TWENTY-SEVEN

The most amazing thing happened over the next three weeks. With the Parker family still in Boston, people from all over came to help at the store. Deacon said he could identify folks from at least five different counties spread from one side of the state to the other. I said there were a whole lot of people who loved the Parkers, but no one missed them more than me.

I learned what 4-H was when the kids showed up every afternoon to take care of the animals, and I got to know the track team really well when Bob had me teach them how to stock shelves. Angela gave her students extra credit for doing chores like hauling trash to the dump, and one of them wrote an article about community spirit for the newspaper.

Bob gathered a bunch of us kids together one day and took a photo to go with the article. It was printed right in the middle of the front page in black and white. There were eight of us standing with linked arms and smiling faces under the painted sign that read Parkers’ Country Store. I cut the photo out and taped it to the fridge where Mama’d have to see it every time she opened the door.

People from the church with the steeple came to help customers. Deacon told me in secret that none of them were as much fun as Mama. One lady was a retired bank teller. She sorted out receipts every night, marked things in a book, and deposited money the next day. Then, a cross-country truck driver named Harold, a regular customer who came every other week to pick up fudge for his wife, delivered suitcases full of clean clothes and homework assignments to the family in Boston. Even Haily’s bf, who turned out to be called Ethan Edward, kept the yards in front and back of the store raked. I’d never seen anything like it.

“It’s called camaraderie,” Deacon said. “Look it up.”

On the days Deacon didn’t need me after school, I ran. Running wiped the clutter out of my head and helped me think. I had a lot to think about. Finding the magnolia paintings had magnified my connection to my daddy to the zillionth degree. It was like reading his personal diary, and every word was an expression of how much he missed me. After a few days, I stopped going up to look at them because every time I did, I left feeling sad about the years I wasn’t here, and anxious about how desperately I wanted Mama to let us stay.

On the day Biz was moved out of the ICU, Deacon went to a florist the next town over and bought a bunch of shiny red, green, and blue balloons and tied them to a tree by the road. Everyone who came in that day got a cup of sparkling cider. Ethan Edward connected with Haily on FaceTime, and after they acted all secret and mushy for a few minutes, Haily passed the phone around so we could say hi to some of the others.

Sue blew us kisses, Sonnet held up an unidentifiable drawing, Kendra flashed a peace sign, and Lucy pressed her face against the screen so all we saw was pink skin and the corner of one blue eye. I went home that night feeling happy and hopeful.

It was exactly a month after the accident that Biz was moved to a rehab hospital. She was going to be okay, but she had to relearn how to do things like tie her shoes and brush her teeth. Kori stayed with her in Boston, but the rest of the family came home.

The day they arrived, I rode the bus all the way to the store after school and raced inside. Sue was behind the counter helping customers with Deacon. “Hugs later, Maggs,” she said. “You’re a real champion.”

I smiled, then ran to the back and took the stairs two at a time. Lucy must have heard me because when I reached the top, the door flew open and she jumped into my arms. “We’re home!”

Haily pushed past us, her face all bunched up, and stomped all the way down to the store.

“She wants to go see the bf,” Lucy whispered. “James said she had to help and then she said she was done helping anyone else forever. It wasn’t a very nice thing to say, right, Maggie?”

Inside, Kendra lugged suitcases down the hall and grumbled about James’s leg keeping him from doing the grunt work. James was on the phone with Kori, getting a report on Biz’s progress since they’d left a few hours before, and Sonnet was at the stove, opening three cans of tomato soup. I set Lucy on the couch and took a suitcase in each hand.

“Where do these go?”

“Green to the moms’ room, black to mine.”

After my delivery, Sue and Haily were back having a hot discussion in the living room. Haily held her cell phone against her stomach.

“No, you cannot go there. If he wants to help, he can come over here,” Sue said. “But we’ve got a lot of catching up with life to do. No dillydallying.”

Lucy climbed onto the arm of the couch so she was taller than the rest of us and jammed her hands onto her hips. “And no smooching!” she said.

The air quit moving. Everyone stopped, everything was still and quiet. Even the usual rumblings from the store downstairs rested while we held our breaths, waiting for what should have come next. The silence reminded us of what we’d almost lost. Biz wasn’t there to repeat Lucy’s words. Until she came home, we’d have to get used to it.

Seconds ticked by. Finally, Kendra made mouthing motions with her hand and turned to the stairs.

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “No smooching.”