Page 2 of The Me I Left Behind

Or maybe Chloe was worried she’d said the wrong thing.

An overwhelming feeling of sadness overtook her, and Maggie had to turn away. The conversation in her head wasn’t real, of course, but it could have been. She tried to cover her sob with a snort and a cough but wasn’t sure she’d pulled it off.

“I’m going to get my toes wet,” she said then, not looking at the kids.

Chloe said nothing. Jason gave her a wave.

They’d lost so much.

And all because she’d been too naïve, self-centered, gullible, and foolishly agreeable to stand up for herself, and for the children, for far too many years.

Shehadgrown these past few months, certainly. She was stronger, smarter, more independent than even a year ago. But she blamed herself for not waking up to the reality of her marriage, of their situation, sooner.

Twenty. Long. Years.

Where was that girl she used to be?

The girl who could lose herself painting for hours?

The college graduate who wanted to travel before settling down, and chose a flight attendant job, instead of teaching, for the travel perks.

That carefree, boy crazy, back-seat-romping college co-ed who loved life, sex, choices, and freedom?

When had she lost that girl? Where had she left her behind?

She stared out to sea,thinking, worried, then dropped her gaze as seafoam tickled her ankles, and a piece of seashell tumbled over her toes. She dragged her big toe into the sand, chasing the shell fragment, then bent and picked it up, washing off sand in the surf. It was the top of a scallop shell, pink and a little rosy on the edges. Her favorite shell.

A gift from the sea.

Smiling, she cupped it in her hand, then pivoted and headed back toward her chair and umbrella—glancing up at the Gull, the beach cottage Lia and Zach had graciously let her stay in for the summer. She waved at the littles as she passed, thinking about Carol.

They’d grown incredibly close since Christmas. She’d leaned on her too much, and perhaps that was unfair. But Carol knew more than the other kids and had experienced more of the chaos. Maggie saw no need whatsoever to drag all three children fully into the hellscape their father had created around them.

They were innocent. Practically clueless.

That’s how it appeared then. Jason had known more than he’d let on, according to Carol—but ignored or simply refused to acknowledge. One or both. Maggie often wondered if all the secrecy and closed doors had bothered him. Until Max left,Chloe was a hard child to read on a normal day—shy, withdrawn, showing little emotion until she had a meltdown. The past months, however, she was coming out of her protective shell. Still, it was challenging to know how the mess had affected her.

Carol had assumed the role of Maggie’s confidant and supporter, and together they unloaded and reflected on the issues with Max and contemplated what to do about it. As much as Maggie hated that, somehow, it was good for both of them.

While eighteen-year-old young women don’t have the depth of knowledge or experience to understand the choices Maggie had made over the years, and why, Carol had needed her, too. Max had unceremoniously thrust her into the fray of their dysfunction. She had questions. Lots of questions.

The support was mutual.

Of course, Maggie could have found support elsewhere and often did. She had the girlfriends from college. And while they knew the situation with Max, and had for years, they’d not had the same experiences as Carol.

Alice was the mother hen of the group, the self-appointed fixer. She had a solution for most any situation. Too bad there wasn’t an easy fix for Max’s kind of crazy. Thing was, Alice had her own problems currently, with her pending divorce, and Maggie would not burden her with more.

Julia, her practical, no-nonsense attorney friend, gave practical, no-nonsense attorney advice as any lawyer would—unless she was giving Maggie shit for screwing up. Which often happened. But Julia… God, she owed her more than she could ever give back. She was getting her out of this mess so she could get on with her life.

And Lia, dear sweet Lia, always looked to the brighter side of life—though Maggie wasn’t sure there was a bright side to anything related to Max Oliver. But she’d been her savior, offering them the Gull Cottage for the summer.

The twins, Wren and Willow, couldn’t give advice, but were good listeners. That’s how she framed it in her head, anyway. There were times she needed to talk or explode, and she’d go out to her backyard and shout at the sky, pretending she was talking to them. They never answered, of course, because wherever in the world those two women were living was a mystery.

Carol, however, was always there. For everything she’d been in the past, the spoiled bratty teenager to her, the darling daughter to her dad—she was neither of those things now.

She had, indeed, grown up too fast.

Back at her beach chair,Maggie plucked up her cell phone from where she’d stashed it under a book, shaded from the sun, and noticed a call notification.