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 felthomey.
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. “Myladyfriends?”
“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. Speakingof 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.
