyes back to what was left of his napkin.
“All right, so.” My sister, suddenly galvanized, dabbed the corners of her mouth in a move that struck me as preposterously formal. “You don’t want fame. What are you in the market for?”
“Peace of mind. Happiness.” The stuff, in other words, that was eluding me now. “I suppose the rest of the world feels much the same way.”
“And fame has nothing to do with happiness?” Wallis said.