Page 16 of The Spotted Cottage By the Sea
“I don’t want to go back home. I’m going to rent out the house while I’m here,” Sheila said out loud. “I think that would be smart.”
Patty and Reggie looked at each other, then back at her.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Sheila?” Patty asked. “You seem to be repeating yourself.”
“Yes.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Let me see your phone.”
Without questioning it, Patty walked over to the kitchen counter, picked up her phone, and handed it to Sheila. “Why do you need my phone?”
“I’ve heard about this,” Reggie said. “It’s a scam against the elderly. This must be how it starts.”
Sheila laughed out loud. “No. It’s just that Brian won’t answer when I call.”
Patty frowned but said nothing.
Sheila dialed him again, and this time, he picked up after two rings. “Hey, Mom. Everything okay?”
He sounded the same, the same tenor to his voice, the same clearing of the throat. This stranger who had her husband’s voice.
“Hello, Brian.” Sheila smiled. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Is Mom okay?”
Sheila opened the back door and slipped outside. “She’s fine, except for you trying to sell her home.”
“Here we go.”
Sheila dropped her voice. “Do you really think your mother is going to survive a move across the country to a place she’s never been?”
“Spare me. I’m doing what’s best for her.”
Sheila knew she shouldn’t say it, but she couldn’t help herself. All the pressure from the day forced her into a strange place where everything that passed between them felt like it had just happened moments—not years—ago. “What’s best for her, or what’s best for you?”
“Sheila. I don’t have time for this.”
Like he didn’t have time to see his daughter off to college? Or make the trip for soccer games, or birthdays, or the day Shelby got her braces off and they all went to get ice cream?
Her kids deserved better, and so did Patty.
“That’s fine,” Sheila said, her voice steady. “I just wanted to let you know she’s not interested in selling the property anymore.”
“Oh great. Instead, she can fall again with no one to find her and –”
Sheila cut him off. “I’m going to be here with her. I’m going to help her get back on her feet and open the tea shop.”
He scoffed. “What is this,Grey Gardens? Are you finally getting to live out your fantasy?”
Sheila let out a huff of air. It was so like him to jab her with something she loved. She’d always been fascinated by theGrey Gardensdocumentary – the two aging, genteel women in their dilapidated mansion, raccoons running in and out of the attic, cats on every surface.
It was a story of a mother and a daughter, tragic and fascinating andhuman, so of course Brian would miss the point entirely. “This is nothing likeGrey Gardens.”
“That’s right, because she’s not your actual mother. Where is your mother, by the way? Shouldn’t you be tracking her down? Finding out if she’s even alive?”
The sun’s rays were powerful enough to warm her skin, but not warm enough to stop the chill running through her veins.
Bringing her mother into this was a low blow, but she shouldn’t have expected anything else from him. Her mom had been in and out of her life for years, starting from the time she was nine years old. Sheila had learned to live without her, even thrive without her.
But then she’d met Patty. Patty was like the mother she’d never had, and there was no way she would take her for granted the way Brian did.
