Page 49 of The Summer We Kept Secrets (The Destin Diaries #4)
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.”
Hand-in-hand, they crossed the pavers. The sun had set behind them, casting a golden light on Betty’s slightly red face.
Maggie squinted at her. Was that from rage or radiation? Was this the cancer finally showing itself?
Betty didn’t give them a chance to ask.
“I cannot believe the two of you went along with this cockamamie scheme,” she snapped, jabbing a finger toward the T-bird. “What were you thinking?”
Jo Ellen blinked. “Um…that it was your dream car and Frank asked us to help surprise you?”
Betty turned slowly toward her husband with a glare that could have stripped wallpaper. “ My dream car? Really, Frank?”
He looked sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck. “I thought you’d love it.”
“You thought I’d love it?” Her voice rose an octave. “You thought a little red speed trap with no cupholders and a trunk the size of a cereal box would make me swoon? You probably thought it’d make you look so sexy I’d do more of…you know.”
“Betty,” Frank hissed, glancing up toward the house. “There are people?—”
“Well, it didn’t!” she exclaimed. “You know what this bad decision did do? It made me throw my back out when you stalled three times between here and Santa Rosa Beach. You can’t even drive a stick shift, Frank!”
Maggie’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “We, uh, we thought it was what you wanted. You know, before you…uh…”
“Before I what?” Betty narrowed her eyes.
Jo Ellen shot Maggie a look that said don’t you dare .
Maggie stammered. “Before you…had to slow down?”
Betty’s hands flew to her hips. “Because I’m old?”
“No!” Maggie said quickly. “Because you’re sick.”
A pause. Frank’s eyes widened. Betty’s jaw dropped.
Jo Ellen stepped in, voice gentle. “We know you’re not telling people. We saw the medications. We saw how tired you looked. We figured it was serious. Life-threatening, even.”
Betty blinked. “Serious?”
Maggie nodded. “The pills, the hugging at the chemo center?—”
Betty let out a choking noise that sounded like a laugh and a scoff collided mid-throat. “My meds ? That was for a UTI!”
Maggie blinked. “Excuse me?”
“A urinary tract infection. Which I wouldn’t have gotten if my husband wasn’t so…you know. Busy. ”
Frank turned crimson. “Betty.”
“Well, it’s true! We were trying to spice things up. He read an article in AARP magazine and the next thing you know, I’m pretending to be a French maid.”
Jo Ellen looked like she’d seen a ghost. “Wait. Are you telling me all this drama was over a UTI?”
Betty folded her arms. “Blame him.”
“But the chemo place!” Maggie choked the words. “We saw you hugging and crying at a cancer center!”
Betty rolled her eyes. “My friend Miriam from old-lady Pilates started chemo and asked me to go with her. I decided to bring her my Italian wedding cookies—people loved them, so I visit with a couple dozen every week. I made friends. We lost one. It got emotional. Wait. You thought I had cancer ?”
“Well! Yes!” Maggie sputtered. “Why else would Frank order us on a covert car pickup mission to Miami?”
“Because he’s ridiculous,” Betty said. “And because he wanted to feel like James Bond again, I guess. Just call him Goldfinger.”
Maggie glared at him. “Good grief, Frank. You’re eighty-five. Doesn’t the statute of limitations on sex run out at seventy-nine?”
“Apparently not,” Jo muttered.
“I’m just stunned,” Maggie said. “All this time we were worried sick about you.”
“Well, I was sick,” Betty said. “Just not, you know, that sick.”
There was a long beat of silence.
Then Maggie felt a smile pull, her gaze moving from the crazy couple to the car. That car. That beautiful, liberating, fear-killing car.
“Well, I don’t care,” she said. “It was fun.”
Betty blinked. “Driving this roller-skate with a motor was fun? I barely fit, and Frank has absolutely no idea how to get into second gear.”
“I’ll teach you,” Maggie said, turning to Frank. “You gotta move the gas, clutch, and shift like a choreographed dance.”
“Who taught you that?” Frank asked.
“Oscar,” Maggie answered, making Jo Ellen snort.
“No, no,” Frank said quickly. “I’m getting rid of it. Whole thing was a bad idea.”
“ Getting rid of it ?” Maggie’s voice pitched higher. “You can’t do that! It’s the best car in the world!”
“It was…folly,” he admitted.
“Folly?” She laid her hand reverently on the hood. “This car transformed me. I changed lanes without white knuckles. I learned how to shift gears and let go of fear. I stood up for myself, I got arrested, I danced with a biker named Brick?—”
Betty gasped. “You what? ”
“It’s a long story,” Jo Ellen said, grinning.
Maggie looked at them again, her heart full. “This car reminded me I’m not done yet. That there are still adventures to be had. It’s more than a car—it’s a second chance.”
Frank and Betty exchanged a long look, one of those wordless, weary-but-loving glances only decades of marriage could perfect. Betty finally gave a small, reluctant nod.
Frank reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys.
“After what Roger and Artie did for us—protecting me, making sure I didn’t end up in prison for running the books—I owe you both. This is the least we can do.” He dangled the keys that Maggie knew like they were her own. “The car is yours, ladies. Take good care of her.”
Jo Ellen sucked in a breath. Maggie froze.
Was Frank really offering her the very thing she knew was missing in her life? And could she just accept it and the change it meant? Could she be the woman that Brick saw when he grinned at her? The woman who flew down the interstate, unburdened by fear?
Yes , she realized with a jolt. She already was that woman. And this car might not be Betty’s dream, but it turned out to be Maggie’s.
“Well?” Frank asked, shaking the keys.
Maggie snatched them from his hands as she and Jo squealed like teenagers and lunged to hug Frank and Betty at the same time, arms colliding in a tangled, emotional mess of laughter and joy.
“Thank you,” Maggie whispered, pulling Betty into a tight embrace. “We’ll take you for a joyride.”
Betty touched her face, unexpected tears in her eyes. “You look like you’ve already been on one,” she said. “I’m happy for you, Mags.”
“Well, we’re not just driving this thing around town,” Jo Ellen announced. “We’ve got plans. Road trips. Adventures. Maybe a few parking lot donuts. Well, as soon as you get your license renewed.”
“And we’re naming her,” Maggie declared, looking at Jo Ellen. Her friend just tipped her head knowingly, and they said the name in perfect unison.
“Scarlett.”
Frank groaned. “You two are going to be unbearable.”
“We already are,” Jo Ellen said sweetly. “But now we’re mobile.”
Maggie flipped the keys in Jo Ellen’s face with a teasing look. “I say we take Scarlett to Charleston next.”
“Where Rhett was born,” Jo Ellen said.
Laughing, they hugged.
“See? I paid attention to that endless movie,” Jo added as a whisper in her ear.
Maggie just squeezed her friend and felt whole and excited for life. She might not have that many years left, but she was going to make every one of them count.