IN LOUISVILLE, MY belly grew and grew, and I had never felt more unattractive, more ill, in my entire life. Mother couldn’t stop crowing about what a blessing this baby was. I’d walk by her in the mornings, on my way to try and swallow down some breakfast, and she would put her hand on my belly and trill like a snow goose. Blessings and grandbabies and new life! It was like she forgot all other words but these.
But this was the first time in my life I truly despised being a woman. I no longer felt, in the slightest, pretty. When I looked in the mirror, I saw unfamiliar bloated and blotchy cheeks staring back at me. And I felt like I was suffocating from the inside out. Trapped by this baby swelling up inside of me, taking over my body, making me ugly. And trapped by Tom, too.
Mother would never understand it, and so when she cooed, I smiled politely, and kept all the awful feelings inside. I couldn’t bear to tell her that Tom had been unfaithful to me. I couldn’t bear to admit out loud what I now understood deep down: any power I’d thought I’d gained in becoming Mrs. Buchanan was all an illusion. Instead, by marrying Tom, I’d given up every last part of myself. Even now, my beauty.
And then I hoped to God this baby would at least be a boy. That it would come out of me already having choices.
* * *
I AWOKE ONE night in the middle of April, my stomach clenching. Mother called for the doctor, and he came and gave me ether for the pain, and then I truly was grateful she was close, her snow goose trilling and all. I was in and out for hours or days, sweating and screaming and pushing. Mother held my hand. Maybe Tom was down the hall in Rose’s room, or, maybe he wasn’t. I didn’t know where Tom was.
Then, there came the ether again; a dark and dreamless sleep followed.
When I awoke again, there was Mother’s face, hovering, and the doctor’s voice. He placed a baby into my arms. “It’s a girl,” he said, brightly.
A girl.
I tried to squeeze back tears, but I didn’t have the strength to stop them now. Mother cooed with delight, and I cried and cried until I had no more tears left. When I cried myself out, I felt the weight in my arms, this baby. This girl. I examined her soft pink skin with my fingers, and she was so beautiful, it felt like the greatest cruelty.
“All right,” I said, more to myself than to Mother, who was still hovering. “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
“Oh, Daisy Fay!” Mother’s snow goose voice. “Why would you say that? We want her to be a lady, a beautiful little lady.” Mother cooed that last part in the baby’s face in a baby snow goose voice.
“Daisy Buchanan,” I corrected Mother now, softly.
Daisy Fay might’ve been a beautiful little lady, once. But Daisy Buchanan was nothing more than a fool. A goddamned fool.
* * *
I AWOKE SOMETIME later, the middle of that night, or, the next night. The baby cried and Mother brought her to me, and I slept in between. In and out. Time was nothing.
But now, my eyes fluttered open and my room was dark. Tom stood over me, a shadow. His hand reached for my shoulder. He lowered his lips to my forehead and kissed me gently, and I could smell that whiskey and cigarette smell of him. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I love you. Daisy, I love you so much.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled. My body was tired, but the swelling in my ankles and face had already gone down, and when I’d looked in the mirror earlier, I’d had the slightest bit of hope I might be beautiful again, soon. I wondered if Tom saw it now too?
I moved my arm slowly, patted the space on the bed next to me. Tom got in and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tightly to him. I relaxed against him, and he stroked my hair softly. We lay there for a little while, saying nothing at all.
“Let’s go to France,” Tom finally said. “You and me and the baby. We’re a family now, and I’ll never hurt you again. I promise you, Daisy.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. I imagined Paris, walking down the Champs-Elysées, holding Tom’s arm, pushing the baby in the carriage. It was spring, and the air would smell like flowers. And we would be so gay, laughing, stopping to kiss each other whenever the moment struck us.
“Please forgive me, Daisy,” Tom whispered into my hair. “Please try to love me again. I miss you.”
I curled in tighter to him. “Hush,” I finally spoke. “You’re my husband. I’ll always love you, Tom Buchanan.”
I felt like I could breathe deeply again for the first time in months. Tom had made a mistake, but he was here, holding me, apologizing. We could still be okay.
He loved me; he needed me. And that made me more than a fool, didn’t it? That, in itself, gave me all the power.
Jordan 1920
CANNES, FRANCE
IT WAS HARD TO BELIEVE that Daisy had a baby. A real bona fide person that she’d grown inside of her and pushed out of her tiny body. She wrote me letters after I saw her in Santa Barbara, told me the news about her pregnancy and then the birth and, then, their move to France. I knew that they’d named the baby Pamela because that had been Rose’s middle name. We wanted to honor Rosie, but I couldn’t call her Rose, Daisy had written. That would hurt too much… I knew all this, and yet, none of it felt real to me until I stepped into the Buchanans’ chateau in Cannes, and Daisy placed a plump, pink… baby into my outstretched arms.
I wasn’t sure how to hold her—she was deceptively heavy, and she squirmed and squealed like a pig, then burst into tears. Daisy attempted to soothe her with kisses to her little forehead, then called for Yvette, the nurse, who ran in and whisked Pamela away from me, almost before I had time to register that she was a real, live, breathing girl. Daisy’s girl.
Daisy grabbed my hand and led me into the sweeping parlor. Their chateau was a large three-story mansion, on the edge of the Mediterranean. And the parlor had an entire wall of windows looking out onto the bright blue water. My eyes widened as I looked around, taking in the view. “Isn’t Pammy a doll?” Daisy murmured.
I turned back to look at her, and I nodded. Because that’s exactly what she’d felt like, a doll. Something fake and porcelain, delicate and unreal, like the dolls we used to spend hours playing with as kids. “I still can’t believe you’re a mother, Daise,” I said. It felt almost more impossible because Daisy stood across from me now, looking the same as she always had: same shiny, shiny hair, same trim waist. How exactly had she grown and borne this… child?
Daisy laughed, invited me to sit, and poured me a cup of tea from a tray already resting on the coffee table. “Well, I still can’t believe you’re finally here, in France.” She handed me the tea and then clapped her hands together, letting out a little noise of glee.
“And I can’t believe you actually live here.” And I didn’t just mean France, but this towering chateau perched on the edge of the Mediterranean.