‘And what about your other pills, the ones to stop you going completely mad? I give them to you because I know you need them. You stop taking them then you are putting yourself in danger and I have allowed you to reside here even though you chased my son away. When will it end, Daisy, when will you have had enough of destroying people and peoples’ lives? You think you are ready to become a mother in your condition? I have done so much for you. Do you think that by stopping taking your tablets you are helping anyone?’

I watched Daisy’s face fall. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She turned and walked back out of the kitchen.

I turned back to the board and continued chopping the carrots into neat small square chunks.

48

DAISY

I felt as though I needed to run, but I had nowhere to run to. I began to pull at my skin as I paced the room. I couldn’t contain the torrent of emotions that flooded my body. I felt as though they needed to be released or I would explode. And somehow, Annie knew. She must know all of it. I saw it the day I met her, the flickering of her eyes as she tried to place me. And she was right. Of course I wasn’t capable of being a mother.

All the images I had worked so hard to forget were surfacing once again. The looks on the faces of the people I had hurt, the headlines, the gossip. The dreaded feeling in the pit of my stomach. The desire to end my life, even though it had barely begun. So young. So lost.

My life had been easy until then. Not perfect. But easy. Emotions weren’t discussed, but if we all just remained civil, they never needed to be. It was no wonder my mother only had me. She suffered postnatal depression very badly, said she couldn’t risk having any more after that. Raised in a large detached house on the outskirts of the city, I attended a very good all-girls school paid for by my father who worked hard at his business. He built it up when I was tiny so we could have everything we wanted and needed. Looking back though, what I wanted and needed was a real family, with my mum healthy and engaged in conversation with me and my dad throwing me around his waist and calling me his girl. He was always distracted. Never fully there. One foot was always already out of the door when he was saying goodnight; the books I held out to him to share with me refused with an empty promise of tomorrow.

School was a distraction. I did okay because I preferred being there to being at home.