Page 2 of The Cottage on Blueberry Bay

She looked out at the mountain pond pool Phillip had insisted on putting in when they’d built the house. The beautiful pool for her beautiful family.

Placing her phone on the tiled ledge, she dipped her hands into the cool water and wiped her face, promising herself that she wouldn’t go on any social media. It was bad enough Phillip’s second wedding had been a major event—his new wife came from a prominent family from Boston. His half of the guest list had been the same as for their own wedding. Even some of their closest couple friends were in attendance. Now, her same friends were visiting Phillip’s new wife and new daughter and posting about it.

She held her hands to her chest, as if somehow, she could hold her heart together even though she could feel it tearing apart.

When her phone rang, she had no idea how long she had been sitting by the pool.

It was her dad. She went to silence it. She could crumble again at any moment, but she thought about how she’d feel if Ryan did that to her.

“Hey, Dad,” she said, trying to sound upbeat.

“You busy?” he asked.

She almost laughed. She had a whole summer of nothing. “Nope.”

“Good. I’m outside in your driveway.”

She immediately stood up on the pool steps, turning toward the front of the house. “You are? I’m in the back.”

She stepped out of the pool, wiping her eyes while checking herself on her phone’s camera as she went around to the front of the house. She pasted a smile on her face as soon as she saw his car.

“Hi, Dad!” She bounced over to her seventy-five-year-old father.

“Hey, sugarplum,” he said, walking up to the house.

“What are you doing here this late?” she asked, looking at the time. It was only six at night, but that was late for her father.

“I thought I’d come over with some ice cream.” He lifted a bag with a pint-sized container.

Her heart dropped. Ice cream meant Gordon had something unpleasant to tell her. Throughout her childhood, her father would soften the blow of bad news with the sweet treat of ice cream.

“Why don’t you come in,” she said, gesturing her hand at the house.

He squinted as he got close enough to see her swollen eyes. “Looks like I came at the right time.”

She shook her head, pretending she was fine. “I’m good.”

He put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed it.

She led the way to the kitchen as he followed her inside the garage and up the few steps into the house.

Gordon walked to the table and pulled the pint of ice cream out of the bag as Meredith grabbed two bowls and two spoons, then put the small pint in the middle of them like they had when she was a kid.

“Do you want to talk about it?” her father asked.

Always a doctor, Gordon Johnson went right in with the talk.

When she’d gotten teased, he’d talked to her. When she’d had her first heartbreak, he’d talked to her. When she’d broken rules, he’d talked to her. That was what was so great about her father—she could talk to him.

But what else was there to say? She’d had nine months to talk about this baby. A year to talk about her divorce. Two years since she had lost her mom.

“I’m having a hard time not being happy about a baby being born,” she said, laughing out her admission but feeling immediate shame. A renegade tear fell down her cheek before she could swipe it away. “I’m a fifty-year-old woman, and I should know better, but some of the greatest days of my life were when I had my babies with Phillip.”

Her eyes teared up.

“You don’t lose your memories because things change,” Gordon said to her. “You can still have that and be sad and all of it.”

She held her breath, pulling back the tears, holding a smile with as much force as possible.

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