17. Maggie
The drive home from Crawfordville was a lot less fun than the drive there, when they’d been sandwiched between their motorcycle motorcade and the truck, so Maggie didn’t have to think about how to get where they were going.
Getting back was harder, but Maggie took it slow and easy, still feeling the glow of a long, late night that had been nothing but fun.
They’d slept upstairs in the rental rooms at Gator Jack’s from about four a.m. to nearly eleven this morning. Brick had made them brunch, packed a cooler for the road, and the whole crew had sent them off with cheers and waves.
Every once in a while, Jo Ellen giggled, sighed, and shifted in her seat murmuring things like, “That was so much fun!” and “I haven’t felt this young in years.”
Finally, Maggie put her hand on Jo Ellen’s arm and pressed. “I need you to swear something.”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“Then swear never, ever to tell a human being about last night.”
“Oh, Mags. Brick knew. Charlene obviously knew. The whole place probably knew when the Monkees came on.”
Maggie bit her lip. Oh, she was a believer last night. She was Micky Dolenz reincarnated last night. “But no one who matters knows.”
Jo Ellen gasped. “Brick matters!”
“In our family,” she ground out.
Next to her, Jo leaned back and gave another giggle.
“Now what?”
“You said family—singular. Don’t you think that’s…amazing?”
“I think it’s…” Interesting. “Marijuana brain.”
Jo Ellen snorted. “Fine. The secret is safe with me. What happens in the storeroom with Acapulco Gold stays there.”
“Promise?”
“I swear on the Tri-Delt sisterhood.” She held up her pinky. “And our family.”
Smiling, Maggie crooked her baby finger in Jo Ellen’s, relieved to have that taken care of.
“But we can talk about it, right?” Jo Ellen asked after less than five seconds had passed. “Just the two of us when we want to remember?”
“Yes, but I’m…” Maggie swallowed and glanced at her. “Jo, I know you’re fun-loving and maybe a little reckless, but I’m not, okay? I’m a little embarrassed that I did pot—”
“No one says that anymore.”
“Especially us,” Maggie shot back. “Anyway, something deep inside feels like it might have been wrong.”
“It’s legal in most states!” Jo Ellen insisted. “And it’s natural. From a plant! Everyone says it’s better for you than wine.” She leaned in. “I asked Oscar.”
“You told Oscar?”
“Mags, it’s an AI robot on my phone, not an actual person.”
Maggie sniffed. “I still don’t want him—it—to know. Authorities could, you know, read those messages. Please. I only have shreds of dignity left.”
“Pfft.” She flicked her fingers. “Dignity is—oh, my God, Maggie!”
“What?” She panicked, tapped the brakes and looked around for a truck headed directly at them. “What?”
“Basil! I never brought him inside!”
Adrenaline dumped. “A plant?”
“I just remembered because I asked Oscar if Basil would travel well—he said no—so I left him out to get the last of the sun and forgot to bring him in.” She made a face. “Maybe he tumbled into a corner and survived.”
“He is a plant. Oscar is a…software. And you?” Maggie smiled at her. “Are an absolute nutcase.”
“But I’m your nutcase.” Jo Ellen squeezed her hand. “And…we…are…family!”
“Do not sing that song. It won’t leave my head for a week.”
Smirking, Jo hummed it until they reached the outskirts of Destin.
They came up the long curve of Gulf Shore Drive an hour later and the Summer House appeared like Tara in Gone with the Wind. Still standing after the war.
First, Maggie saw the roofline—maybe a few tiles missing, but nothing serious—then the snow-white stucco—which would probably benefit from a pressure wash to get the dirt and leaves off—and the teal shutters around boarded windows.
Yes, they’d received the texts that there hadn’t been damage, but after the one from Tessa that Jo Ellen read a little while ago, she’d been tense.
The relief came up under her ribs and surprised her. The driveway had already been cleared of branches and her favorite parking spot in the shade was waiting for Scarlett to rest after a long drive.
“Oh, the palm trees!” Jo Ellen exclaimed, pointing at the two tall enough for the fronds to brush their windows. “They look sad and naked.”
“But standing,” Maggie said, for once the optimist of the two.
The driveway began to fill with family as they pulled in, coming in and out of the garage.
Eli walked closer to greet them, and behind him, Jonah and Connor dragged a branch the size of a car toward a pile of debris by the road.
Kate, holding Atlas, was chatting with Tessa, who had Olive on her hip, the two of them looking like mothers sharing tales about their children.
Vivien stood on the front patio with Peter, who was on the phone.
Meredith and Emma looked like they were taking a break from cleanup, perched on the steps.
Refusing to admit it even to herself, love for every one of them swelled up in Maggie’s heart. One family, indeed.
Maggie pulled the T-bird up the drive and Jo Ellen was out of the car before it had completely stopped.
“I’m going to check on Basil,” she said, hopping out of the car and waving to everyone.
Eli snagged her and said something while Maggie turned off the engine and gathered her wits before climbing out.
“Welcome home, Mom,” Eli said as he greeted her with a hug.
“Hello, son.” She squeezed him back, a fleeting thought that he might smell pot in her hair, since the shower had been cold and the soap was so not scented. She’d die if Eli found out. She’d die if any of them found out, but to Eli, it would surely be a sin.
“She’s in a big hurry,” he said, laughing in Jo Ellen’s direction. “But it’s fine. There was minimal damage.”
“Thank goodness.” She took a few steps into the driveway as Vivien headed over, arms outstretched.
“You made it, Mom. We missed you. Did you have fun?”
Maggie swallowed and mustered a guilty smile. “Oh, you know. A dive bar in a redneck town. How much fun could I have?”
Kate joined them, holding Atlas out. “Say hello to the great-grandmother who loves you more than her plants. My own mother barely said hello.”
Maggie kissed Atlas’s head. “She left her basil plant on the balcony and is deeply worried—”
“What?” Eli demanded. “The balcony?”
“Yes, she relied on that silly AI thing on her phone and—”
“She shouldn’t go out there,” Eli said. “There was a lot of wind pressure along the tunnel between the houses where that balcony is. I want to check the bolts before anybody leans on anything. It’s probably fine, but stay off the railing.”
The railing that Jo Ellen leaned against every time she was out there, always as far out as she could go to catch a glimpse of the Gulf?
Maggie tried to form the words “Someone go stop her!” but nothing came out.
Instead, she just brushed by everyone, moving faster than her old legs wanted to go, and darted toward the door that led to their stairs.
“Jo!” she called, already winded. “Jo Ellen!”
Her feet found each stair, miraculously.
“Mom! Mom, wait—”
Not me, she wanted to yell, but didn’t have the lung capacity. Someone stop Jo!
She hit the top of the stairs, fumbled the door, and threw it open. “Jo!”
The slider to the balcony stood open behind the kitchen table.
The afternoon light came through the door and made a long gold rectangle on the kitchen tile. The balcony, beyond, was empty—no pots, no chairs, no…railing.
Not all of it. Just a section, where the railing had pulled away from the house at the post and was hanging out into open air at a tilted angle.
Maggie put her hand on the doorframe, frozen in horror.
Please be in the bathroom. Please, God, let Jo be in the bathroom.
“Jo Ellen!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, a long, vocal demand that her best friend and life partner and most important person pop out of the bathroom they shared, dressed in her ridiculous flamingo robe with some dumb, happy comment.
Eli swooped past her, a word she didn’t think she’d ever heard him say rumbling from his chest as he forced her to stay back.
“Don’t!”
He went to the balcony and stopped, looking over.
Every ounce of blood in Maggie’s body pooled to a hot, bubbling center of fear. No. No. No.
Eli turned around, abject horror on his face. “Call 911. Now!”
No. No. Nooooo.
The rest of the hour, the day, the night, passed in a sickening blur of fear and pain and sirens and the agony of it all.
Maggie would never forget the sight when she finally made her way downstairs and dared to look.
Jo Ellen, on her back, one arm bent, the pale floral fabric of her blouse spread on the green of the yard.
Her silver-haired head was turned slightly toward the house, and her eyes were closed. She was perfectly, terribly still.
Maggie made a sound, startling herself from the memory as she sat in the icy cold hospital waiting room, vaguely aware of people around her, some talking, most crying, all checking on her.
She didn’t speak.
Instead, she replayed the blur of time over and over again.
From the moment she managed to get to the side yard, looking over shoulders and around bodies, needing to see only one thing—that chest rise and fall with the breath of life.
She didn’t, but she heard Eli say loudly, “She’s alive!”
Maggie sobbed then, or maybe it was Kate. Or Tessa. Someone sobbed.
Then came the eternity of waiting for an ambulance on a day when there were so, so few available. Peter called in every favor he had, begging—she’d heard him literally beg—a dispatcher for a crew, and one did show up. Ten minutes? Twenty? Maggie had no idea.
This was Jo Ellen. Time had stopped.
Then paramedics arrived in droves, or so it seemed. So many young men in uniforms and jackets, carrying stretchers and equipment, calling out vital signs and orders that all just sounded so, so scary.
Then the blur moved. She wanted to go in the ambulance but lost that fight. Someone got her here. Vivien, maybe? No, Meredith. She didn’t remember.
But where was she? A hospital. Fort Walton Beach. A waiting room. Kate and Tessa handled the information, the sign-in.