“I don’t think there was a bar,” Meredith said. “Just a low point in my life and I tripped over it.”
“Are you sad?” Maggie asked.
“I started to get excited about a baby,” Meredith admitted after a moment. “But the situation wasn’t ideal, and I guess someone—or my body—knew that. I’d really rather, you know, meet Mr. Right, fall in love, do things the proper way.”
“You will,” Maggie assured her, her voice rich with conviction. “If you stop working so hard.”
Meredith looked up, a question in her eyes.
“I mean it,” Maggie said. “Take some time for you, dear one. Stay here and have a little fun. Recover, rest, and have a good long look at your life.”
She blinked, obviously not expecting that advice. “But who am I if I am not…Miss Perfect, the overachiever?”
Maggie just smiled. “Maybe it’s time to find out.”
Meredith looked down, her fingers twisting the hem of the blanket.
“I’m not saying give up your ambition,” Maggie added. “But maybe…reframe it. Make rest part of your success. Make room for peace.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You’ll learn. I am.”
“Oh, Grandma.” She leaned forward, arms out. “I’m really sorry if I put you through anything today.”
“All you did was remind me how much I love you.” As they hugged, a low, familiar rumble echoed from outside.
Maggie stiffened with a sharp intake of breath. She felt her eyes flash as she stood to walk to the window that looked out the front.
“He wouldn’t,” she muttered.
“You expecting someone?” Meredith asked.
She let out a relieved grunt at the sight of a beloved candy-apple red T-bird. “It’s Frank and Betty, bringing back our bags,” she said, then her heart stopped.
They would march right into the house and tell everyone everything.
“I’ll be back,” she said, whipping around. “I need to?—”
“It’s fine. I want to sleep.”
Maggie stole one second to lean over Meredith and kiss her head. “I love you. I don’t think I’ve told you that often enough.”
“I love you, too. But…” Her granddaughter looked up with teary eyes, then they narrowed in suspicion. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Life,” she whispered without hesitation.
On a chuckle, she breezed out of the room and made her way down the stairs, hearing the conversation still going in the kitchen. Jo Ellen came darting out, eyes wide.
“Frank’s here!” They spoke in perfect unison, then joined hands to head outside and stop Frank and Betty before her family found out she’d been gallivanting around Florida like a teenager on spring break.
“How could you?”Betty climbed out of the sports car with rage in her eyes, bringing Jo Ellen and Maggie to a dead stop halfway down the stairs to the driveway.
“How could we what?” Jo Ellen muttered under her breath.
“I guess Betty’s mad that we made her dreams come true,” Maggie said, straightening her spine. “That’s a little ungrateful.”
“Let’s find out.”
