The Last Darling (11 page)
Authors: Cloud Buchholz
Jaclyn had taken an interest in botany, specifically its uses in medicine. Though she had little passion for it, she minored in psychology in the hopes of having a few extra classes with Daisy. This plan would have been successful if Daisy had been a normal student, but Daisy’s passion took her far beyond the entry level classes that Jaclyn was forced to take.
After sneaking into a particularly difficult post-graduate class, Daisy made the error of correcting the professor after he had misquoted the book. The professor had been known to fail or embarrass students for far less – a fact Daisy had yet to learn. He commanded her to stand up and proceeded to bombard her with questions. She calmly and correctly answered each one. His final question was not in fact a question, but a trick for it had no solution. Daisy scrunched her eyebrows in thought, but could not divine an answer. The professor, smug and smirking, asked for her name and grade. She said both and he was astonished to learn that she was merely a freshman. He allowed her to audit the class. Then he scolded the rest of the students for being so lazy and stupid.
The first case study involved the mental state of trauma patients during and after their rehabilitation. Each student was responsible for a different subset of patients. Categories ranged from burn victims to suburban abuse. Daisy’s case study was focused on cancer. She followed the recovery of five patients ranging in age from thirty-four to sixty-five. She carefully observed their physical and emotional reactions and then, later, the expectations of their children and spouses. Daisy realized early on that if she was to remain objective, she must also remain distant. Instead of referring to each patient by name, she referred to them by number. #1 – thirty-four, married eight years, mother of two, breast cancer. #2 – forty-one, married twelve years, father of three, testicular cancer. #3 – sixty-three, divorced, mother of three, grandmother of seven, melanoma. #4 – sixty-five, divorced, father of one, lung cancer. #5 – seventy-one, married forty years, five children, eleven grandchildren, died before treatment could be administered.
Daisy was so focused on the work that when she was not at school, she was at one of the patients’ homes or at the hospital closely following their treatment. One morning, shortly after the case study began, patient #4 fell out of his bed and injured his leg. Daisy met him at the hospital just in time to hear the doctor order an x-ray. She followed #4 to radiology, taking notes about his behavior as a nurse pushed his wheelchair. He was nearly finished explaining, for the second time, how he had fallen when the nurse told Daisy to wait in the adjacent room. With a slight scowl and a huff, Daisy did as the nurse commanded, but as soon as the nurse turned her head, Daisy snuck back into the room. Before she could congratulate herself, a man, no older than thirty, pulled her aside. He motioned for her to sit and she did as he asked almost without thinking. She could not explain the quiet hold he had over her, nor could she stop gazing at him. He smiled and nodded at her before adjusting the x-ray console. For the first time in her life, Daisy felt embarrassed and speechless. Her cheeks turned red and she bashfully looked away.
She later learned that he was a radiology technician by the name of Jack Dassow and he had worked at the hospital a little over two years. She had to acquire this information from a nurse because her nerves had blurred the events of that morning.
It would take Jack and Daisy exactly four dates to realize that they were meant for each other. The forth date occurred on a Saturday evening at Jack’s apartment. Over the course of his bachelor life, Jack had developed two passions: fishing and cooking; and while he excelled at the first, he failed at the latter. He was, unfortunately, oblivious to these facts. Though he had the skills to calibrate complex medical equipment, he had never been able to transcribe that knowledge to his oven or stove. His finest meals were usually black around the edges – a feat some of his friends described as a miracle.
That particular evening, while Jack and Daisy sat nervously next to one another, the smell of burnt lasagna punctuated their silence. Jack rushed to the kitchen, pulling his scorched and burning meal from the oven. He patted the fire out with a pair of oven mitts and shamefully scraped the food into the garbage.
Daisy, attempting to be a polite guest, had brought a bottle of wine and a loaf of freshly baked garlic bread, which Jack handed back to her. He cracked two windows and turned on a fan, which he had become accustomed to doing, and led Daisy out of the apartment. He was almost certain he had ruined the evening and, more importantly, his chances with Daisy, so he decided there was no harm in being himself. He joked and laughed without reservation, told embarrassing stories, and attentively listened to hers.
They spent the evening walking through the city without a destination or a plan, sharing the bottle of wine and the loaf of garlic bread. They did not realize how long they had been talking until they saw the sun rise over the eastern skyline. Hand in hand, they walked back to Jack’s apartment and spent Sunday morning lying in bed together – their hearts too excited to sleep. Jack wanted to propose that afternoon, but out of decency, he waited another four months. Daisy of course accepted, wondering why it had taken so long for him to ask.
Jaclyn cried at the news and embraced her dear friend. Her tears were not a result of happiness as Daisy assumed, but instead owed their origin to a knot of sadness tied around her heart. Jaclyn’s embrace was not meant to congratulate. It was meant to say goodbye. She knew Daisy would never love her the way she wanted to be loved and she could not stand the thought of watching her love another. She agreed to each of Daisy’s requests with the intention of ignoring all of them.
The next day Jaclyn would take an internship in South America studying plants for a pharmaceutical company. She would inform Daisy only after the plane had landed in Argentina. She would spend the next six months rummaging through jungles and forests, collecting specimens with her particular focus being fungi. When she returned to America, Jaclyn would neglect to tell Daisy and, in fact, do her best to never think about or mention her again.
Daisy would never learn of these events, nor would she begrudge her best friend for she was happy that Jaclyn had finally found a passion for her life. The planning and wedding continued on schedule – Jack’s oldest sister taking the place of Jaclyn as maid of honor. Daisy had no other close friends and only a little family, but Jack’s large sum of relatives easily made up the difference and warmly welcomed Daisy into their lives.
After the wedding, Rose embraced Daisy and presented her with a gift – the last and only possession of the departed Leo Darling. Daisy unwrapped the small present. It was a framed photograph of a man and woman standing outside a cabin. The woman was pregnant and smiling. Daisy did not recognize the woman or the man, but she felt a strange connection to them. The photograph was faded, with warped edges, and a small crease near the middle.
They were family, Rose explained, but that was as much as she knew for the young Leo Darling, who had been silently homesick, had spoken very little about his past – a trait Rose equally shared.
Daisy held the photograph to her chest and kissed her mother. Later that night, after making love to her husband, Daisy would take the photograph from her suitcase and examine it. She would be mesmerized by its contrast and framing. She would wonder about the camera and photographer used in its making. Then she would think about the two people affectionately holding onto one another. She would contemplate their names and how they came to be there, but Daisy Dassow would never learn of these events, nor would she think much about how the photograph came to be in her possession, except to admire its fidelity and smile at the beautiful woman that seemed so familiar to her.
I'm an indie author writing on the west coast. I love to create dark and devious characters in all sorts of genres. I’ve written a novel,
Chewing on Pen Caps
, a book of poetry,
The American Idlers
and a handful of short stories. To provide feedback or get information about current and future books go to:
Other Works by Cloud Buchholz
Chewing on Pen Caps (novel)
The American Idlers (poetry)