Three Times Merle Dixon wasn't there, and the one time he was.
i.
The first time his father had taken his belt to him, he was hardly more than seven. His pa dragged his momma through the door and slammed it shut behind her — the lock clicked in place and then all Daryl could hear was her yelling and screaming and clawing at the wood.
Later, she'd found him all huddled up, and she'd carried him to a closet. She held him there in the dark and kissed his brow and hugged him to her chest. He'd looked down at her hands and asked them why they were bloody, and she hadn't said a word.
"Did Pa ever do that to Merle, momma?"
"Yes, Daryl-Baby. All the time."
ii.
Momma dies. Daryl had been hardly more than ten, but he remembered the slap of the concrete on his bare feet, and how the other neighbourhood kids all looked at him as they pedaled past. They gave him that same look when he found them all surrounding his house — like they were sorry for him, but they weren't going to say a word.
His pa was too drunk to phone Merle. So he rung him up and told him that their momma died in her bed. Merle didn't say a word. He just listened and said huha lot. "She don't look like momma," Daryl had said. "She's all twisted up."
"Tha's cause she's gone," Merle had whispered back. "She's gone."
iii.
When his father died, Daryl was only fifteen.
He found him slouched on the couch, his eyes still open and a bottle of whiskey in his hand. He'd been watching television — something about cars.
Merle had been too high to care, so Daryl had packed up a bag, called the police, and went out back into the woods. He'd sat out there until the ambulance came and took his father's body out in a big, black bag.
He hadn't gone back inside that house until the stench of the man wafted out and into the wind.
iv.
There had been too many times in his life when Merle wasn't there. More than he could count, sure. Sometimes he had hated the man for it, and sometimes he just hadn't cared. His momma used to tell him that he shouldn't blame his brother for not being there, but instead think about the good times when he was.
There weren't a lot of good times either, when Daryl thought back on it. Merle had never been there for him when he needed it most: when their momma died, or when their pa took his belt to him. He hadn't even been around when the world went to shit and all the good people started eating each other. No, he had went out and found his brother passed out in a bar.
It was weird to have the bag dragged off his face, and to see him standing there. He had been done with it — he had accepted that he might never see Merle again. But there he was in the flesh, standing beside him at the end when he needed him most.
when he needed him most