The Silent Waters (5 page)

I shrugged. “She was just being dramatic again.”

“For two best friends, you sure get annoyed with one another quite often.”

“Yeah, well, that’s kind of what girls do.”

She smiled and agreed completely. “Well, just remember, she’s younger than you, Maggie, and Cheryl doesn’t have it as easy as you do. She’s a bit of a loner and an oddball, and doesn’t quite fit in. You’re her only true friend and her sister. She’s family, and what does family do?”

“Look out for each other?”

Mama nodded and kissed my forehead. “That’s right. We look out for each other, even on the tough days.” Whenever Cheryl and I got into fights, Mama always said that to me.
Family looks out for each other.
Especially on the tough days when it was hard to even look
at
each other.

I remembered the first time she had said it, too. She and Daddy had sat Calvin, Cheryl, and me down in the living room and told us all it was okay to call them Mama and Dad if we wanted to. It was the night of their wedding, and we were officially a family. As we sat there, Mama and Daddy had us pile our hands on top of one another and make a promise to always look out for each other.
Because that’s what families do.

“I’ll apologize,” I whispered to myself, talking about Cheryl. She was, after all, my best friend.

I spent the rest of the afternoon planning the wedding. I’d been dreaming of my wedding since I was seven years old, so a super long time. I wondered what kind of music Brooks liked. Since he wouldn’t let me listen, I had to guess on my own. He and Calvin had been messing around with Daddy’s guitars a bit each night and said they were going to be famous musicians someday. I didn’t much believe them at first, but the more they practiced each night, the better they got. Maybe they could play at the wedding. Also, maybe I’d pick his favorite song to walk down the aisle to. Then again, he and my brother had been singing “Sexy Back” by Justin Timberlake for the past week, and that didn’t seem wedding-y enough for me.

Maybe for our first dance, though.

Each night after Mama and Daddy put us all to bed, I’d hear music playing downstairs in the living room. It was the same song every single time: Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me”—their first dance song. Tiptoeing out of my room, I went to the top of the staircase and looked downstairs. The lights were dimmed, Daddy took Mama’s hand and asked her a question. “Dance with me?” he asked her every night before they started to dance. Daddy was spinning Mama around in circles, both of them giggling like they were kids. Mama had a glass of wine in her hand, and as Daddy swayed her, the wine flew from the glass and onto the white carpet. They giggled even more at the mess and pulled each other closer. Mama’s head rested against Daddy’s chest as he whispered into her ear, and they danced so slow.

That’s what true love meant to me.

True love meant you could laugh at mistakes.

True love meant you could whisper secrets.

True love meant you never had to dance alone.

The next morning, I woke ready for the day ahead of me. “Today is the rehearsal for my wedding day!” I shouted, stretching my arms out and jumping up and down on my bed. “It’s my rehearsal! It’s my rehearsal day!”

Calvin stumbled into my bedroom, rubbing his hands over his sleepy eyes. “Gosh, Maggie, can you shut it? It’s three in the morning,” he griped, yawning.

I smirked. “It doesn’t matter, because it’s my rehearsal day, Calvin!”

He grumbled some more and called me a name, but I didn’t care.

Daddy stumbled into my room almost exactly how my brother had, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He walked over to my bed, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, forcing him to hold me up in the air.

“Daddy, guess what? Guess what?” I shrieked with excitement.

“Let me guess, you’re having your wedding rehearsal today?”

I nodded quickly and laughed as he tiredly spun me around in a circle. “How did you know?”

He smirked. “Lucky guess.”

“Can you make her stop yelling so we can go back to bed?” Calvin groaned. “It’s not even a real wedding!”

I gasped and went to sass him for his lies, but Daddy stopped me, whispering, “Someone’s not a morning person. How about we all go back to bed for a few hours, and then I’ll cook you a day-before-wedding-day breakfast?”

“Waffles with strawberries and whipped cream?”

“And sprinkles!” He smiled.

Calvin stomped his grumpy butt back to his room, and Daddy laid me back down on my bed, giving me Eskimo kisses. “Try to get a few more hours of sleep, okay, honey? You have a big day ahead of you.” He tucked me in, the same way he did each and every night.

“Okay.”

“And, Maggie May?”

“Yes?”

“The world keeps spinning because your heartbeats exist.” He’d said those words to me every single day, as long as I could remember.

When he left the room, he shut the light off, and I lay in bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on my ceiling, smiling wide with my hands over my chest, where I felt each and every one of my heartbeats that kept the world spinning.

I knew I was supposed to be sleeping, but I couldn’t, because it was the day before my wedding day, and I was about to marry a boy who didn’t know it yet, but was going to be my best friend once we made it to our ten-year anniversary.

He’d probably need those ten years to realize he did indeed want to be my husband.

And we’d obviously live happily ever after.

When morning came, I was the first one up, waiting downstairs for my waffles. Daddy and Mama were still sleeping when I creeped into their bedroom.

“Hey, you guys awake?” I whispered. Nothing. Poking Daddy in the cheek, I repeated myself. “Hey, you awake, Daddy?”

“Maggie May, it’s not time to get up yet,” he murmured.

“But, you said you’d make waffles!” I whined.

“In the morning.”

“It is morning,” I groaned and walked over to their windows, pulling back the drapes. “See? The sun is out.”

“The sun is a liar, that’s why God created curtains,” Mama yawned, rolling on her side. She opened her eyes and glanced at the clock on her nightstand. “Five-thirty a.m. on a Saturday is not the morning, Maggie May. Now get back to bed, and we’ll come wake you up.”

They didn’t wake me until eight in the morning—but surprisingly I was already up. The day went slower than I wanted it to, and my parents made me go watch Cheryl’s dance recital, which lasted longer than it should’ve, but once we got home, I was ready to head out to Brooks.

Mama told me I could only go off to play if I took Cheryl with me, but even after I apologized to her, she still didn’t want to be my maid of honor, so I had to sneak off on my own to go meet Brooks in the woods. I skipped down the streets of the neighborhood, taking in the perfectly mowed lawns and perfectly planted flowers. Harper County was a small town where everyone knew everyone, so it wouldn’t be long before Mama got a call saying so-and-so saw me skipping down the street alone. Therefore, I had to be quick.

Just not
too
quick, because I always had to stop on the corner of my block, look both ways down the road, then cross the street to Mrs. Boone’s house. Mrs. Boone’s lawn was the complete opposite of everyone else’s. She had flowers growing everywhere, with no kind of order at all. Yellow roses, lavender, poppies—you named a flower, and it was probably growing in Mrs. Boone’s yard.

Nobody ever bothered stopping by the old lady’s house. Everyone called her rude, grumpy, and standoffish. Mostly she sat alone on her front porch, swaying back and forth in her rocker, mumbling to herself as her cat, Muffins, rolled around in the yard.

My favorite time of the day was when Mrs. Boone went inside to make herself some tea. She drank more tea than anyone I’d ever seen. One day Cheryl and I watched her from across the street and were blown away by the number of times Mrs. Boone left her rocker and came back with a cup of tea.

Whenever she disappeared into the house, I’d sneak into her front yard, which was guarded by a white picket fence. I’d smell as many flowers as possible then roll around in the high grass with Muffins.

That night, I hurried into her yard, because I didn’t have much time before I had to meet Brooks.

“Hey! Eric’s girl! Get off my lawn!” Mrs. Boone hissed, pushing open her screen door with a cup of tea. I’d told her my name hundreds of times, but she refused to ever acknowledge it.

“Maggie,” I said, standing up and holding a purring Muffins in my hands. “My name is Maggie, Mrs. Boone.
Maggie
.” I said it slow and loud the second time, to make sure she understood.

“Oh, I know who you are, you little rascal! Now get away from my flowers and my cat!”

I ignored her. “Gee, Mrs. B, you got the prettiest flowers I’ve ever seen in your yard. Did you know that? My name’s Maggie, again, just in case you forgot it. You can call me Maggie May if ya want. A lot of my family calls me that. Speaking of family and flowers, I thought I might ask…do you think I can borrow some of your flowers for my wedding tomorrow?”

“Wedding?” she huffed, narrowing her eyes, which were covered in too much makeup. Mama always said less was more. Mrs. Boone obviously said the opposite of that. “Aren’t you a bit young to be getting married?”

“Love knows no age, Mrs. B.” I reached for a poppy, picked it, and placed it behind my ear as Muffins leaped out of my arms.

“Pick one more flower and you’ll never be able to pick another thing in your life,” she warned, giving me a grumpy frown.

“I’ll even toss in some ice cream for the flowers, Mrs. B! I can pick them all now, so you won’t have to worry about—”

“
Leave!
” she shouted, her voice sending chills down my spine. I stood up straight, my eyes wide with panic and stepped backward.

“Okay. Well, if you change your mind, I’ll be passing by tomorrow, too, before the wedding. You can even come if you want. It will be between the two twisty trees in the woods at five tomorrow night. Mama’s making cake, and Dad’s making punch. You can bring Muffins, too! Bye, Mrs. B! See you tomorrow!”

She grumbled some more as I hurried out of her yard, picking two yellow roses to take with me. I skipped along and waved goodbye to the grumpy lady who probably wasn’t really grumpy, but just liked to live up to the rumors her neighbors made up.