36-
They reach Cleveland, Ohio by sundown. Max had gotten them quite off-track for a while, but with a map and Maggie's memory of Ohio roadways, they get there all the same.
Maggie suggests they get a motel room and head to her family's house in the morning. Max agrees and Maggie breathes a sigh of relief. One more night to adjust to the idea of seeing her family again.
Despite Max's protests, they get a room with two beds. Maggie supposes it's just as well because by the time she's out of the shower, Max is fast asleep.
Sleep doesn't come nearly as easily for her.
Instead, Maggie tosses and turns, thinking of the last time she returned home.
It had been cold. Most likely because it was January and snowing, but Maggie didn't remember snow, just an infinite coldness that never seemed to cease. She took the greyhound bus and didn't recall anyone sitting next to her, or talking to her.
They probably thought she was homeless. She remembers feeling homeless.
When she finally arrived home, the town seemed deserted. Everyone was in the church. Everyone loved Billy, everyone wanted to be there for his funeral.
The church wasn't usually anything to look at. There was nothing special about it, just a white building with a cross on top, but that day it seemed to glow, beckoning Maggie to enter. She felt warmth spread from the inside out the moment she stepped in. The same kind of warmth she got whenever Billy hugged her.
However, the warmth might have actually come from the tightly pack bodies standing wall-to-wall. Then, Maggie doubted she could get to her parents if she wanted to.
She realizes now she could have. People knew her, they would have moved, but Maggie didn't want that.
So she stood in the back and watched on her tip-toes as her mother crumbled and saw her father cry for the first time and Johnny just stand there with a blank face looking lost.
Maggie remembers a voice in her head, sounding like her brother, beckoning her forward into the arms of her broken family. Maggie remembers chocking on her tears and turning to run, into the cold, away from her family, her home.
The hotel sheets strangle her and Maggie wakes sweating heavily, haunted by the warmth, the light, and the voice. She didn't even realize she had fallen asleep.
A/N- So I lied. I got complete and utter writer's block and almost gave up on Maggie Mae.
But then I visited London this summer and saw Liverpool and took this Beatles Tour and when we went down Lime Street and they played Maggie Mae and I got so excited from the trip, I knew I had to continue the story. So hopefully, I'll get back in the swing soon.
In the meantime, enjoy and review! And a big thank you if you stuck with me.