Page 12 of The Cottage on Blueberry Bay

“Come on, Meredith,” Phillip said. “Him dying ends that fantasy of him asking you to forgive him.”

That was the hardest part about the divorce. Phillip knew all her secrets, even more than her mother. He knew the little things she’d never told anyone else, like how she had wished her real father would come back and beg for forgiveness. How she had wished he would tell her how much he’d missed by not being her dad.

Now she felt like a fool for trusting Phillip with those secrets.

“Well, he left everything to me, so there’s that,” she said.

“He left you an inheritance?” Phillip sounded as shocked as she had been.

“A cottage, too,” she said. “I haven’t talked to the kids about it yet, so please don’t say anything.”

“Like a house?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m going up there right now to check it out.”

“Oh, Meredith, that’s great news.”

“What?” she said, confused. “My father dying is great news?”

“No, but now you have a little cushion, and we can sell the house.”

She started seeing red. “What?”

“I really need to sell, Mer. Now I have another kid to get through school and college.” Phillip rattled off all the huge expenses he would have to pay now with a baby and a new wife and alimony to her.

“Phillip, I haven’t even met with his attorney,” she said.

“Do you want me to go up there and meet his lawyer with you?”

She needed to see a therapist. “No, you have a baby and a new wife!”

Phillip sighed into the phone.

“I still care about you, Meredith,” Phillip said. “We were married long enough that I know this must be hard for you.”

Having a baby with another woman closer in age to their daughters was hard, she thought, but instead, she said, “It’s not your business anymore, so I should go…” Then she shot out, “Take the baby as much as you can when you get home.”

“What?” he said.

“When you got home, you usually ate and relaxed, leaving me all day and night with the kids,” she said. “The best thing you can do for that baby, and for Rylie, is to come home with food, help clean up, play with the baby, and put her to bed.”

“So now we’re unloading on what a bad father I was?” he said, his voice rising in a defensive tone.

“You wanted a friend,” she said back.

“Okay, I guess I deserved that,” he said. “Let me know if I can help in any way with everything.”

And this was where she hated Phillip, because she loved him so much. Why was he so agreeable? Why was he so kind and thoughtful, yet willing to leave her and ruin everything? Had she been that horrible as a wife? Had he gotten tired of the old model? Traded her in for a newer version?

And why did she love herself so little to let him sneak back in like she was doing?

“I should get off the phone,” she said. “You should be with your wife and new daughter.”

“Don’t be like that, Meredith,” he said. “We were always better as friends.”

The gut punch was immediate and took her breath away. “I’ve got to go.”

She threw the phone into the console. Instead of taking the interstate the whole way, she decided to slip off onto the route that followed the edge of the ocean. She needed to see the ocean right about now.

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