Chapter 3 Maggie
Maggie Lawson woke at dawn to the sound of someone in the kitchenette clanging a spoon against a mug so loud it could have been a shovel and a metal trash can.
Really, Jo?
Maggie lay still, listening. The two-bedroom apartment above the Summer House’s garage had its own rhythms—soft ones and…the sound of Jo Ellen making tea. At first, it was annoying. But now? It was a reminder to Maggie that she wasn’t alone, and she liked that.
She liked everything about waking up in this apartment, to be honest.
The gulls outside her window were white against the blue morning sky, squawking a greeting.
The distant sound of a car driving down Gulf Shore Boulevard gave her a weird sense of being somewhere that wasn’t suburbia.
Even the ticking of that living room clock Jo Ellen called “quaint” and Maggie called “deafening” was… home.
The idea still startled her, especially since she’d only been here about a month.
How could this small apartment on a beach in Florida be home?
Maggie, born and raised in Atlanta, had never lived anywhere but Georgia.
She enjoyed a spacious suite and all the amenities—including her flawless rose garden—as a permanent resident in her daughter’s sprawling brick Colonial.
That was home. Wasn’t it?
At the thought, she blinked away sleep and stared up at the ceiling fan, which whirred silently, the soundless spin adding to the overall sense of comfort.
That’s what she felt here. And not the “I’m settled into my routine” comfort that any self-respecting seventy-eight-year-old should relish in her sunset years.
This was a bone-deep comfort. The feeling that she…belonged.
Good heavens. It was a brand-new, monstrous beach house that rose up from the sand where an old cottage had once stood.
This structure had no real memories. These walls didn’t hold sentimental value.
This apartment was practically an afterthought to raise the value of an already ridiculously overpriced piece of property.
But somehow, it felt so right to wake up here every morning—on the beach, sharing an apartment with an old friend who always managed to make Maggie laugh. Not a rose in sight, except one in a pretty container on the windowsill, and yet it felt right.
Quick panting and movement at the bottom of her bed made Maggie stir, inching up to smile at Aunt Pittypat.
“Have you missed me, sweetheart?” she whispered, reaching for the teacup Yorkie. Pitty had stayed in Atlanta, cared for by Maggie’s granddaughter, for the past month. But Crista and Nolie arrived recently with Pittypat, who didn’t seem to feel at all at home in this apartment.
She slept with Maggie, as she always did, but the dog was restless—no doubt looking for the little girl who showered her in love and dressed her up in lace doll frocks.
“All right,” she said, sitting all the way up. “Let’s find Nolie for you. I have a feeling I’ve lost you to another woman, you little traitor.”
She turned to get out of bed the way a woman her age always did—slowly, carefully, and with an inventory of what might hurt today.
Nothing, if she didn’t count the low-key neuropathy that made her toes tingle or the old ache in her back that had become part of life.
She stepped into a golden strip of sunlight that cut across the hardwood floor. Even the shades of the floor, the warmth of the sun, and the distant sound of Jo Ellen humming an old Motown song felt homey.
When had this happened and what did it mean? The apartment had two bedrooms and a living area and kitchenette that functioned well for them, but it wasn’t a six-bedroom showplace with an expansive deck and an egg chair that looked out at her garden.
Still, it hadn’t taken long for Maggie to find herself sitting in the swivel chair by the window every afternoon. She contentedly watched pelicans and listened to Jo Ellen natter on about her word puzzles on the iPad or ask really dumb questions of Oscar, that ridiculous AI thing on her phone.
Grabbing the light robe that matched her steel-gray pajamas, Maggie walked into the kitchenette, where Jo Ellen stood holding a mug and looking out the window. There wasn’t an actual water view from here, but there was plenty of sky and green horizon and sand dunes in the distance.
“Morning, Mags.” Jo Ellen turned, silver hair up in a youthful-looking ponytail. “And Pittypat!” She beamed down at the dog. “I thought she might choose to sleep with Nolie in the house.”
“She will tonight,” Maggie said. “I’m afraid her loyalties have shifted.” On a sigh, she looked around, the casual beach décor like an invitation to sit and not move all day. “Some of mine have, too,” she added on a whisper.
“Oh, no. You want to leave.” Jo Ellen put her mug down and tightened her flamingo-covered bathrobe that used to be absurd but now made Maggie just feel good every time she looked at it.
“I knew it. You’re going back to Atlanta with Crista and Nolie.
You hate the beach. You want to go back to your rose garden and your lady friends. ”
Maggie bit her lip. “My lady friends?”
“The gardening club you went to Europe with. The other rose ladies. Not…me.”
Maggie wanted to laugh, but the fact that Jo Ellen was so far off base was not funny.
“On the contrary,” Maggie said. “I was just musing over the fact that I don’t want to leave this place. And that’s just wrong.”
“I feel the same!” Jo Ellen gushed. “I feel like if I never see snow again or walk through that dreary house in Ithaca that just feels empty without Artie, then I’ll be just fine.”
“Well, we’re here for the summer,” Maggie said, reaching for Pittypat’s leash by the door.
“And then what?”
As she bent over to clip the leash to the collar, Maggie looked up at her friend. “Then my kids will either sell this place for a huge profit or keep it. I gave them this house when Eli finished building it, and come November, they can legally sell it.”
“I don’t think Eli needs the money and I sense that Vivien would never leave unless she had to,” Jo Ellen said, sounding like she’d given the situation a lot of thought. “Crista is the wild card.”
The statement about her youngest echoed as Maggie made her way to the patch of grass at the side of the house. Speaking of wild cards—where was Anthony? Why wasn’t he here? Did it mean he’d taken a stance against selling?
As Crista’s husband, he certainly had a say in whether or not the Lawson siblings kept this house, the only asset that Maggie hadn’t been forced to turn over to the government after her husband’s arrest thirty-plus years ago.
“Pittypat!” Nolie’s high-pitched voice echoed from upstairs, on the side of the massive deck. “Grandma! I’m coming down! I can walk her for you.”
Maggie smiled up at her beloved girl, almost as excited as Pitty, who was dancing and wagging at the sound of Nolie’s voice.
A moment later, the little girl came flying out, waving an empty plastic bag. “I wasn’t sure if you had a poop bag!”
Maggie rolled her eyes at the uncouth phrase, but took the hug sweet Nolie offered.
“I’ve been hoping you’d get up early,” Nolie said, breathlessly dropping to her knees to cover Pitty in kisses. “Everyone in the house is still asleep and Mommy said I had to let you sleep, too.”
“She’s up?” Maggie asked.
Nolie nodded. “On the deck.”
So it was a perfect time to talk.
Maggie secured the leash in Nolie’s tiny hand. “Stay with her until she does her business, darling. I’m going to have coffee with your mommy.”
“Okay!” She pranced away and Maggie headed right to the stairs that would take her to the deck. There, she found Crista deep in thought, staring at the horizon.
She wasn’t holding a coffee. She wasn’t scrolling her phone. She was just…looking out. Hands resting on the balustrade railing, shoulders tense, dark hair pulled back, face with an expression of…well, she certainly didn’t look like someone enjoying a beach morning.
She looked troubled.
Crista didn’t turn until Maggie was almost beside her.
“Oh,” Crista said quickly, blinking as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. “Hi, Mama.”
Maggie eyed her carefully. Yes, Crista was four months pregnant, and no doubt had lost sleep, especially during that first trimester. But the shadows under her eyes were deep—deeper than they were when she’d been pregnant with Nolie.
“Nolie didn’t wake you, did she?” Crista asked.
“Please. Jo Ellen is the loudest tea brewer in history,” Maggie said. “It’s like the symphony percussion section has arrived every morning.”
Crista made a small laughing sound. “She’s…something.”
“She’s a delight,” Maggie said.
Crista glanced at her, surprised, probably because Maggie had never had anything nice to say about Jo Ellen Wylie in recent decades, but that was a long time—and a lot of revelations—ago.
“I’m glad you two are enjoying each other’s company,” Crista said.
“Oh, we are. I forgot how much fun she is.”
Crista swallowed and her gaze slid back to the horizon, too deep in thought to even react to Maggie’s appreciation for fun. It wasn’t something she was famous for.
Crista blinked, hard, as if the sun was in her eyes. The silence stretched a beat, long enough for Maggie to dive in.
“Are you happy you came down?” she asked.
Crista hesitated. “Of course.”
“And Anthony? Sad to miss it?”
Her eyes flashed. “Work,” she said simply.
“Ah, the new promotion really has him putting in the long hours, huh?” Maggie asked.
“Something does,” her daughter mumbled, the words almost lost as she turned. “There’s coffee brewed. Want a cup?”
“If it will get you to tell me what’s wrong with you.”
She gave the first smile that was deep enough to show her one dimple, the only one of Maggie’s three children to inherit Roger’s signature smile. “I’m fourteen weeks pregnant, Mama. I’m exhausted, and…yeah. That’s what’s wrong.”