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For the first time in her life, Daisy Buchannan was alone. Sitting in a chair at the railing of her front porch, a light breeze ruffled her blonde hair. The entire scene was tranquil, the sea air coming in off the ocean, the grass gently swaying. But it was in complete contrast to the turmoil in her heart.
Tom had left her. She had never thought it was really going to happen. Even with the years of phone calls and business trips and the elephants that were always in the room, she never had thought that he would actually leave, packing an overnight back but never coming home the next morning. Daisy took a sip of her drink, smoothing the silk of her dress and leaning back in the rocking chair. He had called her a few days later from a hotel in the city. His voice had been cool like frosted glass.

Things hadn't been good ever since Myrtle. But then again, had things ever been good? Maybe in the first few months of their marriage. It had been romance, hadn't it? Wine and walks. It started with the cold shoulder. He didn't hold her before they went to sleep anymore. He ignored her. Then came the phone calls, the disappearances that became more and more frequent. The smell of perfume and the smudges of lipstick on the starched collars of his shirts. She knew. Women weren't stupid, as much as men thought they were. She knew.

But why did she hold on? Maybe it was because she still held a piece of him. A little tiny piece. He still sometimes slept in the same bed with her. And that was better than having nothing at all. Maybe she stayed for Pammy. She could hardly say, but she knew that she regretted it now. When Myrtle was killed, things hit an all time low. He drank and smoked and drank and smoked and she didn't even feel real to him. He treated her like some sort of ghost. When among company it was the fake glass smiles, like they'd forgotten. At night she could hear him crying but there was nothing she could say or give. It wasn't her world that he was living in.

Years passed like this and things grew even more strained, a thread twisted and pulled right down to the thin, flossy flax. He left suddenly and when she woke up to the empty bed each morning that he was gone (she didn't know where), she knew already. She knew before she picked up the phone that rang one night during the dinner she ate alone.

Sitting on her porch, she knew what she had to do. She understood now. It had taken someone actually leaving her, actually getting up and walking completely out of her life (leaving no pieces), for her to understand what it was like to lose your heart. She understood how Jay must have felt. Tortured and bent but lost in serenity, frightening stillness. She needed to visit his grave. She needed to cry over the dirt over the casketcover over his body and touch the tombstone and confess.