Page 184 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
“Oh, I have my tripod,” Ellis said quickly, darting to her bag. The warmth that filled me at her constant state of preparedness was indescribable as I watched her set it up, securing it on the deck and making sure it wouldn’t fall over.
I glanced down at Ida, who raised her brows at me and then wiggled them.
I snorted.
Ellis took the phone from me and secured it in the tripod, taking the time to tilt the camera so Ida could see where we were and what we were doing.
“Great composition,”Ida said with a sniff.“Very cinematic.”
“Thanks,” Ellis said with a nervous laugh, glancing at me.
“You’d wanna hope the influencer could set up a tripod,” Liv teased as she twirled onto the deck, dancing around Jedd. He had begun opening long plastic cases and laying out the components he needed to get Margaret into the sky. I heard him muttering things like “launchbase,” “tubes,” and “neat coil fuse.” He moved with ease, comfortable and practiced in his task, handling each part with the same care one might give a coffin.
Ida cleared her throat from the phone.“Dovey, are you going to have some music going when this all goes down?”
I blinked at her in surprise. “Music,” I repeated, wondering why it had never occurred to me before.
“Her favorite song, obviously,”Ida said.“You can’t fling a woman into the heavens without a soundtrack.”
“A good idea,” Jedd mumbled as he continued working. “Once we’re all set up, tell me what you want. My phone’s connected to the boat speakers. We can play it from there.”
“What’s her favorite song?” Liv asked with a raised brow.
“Into the Mystic,” I answered immediately, and Ida smiled at me through the screen. “Van Morrison.”
“Banger,” Jedd muttered as he got to his feet. “Well, we’re ready. Um… I’m not really sure how we run this. Did you have any final words?”
I took a breath and stared at their faces—the warmth and understanding burning in Ellis’s eyes, the excitement in Liv’s, the polite sympathy in Jedd’s, and the sheer heartbreak in Ida’s through the screen as she watched from her place on the tripod.
I was finally getting the moment that had been taken from me at her funeral.
It wouldn’t be half-assed.
“This is it, then, Margaret,” I said, turning to look at the sky. “The last stop. The end of the road.” I looked to Ellis on that one, and she grinned at me. “She would have loved this. From the moment I stole her ashes to this very point, she—she would have been on a high the entire time. She’s been bossing us around even in the grave, making sure she didn’t just get stuck on some shelf. No. She had to have fireworks. Had to go out with dramatic flair. And I—” I paused and shook my head, a broken grin spreading across my face. “I really wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I took a sobering breath and rubbed my temples.
“I said so many times before she died that I didn’t know how to do this without her. That I—that Icouldn’tdo it without her. She always said I could, and I believe her more and more each day.” I sniffed back the swell of tears and wiped my eyes. “Margaret taught me that magic wasn’t about wands or candles or sleight of hand or fancy words. It was about people and presence, about showing up—and she was right, as usual. The ripple we leave in people’s lives is never-ending, and it transcends every interaction thereafter. I’ll carry her ripple as long as I live, and I’ll add it to mine.”
I moved my gaze to the dark stretch of ocean.
“Thank you for making me who I am and—and for giving me enough to keep going without you,” I said, my voice cracking as Ellis took my hand. Jedd squinted and sniffed, keeping his face as manly as possible while he stared hard at the fireworks.
Liv gazed at me unblinking, and Ida dabbed at her eyes on the screen.
“Wherever you are out there, wherever you went,” I cleared my throat, “raise some serious hell, because you were always so damn good at that.”
Ida cheered from the phone at my words.
“You bet your ass she will be!”
Ellis squeezed my hand softly, and I met her green eyes, wet but steady. “She’d be so proud of you, Dove,” she whispered, her voice trembling as the wind whipped her copper hair around. “I didn’t know her, but she must have been extraordinary to raise someone as amazing as you. And I think she’d be proud that you found a way to let her go the way she wanted—not quietly, not forgotten, but with the fireworks.”
Something cracked in me at her words, my chest hitching as I squeezed her hand, unable to speak. Her belief in me—when half my family didn’t believe I could hold anything together—was almost too much to bear.
Liv’s voice broke the silence then, her arms wrapped around herself as if shielding her body from the cold she couldn’t feel, her pink hair stirring in the breeze.
“Thank you for letting me be here for this,” she murmured. “It’s an honor to watch someone be sent off the way they deserved. Margaret is lucky, Dove. Really lucky. And you did right by her—not everyone gets that. You gave her the ending she would have wanted, and you’re helping… you’re helping me get mine too. Never doubt yourself again, okay?”
