Chapter 1: Sometimes Life Has Other Plans

Maggie Johnson sat sadly in the front seat of her blue Honda, Dad’s graduation gift, a tattered hatchback that was ancient then and much older now. The car was covered with leaves, having been parked on the curb as friends, family and hearse drivers had been the preferred mode of transportation in recent days.

The funeral was over, a somber affair, but uplifting, too, because, as families sometimes do, everyone heeded their better angels and behaved well. Goodbyes were shared. Hugs lingered. Kisses, too—one in particular that both blessed and haunted Maggie.

Every tummy was full because (if nothing else) the Johnson family knew a thing or two about putting food on a table, good food: from Aunt Rita’s seven-layer salad to Uncle Frank’s peanut butter-chocolate pie with the homemade whipped cream topping. In-between? Tomatoes, strings beans, baked beans, lima beans, peas, carrots, potatoes—mashed, baked, Hasselbacked—and, of course, meat: turkey, ham, meat loaf and chicken: fried, roasted, and baked.

“Daddy would have loved it,” she thought.

With Mother and Dad both gone, somebody had to do something about “The House”—the 3-bedroom, 1-bath ramshackle cottage that was more work than it was worth, but so rich in sentimentality that nobody—not sister Julie in Texas or brother Bobby in New York—really wanted to sell.

Of the three kids (Juliet, Robert, and Margaret) Maggie was the least sappy about the old homestead. Why? Two reasons: First, she lived relatively close, so—unlike her siblings who visited infrequently—“The House” was not a mystical haven. Second? Both Jules and Bobby wanted Maggie to move in, spruce things up, and make it available for their occasional family visits—especially at Christmas.

What to do?

If Maggie were happy with her apartment, the whole moving-back home scenario wouldn’t be an issue—but her lease was up, the monthly increasing and, besides, it needed work, though not as much as “The House.”

As she pondered her options, someone tapped on the window—a soft knock but so unexpected that Maggie hopped in her seat like a startled frog. She pushed the auto-button for the driver’s side window, eventually revealing the identity of the late-night tap-tap-tapper as Monroe Rawlings, or “Moose” as he’d been called since high school, more than a decade ago.

“Moose, you scared me!” Maggie squawked. “Thought it was an ax murderer, or worse, a Girl Scout selling cookies.”

“Gotta watch out for those Scouts,” Monroe teased.

For a moment, they stared at each other, awkwardly smiling.

“I thought you’d be half-way home by now,” Moose said. “What gives?”

“Thinking,” said Maggie.

“Lots to think about, I guess,” he responded.

"Yup,” she said, nervously opening and closing her hands on the steering wheel.

“Well, if you ever—I mean, if you want to talk about things,” he said, haltingly.

Her head nodded up and down, slowly, like an out-of-sync bobble-head.

“Nope, not now,” she said, suddenly shaking her head back-and-forth. “Maybe later.”

He walked away; she closed the window.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she said to no one in particular as she slapped the steering wheel.

“Monroe,” she thought.” Why, why, why? Why now?”

The two had been close for years, especially in junior high—but by high school he’d become a jock—“Moose,” the sports star, instead of Monroe, the sensitive blue-eyed boy with the fluffy brown hair who’d read her poems and tried to turn them into songs.

Sports changed all that—so she hated football and Moose, equally, ever since.

He was nice at the funeral. Supportive. Friendly. Why? Her Dad had followed high school football in general and Moose in particular. Monroe kissed Margaret after the ceremony. Not a real kiss, mind you. Just one of those little pecky kisses, like a chicken does with a kernel of corn. Like that. Still, innocent though it was, there was a faint hint of a glimmering flicker that she hadn’t expected.

Did that mean something? Who knew.

Maggie turned off the car. Switched off the lights. Pulled back the emergency brake.

“Maybe I’ll spend another night at The House,” she thought. “Get up early. Go out for coffee. Get an early start in the morning.”

Then an odd thought poked her brain: “I wonder if Moose still goes to the Crossroads Diner, the place my Dad used to take him for breakfast.”

NEXT: Coffee Mugs & Lumberjacks