Page 101 of The Cottage on Blueberry Bay

At first, she hadn’t really seen what the hype of Jacob’s work was all about. She even questioned the value of it. They looked like the typical landscapes that you find on calendars.

But as she’d gone through each one, examining the use of color, shadows, and texture, she had been drawn into his creative beauty.

Jacob could capture a moment, a feeling from the scene. Not one landscape was the same. Or of the same spot. There were hundreds of paintings, yet Jacob never repeated any of his images.

Except of Jacqueline.

He painted her all the time. Sketched her. Drew her.

“Your grandfather Jacob was an incredible artist,” Meredith said.

“Really?” Cora asked. “Did he sell his work?”

That’s when Meredith felt something she had never felt before when discussing Jacob—a little bit of pride.

And she began telling Cora everything that she and Remy had done over the past month at The Cottage by the Sea.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Meredith looked at the time and realized they had been talking on the phone for over an hour. When was the last time she’d had this long of a conversation with Cora?

She looked at the front door and saw Gordon standing in his golf clothes.

“Cora, I have to let you go,” she said. “Grandpa’s here.”

“Okay, call me later?” Cora asked.

And the question made Meredith take pause. It had been the first time her adult daughter had asked her to call her back.

“I will,” Meredith said. “I’ll send you the dates of the auction.”

“And I’ll make a plan to come up and go through some stuff,” Cora said.

Meredith smiled. “That sounds great.”

She walked to the front door, opened it, and at once, hugged her father.

“Hi, Dad,” she said, letting him into the house. “Golfing today?”

“I met a buddy for nine holes,” he said. “I thought you were staying in Maine for the summer.”

“I was, but now I need to do some things here,” she said. “I was thinking about selling.”

Gordon nodded. “You know, I’m thinking about that same thing.”

“You are?”

That’s when he pulled out the bag from behind his back. A pint of ice cream.

“Want to eat out by the pool?” she asked.

“Sounds great,” he said.

They walked to the back yard. She had hoped Gordon would always stay in their house, for some reason. Her childhood home had been such an anchor of comfort for her. The one steady thing in her life. She wondered what Remy would think.

“I was thinking maybe I’d retire in Maine,” he said, pulling out the ice cream from the bag and setting it down on the table.

“Really?”

“I was looking into it, just for fun, since you two girls are having such a good time up there,” he said. “I always loved living there.”

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