Page 60 of Having the Time of My Midlife

“That’s stupid,” Gram yelled. “What in tarnation have you been smokin’, Fake Monty Hall? Laws are laws. You heard my great-grandbaby. Ain’t no one above the dang law. Not even the real Bob Barker. I’m thinkin’ it might be time for an Immortal election. Y’all need to get you a new leader that ain’t batshit crazy.”

“Fine,” It bellowed, causing a harsh wind to whip through the field. “You win this round. Leave my plane.”

“And what about the punishment for your crime?” Alana Catherine demanded, not backing down. “If it hadn’t been for Gram, my mom and me, the dead would have been reduced to dust. That’s in the law book as well. You would have been looking at a double death sentence.”

“You,” he hissed, looking at my daughter. “You should not exist.”

“Why?” I demanded. “Why should my child not exist?”

It refused to answer, but It still had something to say. Assholes loved to hear themselves talk. It was the OG of assholes. “Unnatural things should be destroyed. Abominations should not exist. EVER.”

Are you fucking kidding me?” I shouted back, infuriated that the disgusting waste of space had just called my daughter an abomination. “None of us are natural. We’re Immortal. That’s not natural. My daughter is a miracle. She will be anything she wants to be and I will support her.”

“Put that in your pipe and smoke it, turdknocker!” Gram yelled. “Along with all the crack you’ve obviously been chewing on.”

“Umm… I think people smoke crack,” I told her.

“Whatever,” Gram said. “That loser got the meanin’.”

And apparently Alana Catherine did as well…

“Oh my gosh,” she cried out. “I know. I know why you want me so badly. You want?—”

“NO,” It shrieked, completely losing Its shit. “Whatever you think is wrong. LEAVE MY PLANE!”

The explosions were violent. They rocked the plane and set the field aflame. I grabbed Gram and sprinted for my daughter. Without missing a beat, Alana Catherine extended her arms to the furry creatures and they dove back into her. That solved theproblem of how to get them home. The next issue on the list was if clicking my heels together three times was going to work. The flames were searing hot and coming at us fast. Wrapping my arms around Gram and Alana Catherine, I clicked my heels together three times.

“There’s no place like home,” I shouted.

Nothing. We were still in the middle of the inferno.

“There’s no place like home,” I shouted again.

Nothing.

Alana Catherine looked at me like I’d lost my mind. She wasn’t far off.

“I’ve got this, mom,” she said with a smile. “Hang on. We’re going home.”

The great roomin my home looked exactly the same as when we left it. What wasn’t the same was me. I would never be the same again after that trip. I was so grateful to be back home surrounded by the people I loved and who loved me back. It felt as if we’d been gone for years.

It had only been a day.

Gram was a ghost again, and my beautiful daughter was a baby. Explaining what had happened was going to take a hot minute, and I was exhausted. Alana Catherine slept soundly in my arms. Part of me would miss the badass version of my daughter. But she’d get there again in twenty years. I was going to enjoy every second of her precious life until then.

Gideon looked as if he’d aged a few centuries, but since he was older than dirt, he was still beautiful to me, even with his bloodshot eyes and drained expression.

“Here’s the fuckin’ deal,” Candy Vargo said, taking over.

I’d really missed her. I couldn’t wait until she heard about Gram’s new and horrifying vocabulary. They both were going to need some bathroom and soap time together.

“Daisy needs to sleep,” Candy went on. “None of us are goin’ nowhere. Mail boy, get the rest of the fuckers back here. We’ll debrief everybody at the same time.”

“On it,” Tim said, pulling out his cellphone.

“You’re okay? Really okay?” Gideon questioned. He hadn’t stopped touching Alana Catherine and me since we’d arrived home.

The shocker was that our bodies left the earthly plane when we went to the Higher Power’s plane. No one was used to that. When I dove into the minds of the dead, my body stayed here. Gideon had lost his mind. He’d even put a call into Cecily to suss out if that had happened with her. It had.

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