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It wasn’t what he said to her when he left her. Something about her being dumpy and frumpy with a personality to match.
“Did you need something?” she asked, standing in the doorway and not inviting him in. She should. She should be kind and gracious, loving, the way God wanted her to be. Frustrated with herself, she backed away, forced a smile on her face, and said, “Would you like to come in?”
That sounded good. Kind, sweet. And like she was working through her anger and not catering to it on purpose.
“Why I’d love to. I actually want to stay in the area for a couple days and was hoping I could stay here with you.”
“No!” That slipped out, louder and more forceful than she intended. She modulated her voice. “It certainly wouldn’t look very good if you and I were living in the same house, would it?”
“It wouldn’t be living with you. I would just be visiting. Staying for a few days. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“It would make me uncomfortable. So, I’m sure there are some very nice houses and hotels and places to stay in Blueberry Beach. I could help you find one if you’d like.”
He tilted his head as she closed the door. “Now, Kim, baby, you sound a little angry. There’s no need to be angry. We can be adults about this.”
Her teeth clamped down on her tongue. It probably affected the way her smile looked, but she wanted to be kind, despite how annoyed and angry she felt.
“Coffee?” she managed to say, loosing her tongue for that one word before clamping down on it again.
“Please. You always made the best coffee.”
She wouldn’t be taken in by his charm. She’d been young and stupid when he charmed her the first time. She’d been with him enough years to know that he was kind to people when he wanted something and then dumped them without a second look when he was finished with them. Todd was the most important thing in Todd’s world.
“I have a pot that I made this morning. It’s still warm.” She indicated a chair and grabbed a cup out of the cupboard. It was the last clean one, since she didn’t have a whole lot of extras. She wasn’t even sure whether these were Davis’s cups that he had left, or if they were mugs that her mom had dropped off at the cottage. She made a mental note to ask Davis about them. It had been kind of him to leave them if they’d been his.
“I’m not angry, but I know you’re here because you want something. If you’d get to the point, I’d appreciate it. I have plans for later this morning, and I need to get some things ready.” That was true. She wanted to get an idea of her vision for the riding business she was starting. She knew she was doing it haphazardly, but she didn’t have much of a choice. She needed something to do, needed to move forward quickly.
“We can at least exchange some pleasantries. We don’t have to be uncivilized.”
“We’ve exchanged pleasantries. I’m getting you coffee. Please tell me what you want.”
She said a quick prayer of thanks to the Lord for somehow enabling her to modulate the anger she still had toward her husband and for being able to speak in a fairly rational tone.
She also hadn’t hit him with anything, yet, and she sent up another small prayer of thanks for the self-restraint. Or maybe she should thank the Lord for hiding the skillet.
Whatever.
“I thought you talked about getting back together. I turned over a new leaf, I thought about some of the things you said to me and realize that I have a lot of room to improve, and I’ve been working on—”
“Your girlfriend left you already?” she interrupted him, because she couldn’t help it.
“I married her. She was my wife. And she didn’t leave me. We decided to mutually part. Amicably. We’re sharing custody of the child, of course.”
Kim couldn’t understand why in the world it would benefit him to come back to her, but she had zero interest. Now, if she could just be kind about the way she said it. Even though she wanted to turn him down flat and send him on his way, hoping to never see him again. After all, he was the one who cheated, and he was the one who wanted the divorce. She was the one who had to reconcile herself to those things. Now that she started healing and moving on, she wasn’t going back. No way.
“I’m sorry. Maybe before the divorce was final... Actually, I’m sure of it. I would have been willing to work on things up until we signed the papers. Once we did that, it was final, and there was no point in going back. That’s how I feel about it.”
“Now, Kim. We have history. We’ve been together since you were in college. That’s a long time for two people to spend together. Surely all of those memories mean something to you?”
“Of course they do. You were a part of my life for decades. More than half of it.” She couldn’t just turn off her life. Forget the things he had done. Even though he hadn’t spent a whole lot of time with her, his presence was everywhere.
“That’s my girl. Remember how we used to look at the tall penthouse buildings and say how that would be us one day?”
They’d had a dumpy apartment in a not very good part of Chicago for a long time. And she laughed. It was like she was back to where she started. Only she wasn’t looking for a penthouse anymore. She’d been there, done that, and didn’t want to do it again.
“I remember. Those are good memories.” That was back before he decided that work and other women were more important than her.
“You were pregnant with Alyssa. We’d sit there on the back porch, feeling the baby move and dreaming. Those were beautiful days,” he said.
