When She Returned

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, child abuse, self-harm, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

Meredith Bennett is one of the two protagonists of When She Returned, and every other chapter is told from Meredith’s point of view in the present. Meredith’s place in the narrative and in the Bennett family is complicated by her backstory. She was married to James and has two sons, Caleb and Thad. However, Meredith was not in love with James, and she was preparing to divorce him before he died of cancer. Meredith met Scott at a support group, became his friend, and married him just under a year before the events of the novel. Meredith loves Scott, she realizes later in the novel, more than she loved James, calling Scott her “first-place” husband. This realization is especially difficult when coupled with her discovery that Scott loves Kate more than he loves Meredith, which makes it difficult to cope with Kate’s return. 

Meredith is logical and pragmatic, attributes that others, who knew Kate before her disappearance, associate with past Kate, making her a foil for Kate in the present.