The Deep End » Outer Banks [JJ Maybank] BOOK ONE

XIX: Convoy

convoy
noun. a group of ships traveling together for mutual support and protection.

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"Mom, you ready to go?" Lee called as she entered her house. When there was no response, Lee frowned and walked towards her mom's bedroom. "Mom?"

Pushing open the door to her mom's bedroom, Lee started to grow worried when she didn't see her mother inside.

"Mom?!" Lee shouted, growing increasingly anxious. She sprinted through the house, worried that her mother might have blacked out somewhere and was unresponsive. She checked the kitchen, living room, and her own bedroom before arriving at their dusty office, out of breath. "Mom?" she repeated, peering inside.

Inside of the office, sitting at her dad's old rolling chair, she saw her mother, earbuds in, reading a book.

"Oh, my God, mom," Lee sighed, walking into the room, "you scared the shit out of me."

"Lee!" her mother exclaimed, jumping slightly and yanking her earbuds out. "I didn't realize you were home!"

"Yeah, clearly," Lee joked. She came around her dad's old desk—solid oak, boy had it been a bitch to get upstairs—to peer over her mother's shoulder. "Whatcha reading?"

Her mom shook her head slowly, clearly concentrating on finishing her page. "It's called, uh, Everything Happens for a Reason."

Lee squinted, trying to make out the words on the page.

I used to think that grief was about looking backward, old men saddled with regrets or young ones pondering should-haves. I see now that it is about eyes squinting through tears into an unbearable future. The world cannot be remade by the sheer force of love. A brutal world demands capitulation to what seems impossible—separation. Brokenness. An end without an ending, the book read.

Her mom closed the book softly, creasing the corner of the page before it was fully shut. "It's a good book, if you want to read it."

Lee shrugged. "Maybe. What's it about?"

"This author was diagnosed with cancer. It's just about her journey," her mom explained.

"Oh. Is she in remission?"

Her mom nodded. "Yeah, she beat it. Stage four colon cancer, can you believe that? She was given two years to live."

Lee raised an eyebrow as her mother stood up from the chair. "Sounds like you."

"I don't know how comforting that is," her mother replied slowly, setting the book down on the desk. A poof of dust rose from below it. "Her life will never be the same. She'll always have to worry about her health. She's immuno-compromised now."

"Yeah, but she's alive," Lee said firmly, following her mom out of the room. "Have you been using the office a lot? I've never seen you in there before."

Her mom shrugged as she led the way downstairs. "Just recently. I've been, uh... missing your father lately."

Lee nodded slowly. "Are you ready to go?"

"What, to chemo?" her mother asked, turning to face Lee at the bottom of the stairs.

Lee chuckled softly. "Uh, yeah. Where else?"

"I was hoping you'd say Sicily," her mom joked, walking towards her room. "I could use a vacation."

"Couldn't we all."

Her mom shrugged as she entered her room, taking a seat on her worn lounge chair to begin pulling on her sneakers. "I was actually thinking we'd spend the day working on the garden. I still have petunias and snapdragons left to plant."