Chapter 30 Dove
DOVE
Jedd had finished the fireworks just as we arrived back with our laundry. They sat on the table near the kitchen in a small box, waiting for us, and they were the first thing my eyes landed on when we walked through the door.
It was both jarring and a relief at once.
Now we were in his truck as it rumbled steadily along the highway, the trailer behind us heavy with the boat it carried.
From the back seat, I watched the boat rock in its harness, steel glinting whenever sunlight broke through the clouded sky.
Ellis sat close to my side, her thigh warm against mine, and on my other side rested the fireworks—the final vessel of Margaret, waiting for her send-off.
I stared at them in wonder, surprised at how small it felt. Margaret, of all people—who had been all sound and color, who filled every room she entered with her velvet laughter and commanding voice—was suddenly reduced to a few small tubes.
I brushed my thumb along the lip of the box. My throat ached, my chest felt heavy, and my eyes burned. She would burn bright one more time tonight.
And then she would be gone.
Up front, Liv had claimed the passenger seat, her black boots braced on the dash. Though Jedd couldn’t see her, he still smiled, his hair brushed and his face freshly shaved, his eyes fixed on the winding road ahead.
I sighed softly and let my head fall back, my mind catching on a memory with Margaret I allowed myself to slip into.
“Sit, Dove,” she murmured, patting the cushion beside her. “You’re wearing your storm face again. I don’t like it. Sit.”
I sank down beside her and crossed my arms tightly over my chest. “You’re just acting like this is nothing. Like—like they didn’t just sign you off.”
Margaret chuckled and poured tea from her brightly colored pot, her rings and bangles catching the dim light of her old chandelier. “Girly, no one signs me off but me.” She nudged a cup toward me. “Drink. The world doesn’t stop spinning just because my clock is running out.”
Tears burned behind my eyes, and I thumbed the rim of the cup, hot steam brushing my skin.
“You can’t just leave me.”
Her heavy sigh filled my ears, and her bangles tinkled as she moved, taking my hand and squeezing it. I looked up to meet her eyes.
“We’re never ready for loss like that, Dovey.
Losing the people we love, it’s not something you can warm up for or prepare for.
It always feels sudden, catching you unaware, as if it truly happened all at once.
” She smiled gently at me. “Death doesn’t mean erasure, Dovey.
It’s just a brightly colored door the people we love walk through.
We think they’re gone, but they’re not. They’re just on another adventure. One we aren’t part of yet.”
I shook my head and couldn’t stop the sob that clawed its way out. “I just want you. I want to adventure together.”
“You’ll always have me, Dove,” Margaret murmured.
“You’ll feel me in the cards or every time you light incense.
You may not have the physical me, but you’ll have the echoes I leave behind, the imprints of my soul that press into yours.
They never leave. Echoes don’t fade, Dovey. Not when you keep calling.”
I hadn’t believed her back then, too wrapped up in my own despair at losing her to truly absorb her words.
I understood them more now—the gravity she had woven into them, words meant for me to remember and hold onto.
With the fireworks sitting beside me, her words landed differently.
They felt truer now than they ever had before.
The truck turned down toward the marina, jolting me back to just how far we had driven. I sucked in a breath and pressed my palms into my thighs.
“You okay?” Ellis whispered beside me, her hand inching toward mine.
I nodded, though my voice came out rough when I spoke. “Just finishing up yet another Margaret adventure.”
Ellis smiled gently and laced her fingers through mine, giving a soft squeeze. No further questions, no pressure to talk about my feelings. Just presence—something to lean into.
And I did.
The marina came into view as Jedd navigated his truck and boat down the narrow road. Rows of masts rocked against the late-afternoon sky, gulls circling and crying like gossipers with too much tea to spill and not enough people to hear it.
“Okay,” Jedd murmured as he maneuvered the truck into a spot near the dock, his jaw tight with concentration as he backed the trailer in.
He looked as if he were holding his breath, and Liv watched him with impressed eyes.
When the boat finally rested on the slip, he exhaled and muttered a quiet “Perfect” under his breath.
“What a show-off,” Liv teased, glancing back at us with a wink. “He’s so hot.”
Ellis let out a soft snort, and I laughed despite the growing ache in my stomach.
We climbed out and stretched our stiff limbs, the salt wind hitting us in full force. I stared at the ocean spread wide ahead of us, blue stretching on forever as sunlight shimmered and danced across its surface.
Jedd brushed his hands against his sweatpants as he hopped out. “Let me just finish tying it off, and then we can load up.”
I nodded and stood beside Ellis, the small box cradled in my arms. She glanced at it and then at me before her arm slid around my back and rested there, offering her silent support.
I sighed as the wind tugged at my shirt.
“This is the ending I didn’t want, even though it’s the one she asked for.”
Ellis smiled softly and leaned her head against my shoulder. We stood together in silence, watching Jedd finish his work, Liv hovering behind him like an invisible supervisor.
“All right,” he called as he got to his feet, dusting off his hands. “Ready to board?”
I gripped the box tighter and swallowed. “Ready.”
We moved onto the dock together, the boards creaking beneath our weight, and one by one we climbed onto the boat.
I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath and clutching the box like a lifeline until the boat nosed past the breakwater and the marina slipped away behind us.
Jedd kept the bow steady, his shoulders set in a firm line as he steered us into open water.
Liv sat beside him, gazing at him with a wistful smile before turning to look out into the dusky sky and endless sea.
I followed her gaze and admired the horizon, spread around us like melted sherbet, the sky bruising into purple higher up, as if someone had painted the scene and smudged the edge of day into night with a thumb.
It was beautiful.
Margaret would have loved it.
Salt bit at my lips and cool air whipped around me as a few gulls circled the boat, squawking loudly before wheeling back toward the marina.
“Do you think there are sunsets wherever I’m going next?” Liv asked, her voice more reverent and softer than I was used to hearing.
“They’ll be far more beautiful where you’re going, Liv,” Ellis said, perching on the bench near her.
Jedd glanced down.
“Liv wanted to know if there will be sunsets as amazing as this wherever she’s going next,” I supplied, and he gave me a small smile.
“I hope there are,” he murmured. “She loved a good sunset.”
It wasn’t dark enough for stars yet, and the ocean stretched before me like a glimmering golden sheet. The cool wind bit at any exposed skin it could find, and guilt suddenly jabbed at me as a thought crossed my mind.
Ida.
She should have been here, even if she did think she had made her peace already.
She should have been swatting my arm and telling me I was squeezing Margaret too hard, or yelling at Jedd about life jackets, or rolling her eyes at me and kissing my forehead in the same breath.
I was being selfish.
I set the box down by my feet and pulled out my phone, skimming through my contacts until I found Ida.
I tapped the video icon to FaceTime her rather than just call.
The usual pulsing beep filled the air, then whooshed as she answered, the screen opening to reveal Ida, her half-moon spectacles balanced on the bridge of her nose as she looked down at the phone, which I knew she was holding far away with an outstretched arm.
I could see the shop in the background—the jars of herbs, the pendulum case, the vibrant lamp with the beaded fringe.
“Dove!” Ida shrieked with excitement. “Oh, how exciting! I was expecting a text message, kid. How are you, my feral earth traveler?”
I laughed at her words, a wave of homesickness washing over me as tears filled my eyes.
“Hi, Ida,” I said with a wide smile. “I’m good. I’m really good.”
“That’s good, love,” Ida said softly, settling into the seat behind the counter before squinting at me. “Where are you exactly?”
“I’m on a boat, actually,” I told her with a soft laugh, glancing behind me at the dark line of coast slowly creeping up on us. “I’m on a boat on the Pacific Ocean. And we’re about to scatter Margaret… with the fireworks.”
I glanced at Ellis over the phone as I spoke, her lips fighting a smile while Liv watched with interest. Jedd continued to steer, scanning the horizon.
I angled the phone down toward the box of fireworks. The camera wobbled in my hand as the boat crossed a wave. Ida made a small “ooh” at the sight, and then I turned the camera back to me.
“Jedd helped us,” I added. “A friend we met. He’s also our boat guy.”
“Well,” Ida said with a heavy sigh, “every great ash scattering is best supported by a boat guy or a getaway driver. Oh, Dove, she would be so proud of you. You know that, don’t you? And you know this isn’t the end of her.”
I nodded, my vision blurring as I wiped my cold nose. “I know,” I murmured as Ellis came over and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “I know. She said death was a door, that we only think it’s a wall because we can’t see the other side of it.”
Ida nodded gently.
“Our darling Margaret was both a menace and a mystic,” Ida said fondly. “If anyone was going to pick the loudest and most scenic way to go out into the afterlife, it would be her.”