The house smelled the same. Maybe a bit stale. Max wasn’t big on dusting. Nor, she discovered, on cleaning the bathrooms. So she decided to do it herself. It felt odd, being there, a stranger in her own home. Like she was trespassing. She retrieved her cleaning things that were exactly where she’d left them, and scrubbed the toilet and the bathtub.
And while she was at it, she pulled out the dusting spray and disposable cloths. Might as well take care of that business, as well.
Max would have his hands full taking care of Caleb on his own. The refrigerator was stocked, but not the freezer. Almost all the meals she’d prepared ahead of time and frozen were gone.
The dishes were done, dishwasher emptied.
And the kitchen floor had been swept.
She was home. But it didn’t feel like home.
She was moving about freely and didn’t feel free.
Leaving the bedrooms for last, Meredith entered Caleb’s first. The crib sheet had been changed. His blanket was folded and put on the end of the mattress just as she’d always done.
She picked it up and the softness clung to her hands, or maybe she clung to it. As if to a lifeline.
But in whose life?
When tears started to choke her, she kissed the blanket, and turned her back.
“I love you, my baby.” Her voice broke as she left the room. And on the way to her own room across the hall—the one she’d shared with the husband she adored and missed so desperately—she caught a glimpse inside the spare bedroom.
That was when she admitted to herself that she was looking for a duffel bag. Black. With a shoulder strap.
It wasn’t there.
But the bed had been slept in. The pillows weren’t arranged as she arranged them.
The spread wasn’t on as straight as she kept it, either.
She fixed both.
And skipped the master bedroom.
She couldn’t go in there.
Because she knew, standing there in that home, that she’d left for a valid reason. She wasn’t losing her mind.
Maybe things weren’t exactly as she’d thought them to be. Maybe she had issues she hadn’t dealt with.
But the Steve issue...the threat he posed...was real. Being in the home she’d put together, with the things she’d purchased and arranged, had quieted the confusion in her mind. Because the home she was standing in was a fantasy she’d created.
Her reality existed only inside of her.
She didn’t belong where she was. She was a danger to Max and Caleb. Just as she’d known she was.
And being there was completely selfish. She had to get out, get away, and pray that Steve wouldn’t punish her by taking her visit out on the two innocent Bennets.
The possibility that had occurred to her days ago, the idea that she’d always known she wasn’t free to share her life with Max, that she’d made promises to him knowing that she wouldn’t be able to keep them, was true.
It was the cold hard truth.
She’d wanted to believe Max when he’d told her she was suffering from paranoia. He was a doctor. Not a psychologist, mind you, but he’d had enough medical training to recognize fear-based delusion. She’d really wanted to believe that the threats were behind her. She’d wanted to do what Max had told her to do, which was to move on and be happy. To give them a chance to be a family.
But she knew Steve. He’d refused to acknowledge their divorce even after the judge had signed it into fact without him. He’d followed her to four states.
How many times had he told her she was his and he’d never let her go?