Dream Country by Luanne Rice

me,” Daisy said. “I wish she didn’t think she had to go off on her own to figure it out.”
    “She’s so independent,” Hathaway said. “It’s a good thing. I’m telling you, she’ll be back any minute now. What she’s doing is like Outward Bound. Of the emotions, you know? Testing her own limits. I wish I’d been more like her. And you—”
    “Me?” Daisy stared out the window.
    “You paved the way for her,” Hathaway said. “Going out west by yourself, making your way cross-country, finding new ideas for your work. She’s your daughter, and she wants to live up to your life. She wants to live adventurously.”
    “But I wasn’t adventurous.” Daisy watched the driveway, wanting to see that brown head bobbing along the boxwood hedge, just like the thousands of other times Sage had come home to her. Then, turning to face her sister, she said, “I was scared of everything.”
    Daisy and Hathaway had been raised by quiet parents. Their world had been books and stories. Their father had been a drama professor and their mother an English teacher—soft, gentle, and as eccentric as a person could be who’d died as young as she had, at thirty-six. She had named her daughters after Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s true love, and Daisy Buchanan of
The Great Gatsby
. There hadn’t been much room for adventure in their scholarly household.
    “Being scared of everything makes some people brave,” Hathaway said. “You went out west because otherwise you might have been too afraid ever to leave home.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because I never left,” Hathaway said. She brought her fingers to her lips, as if there might still be a cigarette in them, and when she looked away, she had tears in her eyes. She was big and tall, with a brassy Broadway voice like some of the actresses their father used to teach about, but inside she was the most gentle and timid soul around. “She’s full of fire,” Hathaway continued. “We couldn’t hold her back even if we wanted to.”
    “I’ve always tried to teach her to trust herself,” Daisy said. “Trust her instincts, her good sense. When we lost Jake, I was so—”
    “I know.” Hathaway held her tighter.
    “—so afraid that Sage would see the world as a bad place. Full of dangers.”
    “You’ve protected her, too,” Hathaway said. “It’s a balance . . .”
    “But she’s pregnant,” Daisy said, the shock hitting her again. “She’s missing and she’s pregnant.”
    The mail truck pulled up, and the letter carrier climbed out. He began stuffing envelopes into the box by the road, and Hathaway gestured for Daisy to wait. Daisy was grateful. She wanted to pick up the phone if it rang. She watched her sister walk down the driveway, exchange a few words with the mailman, begin flipping through the letters and catalogues. Hathaway had been walking slowly, head down, but suddenly she began to run. The other envelopes fluttered to the ground as Hathaway held one out in front of her.
    Daisy knew even before she saw: Sage’s handwriting. Hands shaking, she tore open the blue envelope.

    Dear Mom,
    I’m sorry I worried you so much. Ben and I didn’t mean to upset you with staying out late and tipping over the canoe. I never want to upset you. But I love him. I know you say I’m too young to know, but I do anyway. I love him like you loved Dad and don’t say about the divorce because that was just because of the tragedy. Because of Jake. When we capsized last night, Ben saved me. He swam right over and pulled me out. Not that I wasn’t swimming fine myself, but I thought you’d like to know that he put me first. He always does, and I do the same with him. That’s how love should be.
    We’re running away. Don’t worry about school. This is the part that’s hard to write. We’re going to have a baby. I can almost see your face. You’re mad. I know, and I’m sorry. I wish I could take it back, or I mean, turn back time. We are together, and that’s