Chapter 30 Dove #2
I laughed in agreement and sniffed.
The boat suddenly slowed and shuddered as the engine dropped out. I glanced up from the phone and saw night chewing further at the edges of everything, lights along the coast slowly flickering on to join the others glittering in the distance, the ocean now a dark sheet.
“This is it,” Jedd called as he stepped down from the helm to the deck. The wind had roughed his hair, and his smile was soft as he eyed the box. “We can set up here. The water’s calm, and there’s no traffic. No one to scare.”
My hands shook a little, but I took a calming breath, trying to ignore the splitting halves of my chest. Ellis’s hand found the back of my neck, her fingers resting at the nape and gently toying there, quieting the roar in my mind.
“Ida,” I said, clearing my throat. “Do you want to stay? I can prop you up somewhere.”
“Absolutely, kiddo,” she said with a beam down the line.
“Oh, I have my tripod,” Ellis said quickly, darting to her bag. The warmth that filled me at her constant state of preparedness was indescribable as I watched her set it up, securing it on the deck and making sure it wouldn’t fall over.
I glanced down at Ida, who raised her brows at me and then wiggled them.
I snorted.
Ellis took the phone from me and secured it in the tripod, taking the time to tilt the camera so Ida could see where we were and what we were doing.
“Great composition,” Ida said with a sniff. “Very cinematic.”
“Thanks,” Ellis said with a nervous laugh, glancing at me.
“You’d wanna hope the influencer could set up a tripod,” Liv teased as she twirled onto the deck, dancing around Jedd.
He had begun opening long plastic cases and laying out the components he needed to get Margaret into the sky.
I heard him muttering things like “launch base,” “tubes,” and “neat coil fuse.” He moved with ease, comfortable and practiced in his task, handling each part with the same care one might give a coffin.
Ida cleared her throat from the phone. “Dovey, are you going to have some music going when this all goes down?”
I blinked at her in surprise. “Music,” I repeated, wondering why it had never occurred to me before.
“Her favorite song, obviously,” Ida said. “You can’t fling a woman into the heavens without a soundtrack.”
“A good idea,” Jedd mumbled as he continued working. “Once we’re all set up, tell me what you want. My phone’s connected to the boat speakers. We can play it from there.”
“What’s her favorite song?” Liv asked with a raised brow.
“Into the Mystic,” I answered immediately, and Ida smiled at me through the screen. “Van Morrison.”
“Banger,” Jedd muttered as he got to his feet. “Well, we’re ready. Um… I’m not really sure how we run this. Did you have any final words?”
I took a breath and stared at their faces—the warmth and understanding burning in Ellis’s eyes, the excitement in Liv’s, the polite sympathy in Jedd’s, and the sheer heartbreak in Ida’s through the screen as she watched from her place on the tripod.
I was finally getting the moment that had been taken from me at her funeral.
It wouldn’t be half-assed.
“This is it, then, Margaret,” I said, turning to look at the sky.
“The last stop. The end of the road.” I looked to Ellis on that one, and she grinned at me.
“She would have loved this. From the moment I stole her ashes to this very point, she—she would have been on a high the entire time. She’s been bossing us around even in the grave, making sure she didn’t just get stuck on some shelf.
No. She had to have fireworks. Had to go out with dramatic flair.
And I—” I paused and shook my head, a broken grin spreading across my face.
“I really wouldn’t have it any other way. ”
I took a sobering breath and rubbed my temples.
“I said so many times before she died that I didn’t know how to do this without her.
That I—that I couldn’t do it without her.
She always said I could, and I believe her more and more each day.
” I sniffed back the swell of tears and wiped my eyes.
“Margaret taught me that magic wasn’t about wands or candles or sleight of hand or fancy words.
It was about people and presence, about showing up—and she was right, as usual.
The ripple we leave in people’s lives is never-ending, and it transcends every interaction thereafter.
I’ll carry her ripple as long as I live, and I’ll add it to mine. ”
I moved my gaze to the dark stretch of ocean.
“Thank you for making me who I am and—and for giving me enough to keep going without you,” I said, my voice cracking as Ellis took my hand. Jedd squinted and sniffed, keeping his face as manly as possible while he stared hard at the fireworks.
Liv gazed at me unblinking, and Ida dabbed at her eyes on the screen.
“Wherever you are out there, wherever you went,” I cleared my throat, “raise some serious hell, because you were always so damn good at that.”
Ida cheered from the phone at my words.
“You bet your ass she will be!”
Ellis squeezed my hand softly, and I met her green eyes, wet but steady.
“She’d be so proud of you, Dove,” she whispered, her voice trembling as the wind whipped her copper hair around.
“I didn’t know her, but she must have been extraordinary to raise someone as amazing as you.
And I think she’d be proud that you found a way to let her go the way she wanted—not quietly, not forgotten, but with the fireworks. ”
Something cracked in me at her words, my chest hitching as I squeezed her hand, unable to speak. Her belief in me—when half my family didn’t believe I could hold anything together—was almost too much to bear.
Liv’s voice broke the silence then, her arms wrapped around herself as if shielding her body from the cold she couldn’t feel, her pink hair stirring in the breeze.
“Thank you for letting me be here for this,” she murmured.
“It’s an honor to watch someone be sent off the way they deserved.
Margaret is lucky, Dove. Really lucky. And you did right by her—not everyone gets that.
You gave her the ending she would have wanted, and you’re helping…
you’re helping me get mine too. Never doubt yourself again, okay? ”
I swallowed hard at her words, blinking back the sting of tears as I looked to both Ellis and Liv—the ghost who had dragged me across the country and the girl who had helped me face grief along the way. All of it a ripple. Margaret’s ripple. My ripple.
It had all led here.
I cleared my throat and shot Jedd a teary smile, glancing at Ida.
“Let’s do this then,” I said, steadying my voice and looking to Jedd. “Let’s send her off.”
The deck shuddered under my shoes as Jedd hit play on his phone, the music spilling through his speakers. The song I had spent countless days dancing to with Margaret filled my ears.
Into the Mystic.
Jedd’s hands were steady, as if he had been born to handle this kind of ritual.
Ellis and I stepped back a little. She double-checked with Ida on the phone, making sure she could see.
Then the smell of gunpowder hit my senses, mixing with the saltwater air as the first spark lit, hot and electric, and it bit at the back of my throat.
Then—crack!
The first rocket tore skyward, screaming into the night, and my heart seemed to follow it. A breathless sound left my lips as Ellis squealed with delight. Liv howled like a wild animal as my eyes tracked the red streak until it burst open like a vein across the horizon.
A fierce blossom of light exploded in the sky, turning into glittering ash as it rained down, invisible against the waves. I gasped in wonder at the sight, the colors fading just as Jedd lined up a second.
The song blasted behind us as the next rocket tore away, a defiant anthem of joy mingling with Van Morrison’s voice.
Ellis clutched my arm, laughing through her tears at the way it shot upward—higher, faster—before exploding into a wild wash of blue that made Liv shriek and clap her hands with abandon.
The bangs echoed in my chest, the percussions surfacing something that had long been buried.
For every screech of fire there was a roar of laughter; Ellis tipping her head back, auburn hair catching the flare of gold above us; Liv leaning half over the rail, mouth wide with awe; Ida’s voice faint through the speakers, cheering for Margaret.
I looked back to the sky and pressed my hand to my chest—for once not just feeling the loss, but feeling her everywhere. I felt her in the heat that kissed my cheeks with every explosion, in the wild rhythm of my heartbeat as Ellis laughed beside me.
Jedd launched them with expert precision, and when only the last set remained, he looked up at me with a grin.
“Last one,” he said. “Want to light the finale?”
I swallowed and nodded, crouching beside him as he guided my hands, showing me what to do.
I held my breath, watching as the finale began—each rocket shooting out, one after another, in overlapping bangs and cascading sparks, painting the horizon in colors of the rainbow. I rose to my feet, screaming with them.
Not from pain.
Not from anger.
But from release.
My voice joined the thunderous chorus in an act of liberation—raw and ragged—as if my cries could carry Margaret higher and higher.
For this moment in time, there was nothing but fire, color, music, and laughter. When the last boom faded into smoke and the ocean swallowed it gently, silence returned—soft and holy, less weighted than before.
I laughed and wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand, my breath trembling as Ellis turned to me with a grin. My soul whispered into the quiet.
Goodbye, Margaret. You were always right.
It was always about the adventure.