At least, it should have been.
Labor was hard, but when it was over, she held her little girl for the first time. She looked up at her husband, wanting to share her joy.
But for some reason, his handsome face was pale, as if he’d just seen a ghost.
Their baby was perfect. Little hands, little feet, a scrunched-up beautiful face. They named her Olivia—Livvy—after Daisy’s mother, Olivia Bianchi Cassidy. Daisy was nervous, but thrilled to bring her back to the brownstone that had somehow become home to her, to the sweet pink nursery she and Leonidas had lovingly prepared.
It was hard to believe that was two months ago. Now, as Daisy nestled her baby close, nursing her in the rocking chair, she couldn’t get over how soft Livvy’s skin was, or how plump her cheeks had become in nine weeks. The baby’s dark eyelashes fluttered as she slept. Her hair was darker than Daisy’s, reflecting her namesake’s Italian roots, as well as Leonidas’s Greek heritage.
“Come and look at your daughter,” she’d said to him more than once. “Doesn’t she look like you?”
And every time, Leonidas would give their newborn daughter only the slightest sideways glance. “Yes.”
“Won’t you hold her?” she would ask.
And with that same furtive glance at his daughter, her husband would always refuse. Even if Daisy asked for help, saying she needed to have her hands free to do something else, like start the baby’s bath, even then he would refuse, and would loudly call for Mrs. Berry to assist, as he backed away.
Leonidas disappeared from the house, claiming he was urgently needed at work. He started spending sixteen-hour days at the office and sleeping in the guest room when he came home late.
He claimed he did not want to disturb Daisy and the baby, but the end result was that Daisy had barely seen her husband all summer. He’d simply evaporated from their lives, leaving only the slight scent of his exotic masculine cologne.
For weeks, Daisy had felt heartsick about it. Obviously, their daughter wasn’t to blame. Livvy was perfect. So it must be something else.
Back in March, during their honeymoon, when he’d told her about his tragic, awful childhood, it had broken Daisy’s heart. But it had also given her hope. Some part of Leonidas must love her, for him to be so vulnerable with her.
And so she’d been vulnerable, too. She’d told him she loved him.
For months after that, Leonidas had held her close, made love to her, made her feel cherished and adored. He’d let her draw his portrait in six different sketches, all of them in different light.
Now she felt like those sketches were all she had of him.
Had there been a shadow beneath his gaze, even then? Had he already been starting to pull away?
In the two months since Livvy’s birth, Daisy hadn’t had the opportunity to do another drawing of Leonidas. But she’d done dozens of sketches of their baby. Looking through them yesterday, she’d been astonished at how much the infant had changed in such a short time.
Mrs. Berry, seeing the sketches, had shyly asked if she could hire Daisy to do her portrait, too, as a gift for her husband’s birthday. Daisy had done it gladly one afternoon when the baby was sleeping, without charge. She’d done the drawing with her yellow dog stretched out over her feet, on the floor. Sunny had grown huge, and was always nearby, as if guarding Daisy and the baby from unknown enemies. She was particularly suspicious of squirrels.
Sunny always made her laugh.
Mrs. Berry had loved the drawing. Word of mouth began to spread, from the house’s staff, to their families. Friends who came from Brooklyn to see the baby saw the drawings of Livvy, and requested portraits of their own grandchildren, of their spouses, of their pets. Just yesterday, Daisy had gotten five separate requests for portraits. She didn’t know what to think.
“Why weren’t you doing drawings like this all along?” Her old boss at the diner, Claudia, had demanded earlier that week. “Why were you doing those awful modern scribbles—when all along you could do pictures like this?”
Remembering, Daisy gave a low laugh. Trust her old boss not to be diplomatic.
But still, it made her think.
When she’d done her painting at art school, long ago, she’d been desperate to succeed. Art had always felt stressful, as she’d tried to guess what others would most admire. Each effort had been less authentic than the last, a pastiche of great masterpieces, as Leonidas had said. The painting her husband had bought at the auction for a million dollars was still buried in a closet. In spite of its success that night, she hadn’t felt joy creating it. In spite of all her effort, the painting had never connected with her heart.
But these sketches were different. They were of people.
It felt easy to simply draw her friends—even new friends she’d just met—and see what was best in them.
Was it possible that Daisy did have some talent? Not for painting—but for people?
With a rueful snort, she shook her head. Talent for people? She couldn’t even get her own husband to talk to her! Or hold their baby daughter!
Two days ago, heartsick, she’d been thinking of how, as an agonized fourteen-year-old, Leonidas had struck out at the Picasso with scissors. And she’d had a sudden crazy idea.