Magnolia Storms

by Janet W. Ferguson

  Maggie’s mouth gaped as she took in the armoire. “When? How? Aunt Ruth said she sold it.”

  “Wasn’t easy, but do you want it? I know it’s not exactly the same one you had before the storm.”

  She stepped closer and ran her fingers over the intricately carved wood. “Not exactly the same, no.” Her glistening eyes blazed into his. “But maybe better, and I’ll appreciate it more.”

  Could the same be said for their relationship? “Open the door.”

  Her gaze held his a second longer before she moved her hand to pull the latch. The diamond ring on the shelf caught the light and sparkled. Her hand trembled as she reached for it. “What is this?”

  Josh dropped to one knee. Here goes. Lord, help me. “Maggie, sort of like this armoire, I’m not exactly the same boy you knew and grew up with either. There’s some wear and tear on my heart, a lot of water under the bridge. But I love you more than ever, and maybe this time, we can make it. Our love could be more mature, stronger...better. I’ll give up whatever I have to for you, me, and J.D. to be a family. Will you marry me, Magnolia Marovich?”

  Dropping to her knees with him, Maggie took his hand. “You are who you are, Josh. I won’t ask you to give up anything. But you better be careful out there in the Gulf. And don’t knock the meteorology career path I’m trying to sell J.D.”

  Was she saying what he thought she was? “I will. I mean, I won’t—”

  “Put this ring on me, Joshua David Bergeron, and then kiss me like a happy fiancé should.”

  Yes. She’d said yes.

  He took her hand, which was so warm as he singled out her ring finger. Maggie stared at the sparkling facets while he slipped the cool platinum band over her finger. It snagged on her knuckle, then slid into place as if it had always belonged there. A perfect fit. His hands moved to caress her face, followed her cheekbone to wade through the mass of dark curls that had haunted him for so long. His gaze moved to her mouth and his lips found Maggie’s for the kind of kiss he’d waited over a decade to give.

  She tasted of powdered sugar, sunny days of the past, and sunny days of the future. Visions flashed through his mind—sailing and the beach and star-filled skies. She kissed him back, soft and sweet at first, and then stronger, moving him with more force than any current or wind or sea. Maggie would always be his perfect storm.

  Chapter 29

  MAGGIE STROKED HER infant daughter’s hair once more. With the wind blowing in from the Gulf, the wild mass of dark curls would not be tamed, but on Lilly Ruth, the ringlets were adorable.

  Their stocky black dog nudged its wet nose on the back of Maggie’s leg and whined.

  “Sit, Matey. You’ll be on the boat soon enough.”

  The mixed breed complied, tail wagging and ears flopping in the wind. About like the first day they’d met him here with the owner. Only much larger than they’d expected. At least he was a smart one.

  Josh and J.D. set up lounge chairs and a playpen next to the largest rolling cooler they could find at Walmart. Who knew babies required so much equipment?

  “Josh, take Lilly Ruth while I put sunscreen on y’all.”

  “Mama, I did it already.” J.D. sighed.

  “Sailor, you know better than to argue with your mama.” Flashing a grin, Josh tousled their son’s hair, then marched over, slipped his shirt off, and held his arms out for Lilly Ruth.

  “Yes, ma’am, I mean, and sir.” J.D. smiled up at his daddy with those big blue eyes. “Both of you.”

  Her guys stood before her, excited to take out the Cajun Princess II. As she slathered them with sunscreen, Maggie’s heart swelled with warmth. She’d never known so much love was possible. Only a year after their marriage, they’d become a family of four, five if you counted Matey, but her love had more than multiplied. It had exploded. Thankful for each day they had together, she strived to be a humble servant of the Lord and a good wife and mother. Nothing fulfilled her more. She’d learned to worry less when Josh was out, and to count her blessings all the time. The blessings of a normal day—and they were too many to count.

  The horn of an SUV honked. Maggie turned to find Kyle and Cammie striding toward them, Dahlia and Anna chattering behind. Maggie couldn’t help but grin. “Hey, don’t Dr. and Mrs. Castro look tanned. Must’ve been good weather in the Caribbean for the honeymoon.”

  A smile lit up Cammie’s face, and she took a seat in one of the chairs. “Couldn’t have been more perfect.”

  “Amen.” Kyle’s grin was even larger, if that were possible.

  “You girls need sunscreen?” Maggie held up the bottle.

  Josh turned to shake hands with Kyle. “Watch out. She’s armed.”

  “Mama took care of all that before we left.” Dahlia ran to where the boat was anchored near the shore, Anna right behind her. “Come, Matey, I can’t wait to ride out to Deer Island.”

  Maggie leveled a hard stare at her husband. “You guys be careful with J.D. and the girls. And Matey.”

  “We promise.” Winking, Josh placed the baby back into Maggie’s arms and brushed a kiss across her lips. “Relax and enjoy the beach.”

  His kisses still fluttered her heart. Every. Single. Time.

  After she adjusted Lilly Ruth against her shoulder, Maggie settled into a chair beside her sister. She couldn’t wait to cross-examine her about the honeymoon, the way Cammie had done to her when she and Josh had returned from their mountain retreat.

  Once the guys cast off with the kids, she rotated Cammie’s way. “So, tell me all about it.”

  “We ate, drank, and made merry. Shopped one day. Most of the time, we were on the beach.” One side of her lips lifted. “Well, not all of the time exactly, but the rest is private.”

  “Think y’all will ever have a child together?”

  “We have children together already. We’re happy with our lives now.” Cammie gave a carefree shrug. “Kyle and I want to relish our time as a couple. Plus, he’s a super overprotective doctor-husband. He worries about my health, and I love having someone take care of me for a change.”

  Her sister was positively glowing, and tears sprung to Maggie’s eyes. “Who knew God could use a spinal injury to put all of our lives together like this? And now we’re both stay-at-home moms while Aunt Ruth and Kyle’s mother are setting sail on yet another cruise. Mrs. Daigle enjoys owning the store.”

  “Like Aunt Ruth says, God isn’t taken by surprise.”

  A chuckle burst through Maggie’s lips. “But I sure am, though I’m learning to trust, too. Even in the darkest storms and the deepest waters, I know He’s there with us.”

  August 29, 2005, in Mississippi

  THOUGH I’VE WRITTEN this novel and blogged about Katrina’s devastation here (Under the Southern Sun), I wanted to share a few actual Katrina stories.

  EVERYTHING THAT WAS our lives was destroyed in one morning; my parents' house, my house, which was our grandparents' home (where my family spent every holiday until my grandmother passed away in the mid-90s and where we rode out hurricane Camille in 69), every school we all attended, our church, our kids' school. The fabric of our lives was ripped to shreds. Everyone was scattered all over for months and months. The loss of so many old beautiful historic homes is incalculable. Though we've come a long way in almost twelve years, in my opinion, the Pass will never be what it was before August 29, 2005. Much of our history was erased that day.

  Pass Christian Resident

  My brother rode out the storm with my eighty-year-old father in our parents’ home across from the beach. They went upstairs when water started coming in, then at some point the house started shaking and sailing back. Water came bursting through the front of the house. The whole place started collapsing and disintegrating below them. A line of trees in our backyard stopped the house. There was a dormer window in the back hall of the second story. They climbed out of that window and stayed on the roof at the back of the house. Water pushed through around them in rolling waves. They waited for hour
s under a small roof section that provided a little alcove while the wind blew projectile boards, debris, etc. around. It was during those hours that the Bible floated up as well as an old suitcase that had been in the attic for years. They found an old feather quilt in it that had been my mother's as a child. They used it to stay warm, and it kept my father from getting hypothermia.

  Pass Christian resident

  (From the brother above) At some point during the storm, as I looked around, I noticed down below us right at the edge of the roof, a green book had fetched up. As I focused on it and considered what it could be and how it could have gotten there, it occurred to me that it looked just like one of the pocket Bibles that the Gideons distribute in hotel rooms. At first, I just left it where it was. I had no interest in going out into the wind unless it was necessary. But as I sat there and rolled this around in my mind, it began to seem like a minor miracle, some sort of sign, if it really was a Bible. I have subsequently joked that maybe God was telling me that I wasn’t praying enough, that I better step it up a notch or two if I wanted us to make it through. And, in fact, I did continue to pray. All I know is that I thought something very important and meaningful had happened with the Bible somehow landing right at our feet. I knew I had to get the Bible before it blew away because it had become very important to me and I didn’t want to lose it. So I crawled down and grabbed it and put it in my pocket for safekeeping. When I later asked Mama if we had such a book anywhere in the house, she couldn’t think of any. So where could it have come from? There is really no logical explanation that comes to mind, so maybe it really was a miracle, sent by God.

  Pass Christian resident

  Me, my husband and children and grandchildren lived on Caspian Street in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. When Katrina hit, we left the day before and came back home the day after, to no home at all. Our neighbors lost everything also. All we could do was stare and cry. There were houses, cars, boats, trailers, sheds, everything you could imagine all over Hwy 90 and 60. After my husband and children saw the damage we stayed in Lil Ray's Restaurant parking lot for about a week and a half, then we went to stay in Robert, Louisiana, about two to three months, until my husband, son, and son-in-law went and cleaned up some by our house. We put up tents to stay in until we could get some help. We got food from Salvation Army trucks and clothes from people donating, I'm very thankful for everything we received!

  Melody Bourgeois

  Although my house was the only one left standing on my street in Pass Christian, it had to be gutted to the studs. I’d had ten feet of storm surge inside. We had to live in Baton Rouge for one year. I had to enroll my son in kindergarten there. My daughter, Jordan, was ill with metachromatic leukodystrophy and had been receiving 24/7 nursing care at our house. She was the only patient left with this disease in our state that had this type of in-home care. We had fought for it. If I took her out of the state of Mississippi, she would lose it. So one of her nurses who owned an assisted living house in D'Iberville made a little corner for Jordan, so she could be taken care of. It was rough times. I was going back and forth from D'Iberville to Louisiana because this was at a time that Jordan was on death’s steps. Actually, during that time is when she ended up receiving an experimental treatment in Mexico. She was about to die, so we had nothing to lose. Because of that she actually lived four more years.

  Charlotte Logan, Pass Christian

  We evacuated to Brandon for Katrina; but we had three families that stayed in our house because it was stronger than what they were staying in at the time. God knew what He was doing. During the first half of the storm, our chimney came through the roof, and many trees were on top of the house. The friends who stayed in our home went up on the roof during the eye of the storm to tarp the hole, and they punched holes in our ceiling to let the water drain from the attic. Without them doing these things we would have lost everything in the house. When we came back a month later, it looked like a war zone, but everyone was there to help each other pick up the pieces and move on. That is what Southerners do in times of crisis. My son’s swing set was like a cork screw drilled into the ground up to the cross bars. I just thank God we were not in the house during the storm and that our friends were safe.

  Michele Murray Ergle

  As many would colloquially say, “Katrina weren’t no lady.” No sir. No ma’am. When she roared ashore, she brought the whole gang with her—and they were gang-busters. The aftermath is still with me today. I no longer live on the Coast. I no longer worry much about hurricanes. But gasoline and antiperspirant? Those are a different story. Both were hard to come by in the first weeks or more after the storm. I rarely ever let my truck get below half a tank of gas. And in my bathroom cabinet, you will seldom find only one stick of antiperspirant. Silly? I’m sure. At least until you are doing relief work in temps hotter than hades—and have no gas to get where you need to be and stink in the process! It’s best to be a Boy Scout and always be prepared!

  Les Ferguson, Jr.

  In all of our experiences—from delivering relief supplies to rebuilding homes—the threads that resonate throughout the years are the reality of how quickly your life perspective can be radically changed, the very real presence of a loving God Who cares greatly for us—often in surprising ways, and how tragedy can unexpectedly weave lifelong friendships into our lives that otherwise would not have been formed.

  Cindy Cheeks

  When I went there right after the hurricane and walked through places where I grew up in, I couldn’t recognize anything. I didn’t know where I was in a place that had been so familiar. It was a haunting feeling. Family and friends’ homes were gone, all the landmarks were gone, washed out into the water with the storm surge. I had no context. In the tall pines, there were grocery bags and trash stuck in the upper branches. That was the three-story-high water line. Ocean Springs had been home, but it no longer looks like the home I knew. Such an eerie feeling, such a loss. People don’t realize the impact.

  Angie Renner, Ocean Springs

  My mother was an eighty-year-old lunch lady at the school with no savings. Her home was one house away from the beach in Pass Christian. We arrived after the storm to find the bottom floor had well over ten feet of storm surge, but it was still standing, unlike the house in front, which was gone, along with most of the rest of town—places that formed my memories of growing up. The insurance company was saying it wasn’t hurricane damage, but flood, and flood damage wouldn’t be covered. But the blessing was that our family came together, removed the debris, found termite damage, and were able to collect money for that. Churches from Pennsylvania hung sheetrock and put in Mama’s floors. We recognize that our salvaged home is a miracle, and we have a story of coming together, a story of hope.

  Terry Hunt, Pass Christian

  Dear Reader,

  THANK YOU FOR TRUSTING me with your time and resources. I struggle at times when it seems my prayers are going unanswered, despite the fact that I am pounding on the doors of heaven. I wanted, perhaps needed, to write a story that explored this disappointment. I believe God’s there. But what do we do with the hurt and sadness when life spirals out of our control? What Maggie learned, and I did, too, is that God is still there with us through the storm. He’s still in control. He’s with us in the pain. He’s there to lean on, or He carries us when we can no longer stand. He’s with us through other people, a touch, a meal, a phone call. Blessings rain down on us every minute of every day in the little things, like a soft mattress, a rainbow, a sunset, or a Bible rescued from a storm.

  Blessings in Him who is able!

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  The Art of Rivers

  A Coastal Hearts Novel

  Set in St. Simons, Georgia

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  Acknowledgements

  MY THANKS GO OUT TO:

  The Lord who holds me through the storms of life.

  My husband, Bruce, for supporting me.

  Charles DeMetz, a ship pilot and long-time friend, who answered hundreds of questions and supplied videos and pictures of pilot transfers to large vessels through treacherous waters. Dedicated ship pilots like Charles love the water, but they risk danger on a daily basis to guide travelers from around the world into safe harbor.

  Dr. Benjamin Kerr, neurosurgeon, who answered more injury questions for me. I really appreciate his valuable time.

  Lisa Donitz from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Alumni Association and Foundation who answered questions.

  Chip Henderson, Pinelake pastor, for an inspiring sermon which helped shape the faith elements of this story.

  Meteorologist Barbie Bassett for reading through the early draft and checking the weather data.

  All the staff at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Jackson who did their best to explain a bit of weather terminology to a spacy author.

  My amazing ACFW critique partners.

  Editor Robin Patchen, mentor author Misty Beller, and cover artist Paper & Sage.