The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2)(120)

It was tied tight at her neck.

When I assured her of this, she said, “I’ll give her your love, my beautiful girl.”

I nodded, the tears gathering.

But she hated that.

So I held them in check.

“Thank you for looking after him,” she said.

“I will, forever and ever, and ever and always,” I promised, my voice funny, husky.

“I know you will, darlin’.”

I could take no more, and she could take less, so I bent to her and kissed her cheek and told her I loved her before I walked back down the wing.

The second to last to go up was David again.

They didn’t speak long.

I only allowed myself to start crying when he lifted her hand to his lips and held it there for what seemed like forever.

It sadly wasn’t forever.

He hunched down the wing and only slapped Toby, who was standing at the bottom waiting, once on the shoulder before he moved away.

We let David stand off to the side alone.

But we stood close.

Toby was the last one to go up.

He did it to get in the back open cockpit of the biplane.

He started it up and we stood in a line, Johnny and Izzy, me holding Brooks’s hand, Margot’s sons and daughters-in-law, grandkids and husband, as Toby and Margot rolled down that airstrip, and then the bright red plane took flight.

I could see the end of her pastel green silk scarf trailing down the side of the plane as they lifted up.

They’d gotten high in the sky before I saw it break free and a gust of wind took it, making it sail across the sky like it had wings.

Toby flew her around for over two hours.

In the meantime, Deanna and Charlie and their moms came and got the kids so it was only the adults who were on the ground when they got back.

Or Toby got back.

Margot was gone.

David rode in the funeral car with her to the memorial home.

Lance, David Junior and Mark with their women followed in their rentals.

Iz held Johnny and they waited.

They waited because Toby was wandering alone off the airstrip into a field.

I followed him.

He went a long way before his long legs crossed under him and he went down.

I rushed forward, got down behind him and closed my arms around his chest, shoved my forehead in his bowed back and held tight to his hips and thighs with my legs.

I said nothing.

He said nothing.

The long grass in the field around us swayed this way and that in the breeze.

When his back stopped jarring I gave it more time.

And only when the time was right did I whisper, “Daphne’s got her.”

“Yeah,” he said, low and rough. Then he mumbled, “I guess hell froze over.”

“Sorry?”

He cleared his throat and said, “She told me she’d fly with me when hell froze over.”

I turned my head, pressed my cheek against his back and felt my lips curl up in a slight smile.

“She knew,” he murmured.

“She knew what, baby?” I asked.

“She knew, even with Dave, she knew I was the last one who could let her go. And she gave me that.”

I held on to him tighter and said fiercely, “She loved you, Toby. She loved you so very much.”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

He knew.

It was Toby who pushed up first, of course.

And he pulled me up.

We walked back with me turned mostly to him, my arms around his middle, his slung over my shoulders.

When we got back to Johnny and Izzy, Izzy gave him a long hug.

But when she let him go, Johnny caught him by the back of the neck and their arms went around each other, and Iz and I had to walk away to give them time.

They took it.

A lot of it.

Toby let me drive to Deanna’s to get Brooklyn.

He also let me drive home.

Brooks slept in bed with us that night.

He asked for “GoGo” for weeks.

I knew it tore Toby up every time he did.

It tore me up too.

And then one day, it didn’t.

She never left us, not even our boy, because Toby started doing something Margot would firmly support.

He taught our son manners, saying things like, “GoGo would want you to say please.” Or, “GoGo would be ticked you’re shouting.”

And some part of Brooklyn held tight to his GoGo.

Because from then on, anything “GoGo said” went.



By the way, when I married Toby, Izzy strapped Mom’s headband around our hands.

And Johnny wound one of Margot’s scarves around our wrists.

The wedding was just as Margot had planned for her Tobias.

Our first Christmas Eve without her.

“Double-purpose date, my beautiful girl,” she’d whispered to me. “He’ll never forget.”

It was a little fancy-dancy for me.

Still.

It was perfect.

And she was right, Toby never forgot our anniversary.

Though I figured he would have remembered anyway.



Dave fell in love again.

Her name was Margot too.

She was the cutest little bundle in the world.

It got so bad, Charlie feared Dave would kidnap his firstborn daughter.