“This is insane, Vivien.”
“Jump, Grandma!” Nolie yelled, rushing over to dance on the sand, still dripping and clinging to a towel. “It’s not scary at all!”
“Jump! Jump! Jump!” They started clapping and acting like a bunch of fools at a sporting event. Soon, every single person who was there was in on the nonsense.
When it died down, Jo Ellen braced her hands on her thighs, bending over to get right into Maggie’s face.
“Listen to me, Magnolia Fredericks Lawson. You do have things to let go of, and this is a rite of passage.”
“I’m too old and too ladylike and?—”
“Too stubborn,” Jo Ellen finished, literally pulling Maggie to her feet.
She came to a stand, doing her level best to stay steady on the sand. “Would you please?—”
“Wouldyouplease just come with me and cheer me on?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I know what you’re doing, Jo. I know you so well. You’ll get me up there and?—”
Laughing, Jo dramatically unzipped Maggie’s coverup to the delight of the crowd and tossed it to the sand. “You wore a bathing suit.”
“Because I came to the beach.”
“Off we go, Mags.” Jo threw her arm around her and started walking them both toward the bridge. And Maggie, God help her, went along with it.
She let Jo guide her to the wobbly stairs.
“This is crazy,” she muttered, but didn’t stop.
She held on to the railing and climbed to the top of the bridge, looking down. It really wasn’t far. She’d been on diving boards that were higher. Fifty years ago.
“To the middle,” Jo urged, never letting go of Maggie’s back.
When they got there, Maggie turned to her. “Are you happy now?”
“You know what? Iamhappy,” she said. “Because this is symbolic, Mags. This is us letting go of loneliness, cold, boredom, and waiting to die.”
A soft breeze ruffled Maggie’s short hair and blew over her nearly naked body. It felt…liberating. Alive. Terrifying and wonderful and so, so light.
“That’s not what I’m letting go of,” she whispered, accepting the fact that shewasgoing to jump.
“Then what?”
She let out a long, slow sigh and put her arm around Jo Ellen. “Roger.”
“Roger?”
“I’ve never really forgiven him for what he did.”
“Yes, you did,” Jo Ellen countered. “When that FBI agent came here and told us what he and Artie did and you found out that he tried so hard to make up for his petty crimes, you forgave him.”
“I didn’t, not really,” she replied, closing her eyes to enjoy the next whisper of wind and the message it held. “I have always resented what he did to our family, what he did to me, and what he did to us—you and me. Keeping us apart for thirty years!”
“That’s over now.”
She nodded, aware of the small group below them still calling out encouraging words and their names.
“It’s over but I have to let go of that last little bit of anger and resentment,” she said. “Even though, in the end—and with Artie’s help—he probably managed to slip into heaven by the back door, I have carried the weight of my feelings for so many years. I’ve awakened with that dark pit in my stomach so frequently, thinking…” She huffed out a breath. “Never mind.I’m jumping and letting go of any last vestiges of bitterness. It’s time to let go, Jo.”
