| |
Amelia left the back yard and walked down to the shore to take a phone call—from Jimmy, no doubt.
Megan felt empty, lonely, too. She hadn’t spoken to Sarah or Brian since she’d been in Birch Harbor, and she missed at least one of them.
Sarah didn’t answer. She was still in class. Megan left a message asking her daughter to return her call. She needed to hear someone else’s voice.
Before clicking off her phone, she rubbed her thumb up the screen, revealing Brian’s name.
Without a second thought, Megan tapped it.
It rang. Anxiety crept up her arms, settling into her neck. Reluctantly, and yet, with a degree of giddiness, she pressed the device to her ear and waited.
Three rings later, his voice came on.
“Yeah,” he said. Not a question. Not a greeting. Just a yeah.
“Um, hi. It’s me.” Megan waited a beat before adding, “Megan.”
“I know,” he replied. His tone matched the prickliness of his voice, and she immediately regretted calling.
Fumbling around for what to say next, she defaulted to what had become the most common topic of conversation. “I’m calling to check in on the settlement.”
He sighed. “We’re selling the house.”
“What?” she asked, alarms filling her head. “What are you talking about? I thought either you or I would get it?”
“Lawyers think it’s a dumb idea. We sell and split the profit, if there is any. Fresh slate. We can go our separate ways. You can follow your dream, for once.”
“That’s it?” She kicked herself for the way she’d asked it. She sounded weak and desperate. Like she wanted the fight to go on.
Maybe she did.
“Listen, Megan. It’s a win-win for you. You get to buy a new house, and I’ll pay child support and alimony. The whole shebang. It’s everything you wanted, right?”
Silently, she shook her head. “So, what happens next?” she asked, eyeing Amelia who was returning up to the lawn.
“Next, we sign off on this. No mediation is a good thing. It can go straight through. I guess then the divorce can be finalized.” His voice dropped off on the last sentence as though it was hard for him to say. Almost, as though he hated to say it at all.
Megan wondered if she hated to hear it, too.
The next thing, he whispered. Like an afterthought. An allowance. “Megan,” Brian said. “I’m tired of this, okay? If you don’t want to sell, then you can have the house. You can take it all. I just... ” His voice broke, and Megan’s eyes began to brim with tears. “I just want you to be happy.”