"Jamie, honey, I'm sorry, but I agree with Doug," Jo told her daughter. "I realize that you're hurt, but you have to understand that what you did was very dangerous. You and Tisha don't really know those boys. You've only just met them. They could be anybody."
"I don't want to talk about it anymore." Jamie turned and stalked angrily away.
She wasn't quite out of the room when Clay breezed through. "Goin' to a movie with Savanna," he told Jo and Doug.
"'Kay! See ya later!" Doug grinned.
"You're letting him go to a movie with Savanna, and he just met her," Jamie said bitterly.
"Honey, that's a totally different situation," Jo replied. "Clay's seventeen. In less than a year, he'll be an adult."
"And he's a boy. That's the main thing, isn't it?"
For several days, Jamie refused to associate with the rest of the family at all, except at mealtime, when she sat sullenly and answered questions with flat monosyllables. It didn't help that Tootie hadn't disciplined Tisha at all for the incident and allowed her to continue to see Chase's friend, Dionne.
Jo and her friends spent as much time as they could at the hospital with Mrs. Garrett. The older woman couldn't speak yet, but she always seemed happy to see her former students and was always alert and attentive when they were around her. One day Jo arrived back at the motel to find Doug staring dejectedly at the floor. "She thinks I'm a real meanie now," he muttered.
Jo sat beside him and embraced him. "She's just upset about losing her electronic gadgets. She'll get over it soon."
"I do really love her, you know." Doug's voice was husky with emotion. "At first I wasn't sure at all what it would be like to have a teenage girl in the house. It was completely unknown territory to me, and I was really surprised how easy it happened, how natural it was to just love her, as if she were my own."
"I know you love her, Doug, and I appreciate it. I really do, with all my heart." She kissed his cheek. "It's gonna be OK. Just give it some time."
While Mrs. Garrett was in physical therapy, Jo, Blair, Natalie, and Tootie revisited some of their former favorite places to hang out in Peekskill. Doug went with them most days, as Jo was eager to show her husband how she'd spent her teenage years. She took him to her old school, of course, and also to Edna's Edibles and Over Our Heads. Doug was amazed at all the differences between New York and Oklahoma.
"Man, your friends must think I'm a real hick," he said to Jo one night as they were relaxing in front of the television.
"They don't think that at all," his wife replied. "They all think you're a very nice man. They told me so themselves."
One day Jo met up with Sarah Bernstein's mother, Rachel, at the hospital. "How's Jamie?" Rachel asked.
"She's fine," Jo replied. "How's Sarah?"
"She's all right, but right now she's really concerned about my mother, as we all are. She had a stroke a couple of nights ago, and she's still unconscious. Her doctor doesn't know how bad the damage to her brain was. She's eighty-two, but it's still so hard..." Rachel choked up, and Jo embraced her. "She hasn't been the same since we lost my Dad a couple of years ago, you know. It's like she just totally lost her will to live."
"I'm so sorry!" Jo exclaimed. "I do hope she'll recover. My former headmaster, Mrs. Garrett, had a stroke too. She's still partially paralyzed, but she's doing really well in physical therapy, and they're hoping to transfer her to a rehab center soon."
"So how's life in Oklahoma City going for you?"
"Much better than I could have imagined, actually." Jo smiled. "I met the most wonderful man. His name's Doug Norman, and he lost his first wife in the Oklahoma City bombing. We're married now, and we have a beautiful seven-month-old daughter named Bethany."
"Congratulations! That's wonderful!" Rachel gave Jo a quick hug. "What motel are you staying at? I'm sure Sarah would love to see Jamie again."
Jo gave her directions to the motel and then went on her way.
Jo had taken Bethany and gone shopping with Blair and Natalie, Tootie and Tisha had gone to visit an old high school friend of Tootie's, Clay was out with Savanna, and Doug was taking a nap when Jamie decided on impulse to return to the pool. She'd been feeling sorry for herself all morning and hoped that lying on a raft and soaking up the sun's rays would make her feel better.
She'd lined the raft up along the side of the pool and was in the process of climbing onto it when it suddenly slipped out from under her and she sank like a stone. She gasped, and her mouth filled with water. As hard as she struggled, she simply couldn't get her head above the water.