"Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane? … Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you – especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that core of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly." – Jane Eyre
Almost effortlessly, they navigated their new surroundings from the comfort of their SUV and found the tiny center of town within a few minutes. The town encompassed everything about a place Meredith would have liked to grow up in. Tourists and locals walked, jogged, or rode bikes along wide sidewalks on either side of the main thoroughfare, shaded by looming trees. It seemed like the residential properties, small Cape Cods and ranches, were situated on side streets. The street they cruised leisurely down now was instead lined with cutesy pastel-painted shops, all open for business early on a Saturday morning as the weekend crowds began to trickle in. Admittedly, it was a tourist town, so there were plenty of trinket shops selling cheap candy and merchandise with the town's name plastered on it, but there were also several boutiques and specialty stores, and even a tiny movie theater.
When they spotted a small corner diner with yellow awnings and the door already open, they decided to try it out. Derek dropped Meredith and Emily off at the door and left to go find a parking spot, and Meredith escorted Emily up the three steps and into the restaurant. For an unassuming establishment, the morning crowd was packed into the place, and very few tables were available. Waitresses bustled around with trays piled high with pancakes and eggs, and chatter seemed to move not only within each party, but from table to table. It seemed like this was the place to go for breakfast in this town.
"Welcome to Althea's," the hostess, a friendly teenage girl smiled at Meredith. "Just the two of you today?" she asked.
"Oh, no, it'll be three. My husband's just parking the car."
"Oh, ok! Well, right this way." She led them to a small table in the corner with place settings for two, and quickly set an extra place on the side. "Do you need a highchair?"
Emily stuck her bottom lip out and looked expectantly up at Meredith. "I am a big. girl."
"You're right, you are a big girl," Meredith soothed. "We'll just take an extra chair, if that's ok," she told the girl. "Do you need help getting up there, Em?"
"I do it myself," Emily assured her. It took a little bit of effort, and her long yellow sundress made it slightly more difficult, but she managed to climb into her chair no worse for the wear.
The hostess set two adult menus and a kids' menu with some crayons down on the table. "Amber will be with you shortly. Enjoy your breakfast."
"Em, what would you like to eat?" Meredith asked, taking Emily's menu and reading the choices off. "They have pancakes, French toast, scrambled eggs, waffles, or cereal."
"Pantakes," Emily replied, taking her crayons and inspecting them individually before laying them out on the table in front of her.
"Are you sure? You just had pancakes yesterday."
"I want pantakes."
"Ok, well pancakes it is. What should I get?"
"What do you like, Mommy?" she questioned matter-of-factly.
"This is a cute place," Derek interrupted, sliding into the empty seat between his wife and his daughter. "Did you order yet?"
"No, we just sat down," Meredith replied. She barely lifted her head as she continued to look over the menu.
"I'm in the mood for some eggs. What do you think, Mer? Sunny side up?" She groaned, and he laughed. "Sausage?"
She rolled her eyes, her nose wrinkling in a mixture of amusement and disgust. "I need something loaded with carbs," she said definitively.
"How bout some hashbrowns?" he prodded with a playful smirk.
"Stop!" she chuckled, smacking him in the chest, which made everything even funnier to him. "Oh God, never again," she shook her head. "I'm getting pancakes."
"Not ready take the plunge again. I understand," he grinned, basking in the afterglow of that 30 seconds of banter. It was just a glimpse of how it used to be, but it felt like enough to get him through another week of exhausting, heartbreaking silences.
"I'm eating pantakes again too," Emily nodded along with the conversation, her eyes fixed on her parents. "What are you talking about?" she asked, a little frustrated with being on the outside of the joke.
"When you were inside Mommy's belly, that's all she wanted to eat for breakfast. Every day."
"That's what she wanted!" Meredith cried defensively.
"Hi, I'm Amber," a girl who looked to be about seventeen or eighteen interrupted. "I'll be your server today. Can I start you off with something to drink?"
"Actually, I think we're ready to order. I'm going to have the blueberry pancakes, and water is fine," Meredith said. "And she'll have a short stack of plain pancakes and milk."
"Ok," Amber said briskly as she took down the order. "And for you, sir?"
"Two eggs, sunny side up, with sausage and hashbrowns on the side," he said, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. "And a cup of coffee, please."
"Ok, I'll put that right in for you," Amber replied cheerfully. "It should be out in a few minutes and I'll be right back with your drinks."
"I hope you enjoy them," Meredith said, joking sarcasm flavoring every word. "How you can even look at it, I'll never know."
"I'm not the one that ate it every morning for nine months," he replied simply. "I could go for some toast too. Did Em like that? I forget."
"That's about all she got the first three months," Meredith grimaced.
"That's right, before we single-handedly began supporting the livestock industry of America," he smiled. "Did we ever get your cholesterol checked after that?"
"My cholesterol was fine," she laughed.
"Well, Dr. Atkins would have been pleased with you."
"You're right, I would have had the blessing of a semi-reputable physician."
"Well, I am a very reputable physician," he grinned cockily.
"You are an A-S-S," she shot back.
"I just considered it a success to wean you off pizza and grilled cheese when you were pregnant," he shrugged with a teasing smile.
Amber set their drinks down in front of them and assured them that their food would be only a few minutes more.
"What's pregnant?" Emily interrupted, having had enough of being left out of the conversation.
Derek was a little taken aback by the bluntness of Emily's question, but he recovered quickly. "Pregnant is when a woman has a baby inside her belly, like when you were inside Mommy's belly," he explained.
"I not a baby," Emily grumbled in irritation.
"You were a long time ago," Meredith said gently. "And before you were born, you were in my belly for a little while."
"And then I came out?"
"And then you came out," she finished. "Thank you," she directed her attention to the waitress for a minute while Amber put hot plates of food in front of them.
Derek immediately took Emily's knife and fork, cutting her pancakes into small bites for her. "Hey, Bean, want to see something?" he asked as he cut.
"What?"
He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet, flipping it open and pulling out a small photo. With his fingertip, he traced the outline of a very pregnant Meredith, standing profile in sweatpants and a scrub top with her hands on her swollen stomach and a half smile on her face. She always had that look on her face when she was humoring him. "That's you in there," he said. Emily knelt on her chair, peering at the picture with rapt curiosity.
"No it's not," Emily giggled.
"Yes it is," Derek ruffled her hair. "Before you were born."
"What are you showing her?" Meredith asked. She got up from her seat just slightly and placed her hand on his shoulder, looking over him at the picture in his hand. "Oh God, you keep that in your wallet?"
"This is one of my favorite pictures of you," he explained.
"I in there, Mommy," Emily pointed. "Before I got born."
At the sound of Emily's voice, and the look of confusion and delighted surprise on her face, Meredith squeezed Derek's shoulder just briefly. She gave him an inch with that, just a hint of affection, and he could have taken it and ran a mile.
"How about this one, Em?" Derek said, pulling another photo from between folds of cash and cards and continuing to ignore his breakfast for the time being. It was just another small wallet-sized picture, with worn edges, like it had been pulled out and looked at many times. In it, Meredith was fast asleep on a bed that she recognized as part of the on-call room, still wearing her scrubs like she'd been caught in the middle of a work day. She cradled Emily, who looked to be about three or four months old, with both hands on her stomach. Emily, also asleep wearing just a onesie, balled one fist against her cheek while the other hand tightly gripped Meredith's hair.
"That's when you were a baby," Derek showed her. "That's you."
"That not me," Emily shook her head. "I'm Emily Grace Shepherd."
"That's you," Derek insisted lightheartedly. "And that's Mommy holding you."
"That my Mommy," Emily cried, recognizing Meredith instantly, but still not quite believing that the little baby in the photo could possibly be her.
"When did you take this?" Meredith asked in disbelief.
"You fell asleep with her in the on-call room, remember?"
"I remember, but I didn't know you took our picture."
"The daycare paged me saying they tried to get you and you didn't answer, but you had taken the baby to feed her. So I went to look for you two and there you were. I took this before I woke you up."
"And you just carried your camera with you at all times?" she asked incredulously.
"Camera phone," he shrugged. "I love this picture."
After they finished their breakfast and paid their check, they decided to take a walk and see what the town had to offer. Emily took hold of Meredith and Derek's hands and alternated between pulling them forward as she tried to run ahead, and laughing as she went limp and let them bear all her weight to swing her up.
Meredith looked briefly at each shop's window as they passed by, planning which places to come back to later. The candy shop with the homemade fudge and apples drizzled in caramel. The gallery that boasted beautiful watercolors of docksides and waves lapping at sandy beaches. The toy store with enough sand toys to keep Emily occupied for months.
"Em, what should we do today?" she asked, suddenly completely willing to leave the plans for this beautiful day up to a two-year-old with curious eyes and a husband with big ideas.
"Would you like a new book?" Derek asked Emily, motioning to a tiny new and used bookstore.
The store itself felt a little cramped, but it was only because there were thousands of books stacked on the shelves, perfectly organized alphabetically and by category. Whimsical paintings of seaside landscapes adorned the walls above the shelves, and Emily must have thought it was her own personal maze because she took off running through the aisles.
"Emily Grace," Meredith scolded. "Come here, please." Emily peeked out from behind one of the shelves and walked back towards her mother with her tail between her legs. Meredith squatted down to her level and took her hand. "Look at me. We don't run in here, ok? Only walking, and we use our quiet voices. Do you understand?"
Emily nodded apologetically. "I sorry, Mommy," she said, falling into Meredith's arms in a hug.
"It's ok," Meredith soothed. "Now would you like to pick out a new book with me and Daddy?"
"Yes."
"Ok, go ahead," Meredith urged, scooting her forward.
In the small children's section, Derek and Meredith sat down on the floor while Emily walked back and forth and started to browse through the selection of books. "What this one?" Emily asked, handing a pink paperback to Meredith.
"Corduroy," Meredith read the title. "It looks like it's about a bear, Em." She looked at Derek helplessly. "I'm not sure what it's about."
"It's about a bear and a little girl who wants to take the bear home from the store, but first he has to find a button," Derek said.
Emily put the book to the side and reached for another. "What this?" she passed another book to Meredith.
"Where the Wild Things Are," Meredith read.
"Daddy, what this one about?" Emily asked, turning away from Meredith towards her father.
"It's about a little boy named Max who gets sent to bed without his dinner and then he pretends that there are wild things in his room, but there's really not. It's just pretend," he emphasized. "You'd like that one, Bean."
"No, I not want that one," she decided. Emily passed the book to Meredith and reached for another. "What's this one?"
"This is called Waiting for Baby," Meredith said.
"That mommy got a baby in her belly like you, Mommy," Emily pointed in triumphant understanding to the illustrated cover.
"You're right, she does, but not like me," Meredith explained softly.
"I get this?"
"Well this is really more for kids who are having new babies in their families," Meredith said a bit uneasily.
"I have a new baby?"
"No," she said calmly, yet immediately.
The tension in her voice got Derek's attention, and he focused on Meredith for a moment. He watched her. Watched her, visibly stressed in that instant, just from a harmless question from a two-year-old. Watched her push the hair off her face and cup her head in her hands for a second. Heard her sigh and watched her look back at Emily with exhaustion in her eyes.
"What about a different book?" she suggested.
Emily seemed satisfied with Meredith's request and went on with the process of choosing her new book. "What this one?" she asked, pulling another book off the shelf.
"Oh, The Giving Tree," Derek smiled, taking his eyes off Meredith for a moment. "This was Daddy's favorite book when I was a kid, Bean."
"You not a kid, Daddy," Emily shook her head knowingly.
"Well not now, I'm not, but I used to be. And this was my favorite book. My Dad used to read it to me."
"Daddy, you read it to me," Emily insisted, thrusting the book into his hands.
"Is this the one you want, Em?" Meredith asked.
"Yes," she nodded. "I get this."
Back at home, after some playing and a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Derek snuggled Emily onto the couch with him for her first reading of The Giving Tree before her napMeredith joined them, eager also to hear the story that Derek had loved so much as a child. Somehow, getting bounced from babysitter to babysitter, Meredith hadn't ever heard the story of The Giving Tree. In fact, when Derek had named this as his favorite, it was only then that Meredith realized she didn't have a favorite book from her childhood. At least not one that she could remember her mother or father reading to her. The only stories she knew were the ones she read to Emily.
"Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy," Derek read softly aloud to Emily, once she had finally settled on his lap.
He continued on through the pages, weaving the threads of the story together. The little boy loved the tree, and the tree was willing to give him everything she had to make him happy. Somehow, no matter what she gave, it was still not enough for the boy, and he always asked for more.
"'Take my apples, Boy, and sell them in the city. Then you will have money and you will be happy.' And so the boy climbed up the tree and gathered her apples and carried them away. And the tree was happy. But the boy stayed away for a long time...and the tree was sad."
"Why did the boy go away?" Emily interrupted briefly.
"He felt like he had to go away so he could get what he wanted."
"Why?"
"Because he thought that would make him happy."
"Why?"
"Because everyone wants to be happy, right?" Emily nodded. "But did it make the tree happy?" Derek asked.
"No," Emily shook her head. "The tree is sad."
Derek resumed with the story. He read about how the boy sold all the tree's apples, and then came back for her branches to build a house. When the boy came back again from a long time away, he only wanted the tree to help him go even further away. The tree offered him her trunk, and the boy built a boat and sailed away. Not until the boy was a very old man did he return to the tree.
"'I am sorry,' sighed the tree. 'I wish that I could give you something...but I have nothing left. I am just an old stump. I am sorry...,'" Derek read with real emotion in his voice. "'I don't need very much now,' said the boy. 'Just a quiet place to sit and rest. I am very tired.' 'Well,' said the tree, straightening herself up as much as she could. 'Well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.' And the boy did. And the tree was happy," Derek finished, shifting Emily's weight in his arms a bit as he closed the book.
"The tree was happy?" Emily asked.
"Yeah, the tree was very happy when the boy came back in the end."
"The tree loves that boy."
"Yes, she does. I think more than anything in the whole world, don't you?"
"I sink so too," Emily agreed. "Why did that boy chop the tree down?"
"He thought that if he took things from the tree, then he would be happy."
"That boy not share," Emily observed.
"You're right, he's not sharing." Derek asked.
"But the tree always wants to give," Meredith interjected. "Because she loves the little boy and that makes her happy."
"That's ok, Mommy?"
"Yeah, that's ok," she murmured. She sighed loudly, trying to mask the few tears in her eyes and clear the lump in her throat, and reached for Emily. "What do you think, Emmie? Nap time?"
"Ok, I sleep now," Emily agreed. She crawled off of Derek's lap and into Meredith's. "You sleep in my bed with me?"
She allowed her eyes to meet Derek's for a moment, and he looked at her expectantly. "No, I'm not very tired today." Meredith wrapped her arms around Emily and kissed her cheeks and the crease of her neck. "Want me to take your shoes off for you?"
"I do it myself!" She grimaced, trying to push her sandals off her feet.
"Here, let me help you," Meredith offered after a moment or two. She tried to loosen the buckles a bit but Emily stopped her.
"I do it, I do it!" Emily insisted, shrieking. Meredith backed up and after a few more moments of fiddling, Emily slipped the shoes off and they clunked to the floor. "I ready for my nap now," she said with a proud smile on her face.
"Ok." Meredith pulled Emily into her arms, shifting the weight of her on her hip before she settled. "Say night-night to Daddy."
"Night-night, Daddy."
"Night, Bean." He stood up briefly and kissed her cheek.
"I see you when I wake up."
"I'll see you when you wake up," Derek agreed.
When Meredith came back downstairs a few minutes later, Derek had reclined back onto the couch with a book of his own. His flip flops rested on the floor next to Emily's and he curled up into the pillows. His gray t-shirt rode up a little, revealing just a hint of toned stomach and chest hair.
He didn't speak, but moved over to make room for her next to him. She sat down on the other end of the couch though, facing him. She adjusted her navy tank top briefly and scrunched her feet under his. Her nervous deep breath he couldn't help but hear scraped at his insides.
He swallowed. "Did she go down, ok?" he asked. His eyes took on that soft quality to them, like they did when he looked at Emily, or when he told Meredith that he loved her. He closed his book and placed it on the floor.
"Yeah, she's asleep. She loved that book, Derek. I was rubbing her back and she was going on and on about the tree. I finally had to tell her that it was time to go to sleep and no more talking."
"I can't believe I just read it to her. I can remember my Dad reading it to me," he said with a wistful smile. "That was just our thing. My sisters all had their own books with him."
"I'm glad we got it then," Meredith said comfortingly.
"Yeah," he murmured. "Why didn't you want her to have that other book?" he asked.
Her stomach twisted within her, and she shrugged, looking away for a moment. "Is that how you knew all those other books?" she asked quickly. "Your Dad read them to you?"
"Yeah…. Well, Corduroy was Nancy's. Where the Wild Things Arewas Kathleen's."
"Funny, I'd think it would be the other way around," Meredith prodded playfully. "What were Maggie and Anne's?"
"Maggie's was Caps for Sale, and Anne's was Mr. Popper's Penguins. Mer…," he whispered, cupping the insole of his foot around the back of her ankle. "Stop," he pleaded.
She shook her head rapidly, and turned away. When she faced him again, tears glazed her eyes. She certainly didn't expect to cry so much on this trip. She did better with numbness, and burying and denial. But something about this house, and Emily telling her about the Giving Tree, and Derek essentially begging her…it had rubbed her raw.
"Mer," he nudged. "If she wanted that book, she could have had it."
"I know," she said defensively. "I know, I know. Damn it," she muttered tearfully.
"I still wonder too," he admitted.
She drew her knees up to her chest and away from him, and cradled her head in her hands, trying her best to keep her crying as discreet and quiet as possible. Derek watched her mournfully, but didn't touch her, partly because he knew she needed her space, but mostly because he wasn't ready to go to her. He could show her the vulnerability he felt, the helplessness he experienced, but to allow her to touch a shaking shoulder or have teardrops stain her shirt – it was still too much. He had become used to grieving on his own. He had to hand it to Meredith; denial and powering through worked, to a degree. But in moments like this one, curled up in regret at opposite ends of the sofa, not even a bout of the severest amnesia could have taken this sadness away from him.
"I wonder how Em would have been," Derek continued, against his better judgment. "I wonder if she would have liked it. She's pretty good at sharing now," he trailed off. "I think she would have. Liked being a big sister, I mean. If it was a boy, I was going to take him to Yankees games, when they played the Mariners. And if it was a girl…well, I was going to take her to Yankees games too. Me, and Em, and the baby," he laughed a little then, despite his wavering voice. "And their book was going to be Love You Forever."
She coughed loudly on a choking sob, and turned on her side, like the grief had wrung her out, and left her to dry. She wiped a few tears out of her eyes and coughed once more, holding her hands close to her chest. "What's Em's book?" she asked, refusing to look at him, or even turn over.
"Guess How Much I Love You."
"I like that one," she breathed. She shut her eyes tightly, but tears oozed out despite her best efforts. "That's a good one." She clutched at the back of her thigh in an attempt at distraction, anything to stop the crying.
She had done well up to that point in her life, done well to push the distressing and the tragic away and to avoid. Feelings were messy. A nuisance. Tear-inducing, gut-wrenching. She picked and chose what she wanted to feel for most of her life – the blissful feeling of an arm wrapped around her in bed, the solid weight of an infant on her chest. A ring around her finger and a scalpel in her hand. It had always been a choice - how much she wanted to feel - and when it came to the unpleasantries of abandonment issues, lack of self-worth, and that early loss of Derek, Jose Cuervo did a hell of a job. But she couldn't help but be thrown for a loop when a loss like this one wormed its way inside her heart, and nipped and scratched until it bled, even almost a year later. And all the tequila in the world couldn't take the edge off that.
Derek had never seen her cry like that, literally curling into the pain like it was physically hurting her. He'd seen desperation, loss, embarrassment, joy…but what he saw now was something different entirely – a hopeless sadness in her that ripped him at the seams. Another kind of guilt burrowed inside him now, under the hard layer of blame and resentment, and he softened.
He sat up a bit, inched forward, and forgave her just a little when he took her hand. She continued to look at the floor rather than at him, and he didn't speak to her. But he laced his fingers through hers and she squeezed just briefly, and for a second, they finally communicated.
I know. Me too. It hurts.