Well, the sun's not so hot in the sky today
And you know I can see summertime slipping on away
A few more geese are gone, a few more leaves turning red
But the grass is as soft as a feather in a featherbed
So I'll be king and you'll be queen
Our kingdom's gonna be this little patch of green
Meredith and Derek squeezed every last second of time out of that house. Though they were supposed to leave the Wednesday before Labor Day, a plan that would allow them to get settled back in at home for a few days before going back to work, they didn't actually leave until late Friday night, and even then, only because Mary Shepherd's flight was arriving at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at 11 AM the next morning.
They had tried to talk to Emily in the two days preceding their departure, tried to explain why they were cleaning the house and why they were putting all of their clothes in suitcases. She had appeared to take the news right in stride; after Meredith and Derek finished talking to her, she went back to playing with her doll, seemingly unbothered.
After dinner, they loaded everything into the car, took Emily by the hand, and literally said goodbye to both the house and the beach. They strapped Emily, already in her pajamas, into her car seat, and wistfully drove away. After all of that, Emily had done better than they expected. There were a few tears for the first fifteen minutes or so of the drive to Seattle, but nothing like the tantrum they were expecting. Eventually, about an hour into the trip, she fell asleep.
Pulling into their driveway late that night was slightly disconcerting. It felt strangely familiar, like they had just been there that morning and were simply returning home from work, and completely foreign, like they had never been there before.
Derek turned off the engine and, stepping out of the car, he looked up at the house. Everything about it was exactly what he wanted. Exactly. He had made sure of that, painstakingly going over the plans with the architect and then supervising the building process every step of the way. He had had the idea in his mind for months, once he realized that Meredith was it for him, but the idea went from an abstraction, merely a plan for the future, to a necessitated reality when Meredith found out she was pregnant. He was on the phone with the contractor the next day, asking for an estimate on when they could get the house built and ready to live in. They moved in a month before Emily was born.
He felt a vague sense of déjà vu as Meredith stepped out of the passenger seat, stretched a little, and went to the back door.
"I got her," he said.
He reached in and unbuckled Emily, easing her gently into his arms. She mumbled a few nonsense words at the disturbance, and nestled her body closer to him until she was flush against his chest. He carried her up the four steps from the driveway to the wrap-around porch and then followed Meredith inside.
"Daddy," Emily whined, picking her head up and looking around the darkened foyer.
"Shh, go back to sleep, Bean," he soothed, his hand immediately on her back and rubbing in slow circles.
"Daddy," she repeated, more alert this time. Her voice broke on the last syllable of Derek's name.
"It's ok," Meredith murmured. She turned the lights on, illuminating the first floor of the house, and then went to Emily. Standing at Derek's side, she smiled at her daughter, brushed her fingertips over Emily's cheek, and repeated, "It's ok."
Tears rolled down Emily's cheeks as she continued to take in her surroundings. Derek walked her around the living room for a few moments, trying to calm her down, trying to give her a few minutes to recognize home.
"Where is this?" Emily asked. She dissolved into intermittent sobbing, looking around at the house while Derek held her. The fireplace with the stone mantle, the cushy wine-colored sofa that Meredith had chosen, the armchair that went with it and the floor lamp positioned right next to it. He couldn't see Emily's face, but truth be told, the house felt almost unfamiliar to him as well.
"Em, we're at home," he told her gently.
"No, we not," she cried.
"Yeah, Em," Meredith said. "Remember how we said we were going to go home?"
"No," Emily sobbed. Derek shifted her weight in his arms, held her a little closer as they stood in the middle of the living room together. He knew Emily remembered talking about it. Maybe she didn't understand what they were trying to tell her, but the way she looked around for a moment, and then shook her head defiantly before laying it back down on Derek's shoulder, made Derek think that she understood what they had been saying but had started to associate home with the other house. In the dark, just waking up from sleep, this place—though she had taken her first steps barely three feet from where they were standing right now, though they had read books together on that couch every night—seemed totally unfamiliar. No meant 'I do not remember.'
"When the summer is over, we have to go home," Derek reminded her, heading towards the stairs.
"I'll be right there," Meredith interjected, catching Derek's eye and motioning towards the front door.
Derek nodded and carried Emily upstairs, down the hallway and towards her bedroom. They passed two closed doors on the left, the spare rooms, and the bathroom on the right. The master bedroom was at the end of the hall; Emily's room was right next to it.
"No, Daddy," Emily sobbed as Derek opened the door and flicked the light switch on.
Izzie had wanted to plan for this room immediately after Meredith told her she was pregnant; Cristina spent most of Meredith's pregnancy making fun of Izzie. Meredith took more of a middle ground. At first, she was going to let Izzie spearhead the project. Exhausted by the pressing demands of both residency and pregnancy, she let Izzie show her paint chips and fabric swatches and pictures of cribs for nearly a week before she snapped. When Meredith stormed in to her mother's house that night, Derek was already there, reading a book on the couch. She flew into the kitchen in a rage and came back with the binder that Izzie had started to put together for the project, slamming it down on the coffee table. No more delegating, she had said fiercely. And then she softened. Help me pick the color of the baby's room.
They chose yellow. Not a bright yellow, not even the color of a banana, but more of a light, frothy yellow, with white crown molding and hardwood floors. The white crib and changing table were in the spare room now, and a small white four-poster bed and matching dresser had taken their place. Books were jammed into all three shelves of the bookcase in the corner, and the miniature round white table with two matching chairs were exactly where they had left them in the corner opposite the bookcase.
"See, Em, this is your room. Don't be scared; we're at our house."
Emily looked around. "No," still broken and tear-soaked, changed from 'I do not remember' to 'This isn't home.'
"Do you have to go potty before bed?" Derek asked, pulling back the sheets laying Emily down in her bed.
"No," Emily replied, crying like it was the only word she knew.
"I think you should go back to sleep," Derek said softly, taking a seat on the edge of her bed. "And then guess who is going to come see you tomorrow? Nana."
"Nana comes to see me?" she asked.
"Yeah, she's coming to our house to see you for your birthday tomorrow."
"Cause of I am three?" she whimpered.
"Yeah, she wanted to see you," he smiled tenderly. "And guess who else is going to come see you? Izzie. And Cristina."
"Cwistina?'
"Yeah, but not until tomorrow, so we have to go to sleep to get to the morning."
"No, Daddy," she said as she squeezed a few tears out and took a big, hiccupping breath.
"Hey, Em," Meredith said, sliding quietly into the room. "Hey, don't be scared," she smiled, taking a seat on Emily's bed next to her pillow. "I brought Bear. Would that help?"
Emily nodded and gratefully accepted the toy from Meredith.
"Why, Mommy?" she asked as she looked around.
"It's just not summer anymore," Meredith replied. She leaned down and kissed the top of Emily's head. "It was time to go home."
"No, Mommy," Emily cried.
"I know, Em."
"Tomorrow, we can take a walk down to the lake," Derek offered. "How does that sound?"
Emily nodded.
"But we have to go to sleep first, ok?" he added.
Emily hesitated briefly and nodded again. "Mommy," she sighed, her voice breaking again.
"I know," Meredith countered, rubbing Emily's back, repeating those words again and again, trying to lull her to sleep. "I know," she said once more, looking up at Derek and giving him a smile.
A few hours later, after they had gotten Emily to sleep, after all the bags had been brought into the house, Meredith and Derek crawled into their own bed. Derek, with his arms wrapped around Meredith and his chin on her shoulder, drifted blissfully towards sleep with the scent of lavender all around him.
His mother would be here in the morning. She'd seen the house only one time, just after Emily was born, right when they were getting settled in. He'd been so proud when he picked her up from the airport, pulled into the drive with her in the passenger seat. This is it, he'd said. She'd smiled then, but it was nothing like the expression she had on her face when he scooped Emily out of her bassinet and placed the baby in her arms.
His mother had seen Emily several more times since then: Christmas a few months later, when he and Meredith took Emily to Connecticut to show her off to the rest of Derek's family, and the Christmas the next year too. Once more for Emily's first birthday, and once for a long weekend in the early spring of the following year. She was supposed to fly out last year too, for Emily's birthday again, but coming so close on the heels of the miscarriage, neither Derek nor Meredith were up to seeing anyone. And Christmas. They'd made plans to have her, along with his sisters and their husbands and children, come out to Seattle for Christmas as well, thinking that Meredith would be too pregnant to fly by then. Instead, the three of them spent a quiet Christmas alone while Derek's family remained in Connecticut.
She'd be here in the morning though. To see the house, and to see Emily, and to see him and Meredith together. There was the déjà vu again.
He felt the same now as he did when he brought her here for the first time. Happy. Proud.
Look at what we've built, Meredith and I.
Just before he was about to sink into sleep, he heard the bedroom door swing open and Emily's bare feet pad across the floor.
"Mommy," Emily choked out tearfully, tugging on the blankets around Meredith and then at Meredith's shirt.
Derek opened his eyes, and propped himself up with one elbow. "Bean," he sighed sympathetically.
Meredith barely woke, just enough to open her eyes and see Emily standing in front of her. She reached forward and gripped Emily with both hands, just under her armpits, and lifted her up onto the bed. Emily situated herself flush against Meredith's body, and Derek reached over Meredith's body to touch her face. Meredith held Emily close, kissed her face and then her hair, before settling her hands on Emily's back. She pursed her lips together and hummed for a second, first for Emily and then, when Derek sank back down onto the pillows and slung his arm back over her waist, almost blissfully for herself.
The next morning, Derek sat on a bench in the baggage claim area of SeaTac, his eyes focused on the escalators spilling people into the long hallway of conveyor belts. The monitor had indicated that the flight from JFK International had arrived on time and that bags would begin to be unloaded shortly on conveyor belts D and E, but there was no sign of his mother yet.
He pushed his hair back with both hands and yawned. Waking up a few hours before had been slightly disconcerting; with no ocean outside to drown out any noise and a restless toddler sharing the bed with him and Meredith, it took him a moment or two to remember where he was exactly. Home. Back in Seattle. Following a quick breakfast of leftover granola bars, they'd taken Emily on a walk down to the lake to relearn the land, redefine home. Afterward, he left to pick up his mother at the airport, and Meredith took Emily to the supermarket to get some groceries. They tried to time it so they'd be home at the same time.
He scanned over the crowds of people billowing into baggage claim by the plane-load and his eye caught on a trim older woman, weaving her way through the crowds with determined ease, purse slung over her shoulder and every step sure. Her dark gray hair, still slightly reminiscent of the black it used to be, was pulled back into a tight bun. Her mulberry-colored cardigan sweater and tan slacks remained thoroughly unmussed and perfectly pressed, despite a cross-country flight, and her sensible black shoes with low heels clicked rapidly across the tile floor. She kept her left hand on her purse, and a small diamond ring sparkled on her ring finger.
"Mom," Derek called, rising quickly from the bench against the corridor's far wall. "Mom!"
"Derek," the woman replied, whipping her head around and smiling as recognition flickered across her face.
Mary Shepherd reached for her son, first pulling him down a bit for a kiss on the cheek, then wrapping him in her arms for a hug. Derek had been the tallest in his family since he was sixteen years old and a growth spurt shot him up a few inches taller than his mother and all four of his sisters. She squeezed him and patted his back a few times before she took a step back and looked at him.
"Derek, look at you! You're tan!" she exclaimed. Her voice was honeyed and rich, each word affectionate.
"Three months at the beach will do that to you, Mom," he grinned. "How was your flight?"
"Oh, it was fine. Where's the baby?" Mary asked, looking around. "You didn't bring her?"
"She's out with Meredith getting some groceries. She was up early this morning so Meredith wanted to get her home early enough to nap before everyone got here," he explained. "She didn't sleep much last night."
"Oh, is she sick?"
"No, no, she's fine," Derek assured her as they walked toward the conveyor belts as suitcases started to spill onto them. "She wasn't thrilled to be back at home, that's all. I think it was just dark, it was late, and she was already tired when we got home last night. She didn't really recognize the house. She was better this morning though."
"Poor thing," Mary tsked sympathetically. "From what you told me, she had a great summer."
"She loved it. You should have seen her, Mom. She had us in the water every day."
"Reminds me of a little boy I used to know with a certain fondness for testing his limits," she said fondly. She grabbed at Derek's arm and pointed to a small navy suitcase slowly making its way around the conveyor belt. "That's my bag, Derek."
He reached forward and pulled the suitcase off the belt, standing it upright and extending the handle. "Did you have anything else?" he asked.
"No, just that suitcase and my purse."
"Ok, I'm parked not too far from here," Derek said, guiding Mary towards the exit. At the car, he loaded Mary's suitcase into the backseat, and opened the passenger door for her.
"How are the girls?" he asked as they started the drive home.
"Oh, everyone's doing well," Mary began with a flourish. "Kathleen, Jerry, and the kids just got back from the Cape. Everybody goes back to school this week so all the kids are getting a bit crazy. I think Maggie most of all though. And Ian's cutting his molars so Anne and Kevin are a little tired. But everyone's doing well. I've been told to bring back more pictures of Emily," she added abruptly, teasingly. "Apparently you're not sending them enough."
"Meredith was going to get the pictures from the beach house printed while they were out this morning," he smiled, his eyes still on the road in front of him. "I'll call her and tell her to get some doubles."
"Wonderful," Mary nodded, before rolling her eyes. "You know I'll never hear the end of it, Derek."
"Oh, I know, Mom. Let me call her right now. Can you pass me my phone?" She handed him his cell phone and he dialed Meredith's number.
Meredith answered after the second ring, before the third, and he asked, "Hey, did you order the pictures yet?"
"No," she replied. "Why?"
He could hear Emily singing a nonsense song to herself in the background. He pictured her sitting in the cart, swinging her legs gently back and forth, eating a piece of cheese from the deli counter or a chocolate chip cookie from the bakery. He smiled. "Can you get some extras made up to send home with Mom?"
"Yeah, I'll get some," Meredith agreed. "Five of each?"
"Yeah, one for Mom and one each for my sisters."
"Ok. Did your mother's flight get in all right?"
"Yeah, everything's fine," he assured her. "We're on our way home now. How's Emily?"
"She's good, she's sitting here singing."
"Yeah, I can hear her," he chuckled. "Ok, well we'll see you when you get home then."
They said goodbye, and he hung up and dumped the phone into one of his cup-holders.
"Meredith said she'd get extras for you. When you talk to Nancy later, you can tell her she can sleep easy tonight," he said.
"How is Meredith?" Mary asked.
"Better," Derek answered after a brief hesitation, feeling his mother's eyes on him as he drove. "We're both better. I think we are. We go back to work on Tuesday."
"It'll be nice to get back to the hospital, I imagine," she said, trailing off, waiting for him to respond.
Derek knew that his mother was a master conversationalist. It was a long-running family joke that Mary Shepherd could ask two questions and get someone's life story out of them. People always just seemed to want to talk to her, to open up to her. Maybe it was partly due to the fact that, widowed at thirty-six and left to raise five children alone, her family looked to her as someone who should possess some inordinate wisdom as a rule. Her children had certainly come to her for advice plenty of times through the years, maybe Derek most of all.
Derek couldn't really remember if she'd been that way before his father's death, but certainly afterward, she had a way of making him see the truths of his own life when he either couldn't or wouldn't see them before. During the times in his life when he called infrequently, it wasn't that he was avoiding his mother, or being a bad son; rather, it was that he was avoiding himself and all the things that his mother would simply make him see before he even realized what was happening. That first year in Seattle, the one mostly spent trying to piece things back together with Addison while all the while aching for Meredith, and most of this past year, the one spent at first too sad and too tired to stop Meredith from slipping through his fingers and then too scared that his distance had once again done irreparable damage to his marriage—he'd never talked to his mother less in his entire life.
"Yeah, I think it will," he replied. "Meredith was saying the other night that she was hoping for some great case as a welcome back."
"And what will you do with Emily?" his mother asked.
"The daycare at the hospital knows she'll be back on Tuesday full-time. She's been there since she was eight weeks old, so she'll be fine," he assured her confidently. "Brenda, the woman who runs the place—Emily loves her."
"It's wonderful that you have a place where you can leave her and know that she's safe and happy."
"Yeah," he agreed, "We love having her right in the hospital."
He grew quiet, changing lanes and weaving through traffic on the highway with skill and precision. He swallowed when he felt his mother watching him again. He glanced over at her, and when he saw her smiling, he couldn't help but return the gesture.
"You did good, Derek," she said proudly.
He nodded, the gesture so small it was barely anything. They'd done something on the coast this summer, he and Meredith; they'd touched each other's wounds, cut away the bad, sewed up gaping holes inside themselves. They'd healed. That was a good thing.
"I know it's hard," Mary continued. "Believe me, Derek. Especially with you being out here," she added. "The girls, they worked long hours too when the kids were young, but I was there and their sisters were there. There was a certain amount of…," she paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. "Well, I could be there for them, and they helped each other a lot too. I think about you and Meredith out here all by yourselves, and I know you are doing better now, but—"
"We are doing better, Mom," he interrupted. "And I promise, we'll visit more. And we want you and the girls to visit more too. I can't believe it's been this long since you've seen Em."
"No, Derek." She patted his knee twice. "Well, of course I'd love to see the baby more," she amended herself. "Your sisters and I all would. But I just think about you and Meredith out here alone and I can't help you like I did for your sisters. And I know you have friends out here," she added quickly. "And Mark's out here, of course. But you know, he's not exactly the guy you're going to call to come babysit. You two do it all by yourselves."
"With varying levels of success," Derek shrugged.
"You do what you have to do, Derek," Mary said softly. "And I'm proud of you."
Derek didn't respond for a few moments. His mother had never been stingy with those words. He'd heard them when he graduated from kindergarten and when he'd graduated from medical school. He had heard them when he struck out in the bottom of the ninth inning to end his middle school's team's chances to go to the playoffs. Mark was mad, his coach was disappointed, but she was proud anyway. He had heard it the first time he was published and she'd called him after reading his article in the New England Journal of Medicine. She told him that she hadn't understood a word of it but she was proud anyway. He had heard it when he married Addison, and when he married Meredith. He'd never forget the way the words sounded when she hugged him and kissed him and nearly cried, holding a newborn Emily in her arms. But the words sounded a little different now, like she meant them more now than she ever had. Pride was a funny thing.
"Emily does this thing now," he finally said, nodding and breaking the silence. "We got her this doctor kit for her birthday. She might want to examine you when you get home. I think she's a little bored with just Meredith and me as patients."
"I think I can handle that," Mary replied, and the two of them went back to looking at the road ahead of them in silence.
"Mom?" Derek spoke up after a minute or two.
"What is it, Derek?"
"Meredith. She says," he hesitated briefly before continuing on. "She says she doesn't know. And she worries, about the not knowing." He sighed. "I don't know how to make her know."
Mary cocked her head slightly to the left and changed her position slightly, crossing her left leg over her right rather than her right over her left. "You can't make her know," she said after some thought.
"I have to," he responded almost immediately.
"Derek, listen to me—no, look at the road—you can't make her know that everything is going to be all right anymore than you can make yourself know," she said quietly. "You can't make anybody know something like that. Grief is a strange thing. It never really goes away," she continued with a vague sadness tinting her words. "But eventually you learn to live with it. It's the process of figuring out how you're going to live with it that is the really hard part."
"So what do I do?" he asked desperately.
"You're doing it already, Der," she assured him, her tone taking on a certain tenderness as she continued to speak. She reached over and squeezed his arm. "You and Meredith protected your family. You thought about your daughter first, and then you did what you had to do to keep her life about what she knows. Even if that meant staring your loss in the face and putting yourself outside of your comfort zone."
"We did that," he agreed softly.
"You did."
"She's still scared though," he countered.
Derek kept his eyes on the road, kept driving, as he heard her take a breath and begin to speak. "When Dad died," she said, "I had no idea how I was ever going to handle it. I was dealing with Kathleen's braces and Annie's dance costumes, and you remember Nancy at 12. Difficult doesn't begin to cover it," she chuckled. "I thought I had my hands full then, but then all of a sudden, I had you kids and the business to take care of by myself. And Dad was gone. And every time I thought about Dad being gone, it hurt so much that I felt like I couldn't breathe. I couldn't believe it."
"Yeah," Derek nodded.
"I didn't know how I was going to take care of you kids when I wasn't sure how to take care of myself."
"You never let on," he breathed, the admiration apparent in his speech's every inflection. He remembered the nights they spent together, all six of them, in the days and weeks immediately following his father's death, curled up in his parents' bed. He remembered his mother's first day at her new job as a secretary, the way she'd shuffled all five of them off to school that morning, came in at six that evening, and had dinner on the table by seven. He vaguely recalled his uncle buying out his father's share of the contracting business they owned together; the memories of his mother paying the bills at the kitchen table on a Saturday morning were much more easily conjured. He didn't remember much about the details of their lives; it was just his family's way during his adolescence and that was that. "I never knew you were scared."
"Did Emily know that you were scared?" Mary came right back.
"No, she didn't," he replied. "I hope that she didn't."
"You protect your children," she continued definitively. "I didn't want you to know I was scared either. You were scared enough. But I got a job, and Gram and Pop helped me with you and your sisters, and Uncle Alan bought the business. And eventually, we made a new normal," she sighed, like the strain of the loss and the magnitude of the accomplishment still staggered her when she thought about them. "Nobody can know that everything's going to be all right," she said. "Not even you, Derek. It's impossible. But you can have faith," she offered confidently. "You can believe that no matter what happens, you will be strong enough to survive it somehow. You can know that you love your daughter, and you'll do anything to keep her safe and happy. And you know Meredith, and Meredith knows you," she breathed empathetically. "Even if she thinks she doesn't, Meredith knows the important things already. You can't make her know that everything will be ok, but you don't have to. You just have to keep going, together, and then eventually you get there. One foot in front of the other, Derek."
She made it sound so simple. "Meredith loves Emily so much."
"Of course she does," Mary said tenderly.
"She'd do anything for her," he added.
"If you know what you love, the rest falls into place somehow," she said. "Somehow it's enough."
He sighed. "So, one foot in front of the other?"
"All you can do, Der."
He turned onto the lonely two-lane street that eventually turned into a gravel road that led to the house. They were almost home.
"You know," he said playfully, "I'm going to tell Nancy next time I talk to her that you said that difficult doesn't even begin to cover it with her."
"Nancy at age 12?" Mary laughed. "'Difficult' was a kind assessment."
"Her problem is that she pales in comparison to your favorite child," he teased. "Your only son, brain surgeon, all of that."
"You better watch that ego," she laughed. "Besides, don't be ridiculous. Maggie is my favorite."
"Oh, well, who's going to break the news to Kathleen?" Derek asked amusedly.
"I did before I left Fairfield," Mary replied seriously. "I hope you don't mind; I'll be living here with you and Meredith for several years."
He turned onto the gravel. The tires crunched as they made their way down the road and towards the house. This location had been very much about peace. Serenity. Solitude. All the things that someone trying to escape all things Manhattan might be in search of. At first it took some getting used to. Though the closest set of stores was five minutes away, it was still a drive. There were no neighbors, nobody's loud music or yappy dogs to deal with, but if he needed to borrow an egg, or check if it was just their cable that was out, or if it was everyone's, there was no one to call. Eventually, though, he grew to love it. The sprawling property encompassed a small lake and a patch of dense woods with a trail leading through them, connecting them to the clearing on one side where they built the house and the clearing on the other side that led to the lake, empty except for a small, marked dog grave.
The house was big but not too big, well-built and luxurious without being ostentatious. He hand-selected every detail, from the gray stone walls to the dark wood spokes that made up the porch's fence. He chose the color of the shutters—green—and the metal that made up the doorknob and knocker—brass—and the kind of flowers that were planted by the front steps—yellow tulips. Four bedrooms, two fireplaces, a large clawfoot tub in the master bathroom, a kitchen with counter space, and a deck off of the back door. Everything about this house was on purpose, even the location of the grassy clearing where he parked his car now.
"I'm glad you're here, Mom," he said, turning off the engine and sitting back in his seat for a minute, looking up at the house in front of him.
"I am too, Derek."
Twenty minutes after they arrived home, Derek and Mary sat at the kitchen island waiting for Meredith and Emily to get home. They didn't have much in the way of food for Derek to offer his mother, but Mary had said she was fine with just some water. Derek was done talking about himself and his marriage and his life for right now; there would be plenty of opportunities for Mary to ask him about those things later this weekend, and frankly, what little he had shared had exhausted him.
"So Jeremy is looking at Columbia," Mary said, sipping her water.
"Great school," Derek smiled, raising his glass. "He just better be prepared for those student loans."
"He's already told Kathleen it won't be a problem because he's planning to be rich."
"Oh, well then he's got it all figured out. Does he know what he wants to major in?"
Mary shook her head, but before she could elaborate further, they heard the front door open and Meredith speaking to Emily, bustling inside. She came into the kitchen balancing Emily on her right hip and holding two grocery bags in her left hand. Her green long-sleeved t-shirt rode up a little at the waist, where Emily's knees gripped her torso for stability, and her jeans hung low on her hips. Emily wrapped her arms around Meredith's neck and played absently with Meredith's ponytail.
"Hi," Meredith said, sounding a little flustered despite obviously knowing that Derek and Mary had beaten them home. She set the two bags down on the counter opposite Derek and Mary and then turned around.
"Hi, Meredith," Mary said, wrapping Meredith, and Emily by proxy, in a hug. When she stepped back, her expression softened and a smile spread across her face. "Hi, Emily."
Emily turned away and buried her face in Meredith's shoulder and Meredith jostled her a bit, trying to adjust her weight in her arms. Derek frowned. Emily wasn't usually shy, but it had arguably been a tumultuous 24 hours and maybe a little reservation was to be expected.
"Em, it's Nana," he urged. Emily turned her face back towards him and Mary, regarding her carefully, wrinkling her nose in an effort to reconcile a name she knew with a face she didn't. "Can you say hi to Nana? She came to see you for your birthday."
Emily shook her head, and turned back into Meredith's shoulder. Meredith smiled apologetically, but Mary nodded in reassurance.
"That's ok," she said. "We'll get to know each other again."
"I'll bring the rest of the bags in," he said, getting up from his place at the counter. Meredith slipped into his seat with Emily still in her arms, turning her to face forward while still keeping her in her lap.
The bags piled up on the kitchen floor as Derek continued to bring them inside. He paused for a moment, just to check on how the three of them were getting along. Everything seemed to be going well. Meredith and his mother were talking and Emily was slowly warming up. She already looked more interested in his mother than she did before. He went back outside to get the rest of the bags.
"I think that's everything," he called from the front door after he had carried in upwards of 20 bags, filled with everything they needed to restock their fridge.
"Did you get the two from the front seat?" Meredith asked.
"I did."
"Then that's it."
He came back to the kitchen, where he found his mother still seated at the counter and Emily sitting on the countertop. He stopped, touched Meredith's hip lightly with a few fingers and kissed the top of her head.
"Hey," he said. I love you. We're making it come true right now. You and me together. This is all part of it. One foot in front of the other.
She wrinkled her nose and smiled back. "Hey."
Meredith got up to help Derek tend to the groceries, and Emily reached forward and tugged on the sleeve of Mary's sweater. "Yes, Emily?" Mary said.
"You are my Nana?" she asked.
"I am," Mary smiled. "I'm your daddy's mommy."
"You came to see me cause of it's my birthday?"
"Yes, I did. I thought it would be fun to visit you since its so much fun to talk to you on the phone."
"Oh."
"I was thinking that we could play this weekend," Mary grinned, hinting to Emily. "Do you like to play?"
Emily nodded shyly. While Mary kept Emily busy, Meredith and Derek started to unpack the bags and put the groceries away. Meredith put three of the bags on the counter next to Emily.
"Em, can you help us unpack the food?" she asked.
Emily nodded and started pulling items out of the first bag while Mary continued to talk to her. As Emily unpacked each thing, Mary grouped them together on the counter, the frozen French fries with the bag of frozen mixed vegetables, the apples with the bananas. "What's your favorite thing to play?" she asked.
Emily looked up. "Hey, I have tea parties sometimes."
"You do?" Mary asked, astonished for her benefit.
"You can show Nana your special hat that you wear to tea parties, Em," Meredith interjected, taking the frozen items from Emily and putting them in the freezer.
"You have a special hat for tea parties?" Emily nodded. "That sounds perfect. Would you invite me the next time you have one?" Emily nodded again, pulling out a bag of chocolate chip cookies.
"Nana, these are the goodest cookies in the world," Emily announced, holding the bag up for Mary to see before she handed it to her to open. "I have one right now."
Mary looked back at Meredith. Meredith whipped her head around and looked at the bag in Mary's hand and Emily's hopeful face. "You can have one," she said. Mary quickly opened the bag for her and passed her a cookie.
"Daddy, look what I got," Emily said triumphantly. She pulled a thick envelope out of the bag, absolutely stuffed with pictures.
"That's great, Bean," Derek replied enthusiastically. "Why don't you show Nana the pictures of all the fun things you did this summer?"
Emily nodded, and thrust the envelope at Mary. "Look, Nana."
Mary opened the envelope, taking the stack of 4x6 prints in her hands while Derek helped Meredith finish putting everything away.
"This me at my ocean," Emily said, pointing to the first picture in the pile.
The date June 18 was stamped in the lower left corner. The picture showed a soaking wet Emily in her blue bathing suit, her back towards the camera. Locks of her curly hair were matted to her neck, water droplets cascading down her back, legs, and arms. She looked as if she was trying to catch the water in her hands, squatting down a little with both arms outstretched and dipped into the water, thrusting upward and sending sprays of ocean into the air as she waited for the next wave to rush in.
"Do you like to swim?" Mary asked.
"I am a good swimmer," she nodded seriously. "My Daddy swims too. And Mommy." She pointed again at the picture. "That's a wave and it comes in like woosh and you have to jump. Can you jump?"
"I can, but you are probably better at it," Mary replied good-naturedly.
"I'm a good jumper," she agreed.
"Em, tell Nana how you jumped the waves," Derek said.
"I did it like this," she said, demonstrating by reenacting what she did with her hands, a grand sweeping movement that she performed with gusto from her place on the counter. "See?"
"That must have been so much fun!"
"Yes," Emily replied, pulling that picture off the top of the pile and trying to urge Mary on to the next one. There were a few more from the same day, similar shots of Emily in the ocean, splashing and laughing as she looked at the camera.
"What's this one?" Mary asked, getting to a picture from another day. Derek and Emily looked up at the camera on July sixth, hands and knees dirty with wet sand as they showed off their drippy sand castle for the photograph. Emily had wet sand coating her thighs and halfway up her arms as she held two handfuls of the stuff up for Meredith to take the picture. The castle boasted four sloppy towers, surrounding a fairly large, albeit shallow, hole.
"I builded a sandcastle."
"That looks like a great sandcastle," Mary praised. "How did you get to be such a good builder?"
"My Daddy showed me," Emily shrugged. "Nana, you have to dig."
"And, Bean, what do we have to do when the water comes in?" Derek said, the last of the groceries finally away, as he slipped into the empty chair next to his mother and Meredith took the one next to him.
"We dig really fast like this," Emily answered anxiously, demonstrating the frantic scurrying motion for Mary, "Cause the water knocks the castle down."
"Which sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad," Derek continued for his mother. "Depending on her mood. One day, it could be the coolest thing ever and the next, major meltdown if her castle got ruined," he laughed. "Right, Em?"
"If you work hard at something, you don't want to see it ruined, right?" Mary countered, understanding the logic of a three-year-old perfectly.
Emily nodded. "Cause I am a good builder."
Mary continued to scroll through the pictures in the stack, quickly viewing the other three from the day they built that sandcastle and stopping at a new picture that didn't look like it was taken at the beach at all. Meredith was but a blur in the background as Emily reached for the camera, shrieking in delight and flying high on a park swing. The background of the picture was dark—this was from one of the days during the dangerous rip tides in late July—but Emily's joy was apparent.
"Is this from a time you went to the park?"
"Yeah, I just swingin,'" Emily said, touching her image with the tip of her index finger. "I go so high."
"Did your toes touch the sky?"
"Yes," she said, the expression on her face bearing no resemblance to someone speaking with any hint of sarcasm or hyperbole. "One time, they did, Nana. I go so high."
"Is this the house?" Mary asked, flipping to the next picture. "It's adorable."
The shot showed the tiny house at sunset, taken coming back from a walk into town to get ice cream. Derek had taken it barely two weeks ago, when they began to realize that summer was almost over and they'd be returning home very soon. We don't even have a picture of the house, he'd said, and he'd shooed Meredith and Emily onto the front step, sticky dripping cups in hand. He stepped back and took out the camera, and he'd taken this one without zooming in to focus on Meredith and Emily at all. He'd gotten the whole house, preserving perfectly their personal oasis. He'd zoomed in afterward, gotten a closer picture of Meredith and Emily smiling, sitting on the step together—it was probably the next one in the pile—but he liked this one better. A hint of beach was visible to the side of the house, orange spilling out all around them. Meredith and Emily's expressions weren't clear, but he loved the way Meredith's head turned towards Emily so attentively as she situated her, waiting for Derek to take what she thought would be the real picture.
"It was perfect," he agreed with his mother. "We loved it."
"That's Mommy," Emily gasped happily, pointing to Meredith when Mary flipped to the next picture, which was exactly the one Derek expected.
"Mommy is the best, isn't she?" Derek said, grinning when he felt Meredith's hand on his thigh as she leaned in to get a better look at the photo.
"Nana, she my Mommy," Emily said, pointing at the real Meredith sitting diagonally from her as if she was trying to help Mary make the connection.
"She is, isn't she? You are a lucky girl, Miss Emily."
Mary went to the next picture and her breath caught in her throat. Derek's almost did the same. He hadn't seen this picture before.
"Daddy, that's you," Emily said pointedly.
"It is," he agreed.
The picture had a date from mid-July stamped in the corner, but Derek didn't remember seeing it before. Somehow it must have gotten lost in the shuffle of the dozens of pictures they'd stored on their camera over the past few months.
In this particular shot, he was asleep on chaise lounge on the back porch with an open book, Guess How Much I Love You, fanned out on his chest. He had one hand resting on the spine of the book and the other curled around Emily, who was asleep next to him, fixed between the arm rest and his body, slumped almost on top of him. Gray light filtered into the shot and the muted colors of Emily and Derek's sweatpants and long-sleeved t-shirts did nothing to contribute to the brightness of the photo. His hand caught Emily under her ribs, drawing her towards him even in his sleep, while his head tilted forward until his chin nearly touched the top of her head. She sprawled one arm across his chest and her mouth hung open just slightly in unadulterated bliss.
Who is that I'm holding?" Derek asked quietly.
"Emily Grace Shepherd," Emily declared, patting her chest proudly. "Daddy, we sleepin.'"
"When did you take this?" he asked, turning to Meredith. You captured our daughter's innocence on film. If we ever forget, this will always be here to remind us. And maybe one day, when she's older, she will look at this and realize how much I adore her.
"That day you two got up early to go fishing, and then it rained so we had to come home. You fell asleep reading," she explained. "When you didn't come in after awhile, I went out to check on you and I couldn't resist."
"This is beautiful," Mary breathed. "Can I take this one?"
"Oh, there should be enough in there for you to take five of each home," Meredith assured her. "They're probably just collated. We got one each made for you and Derek's sisters."
"Thank you, Meredith," Mary murmured appreciatively.
Emily looked around, scanning the expressions of her parents and grandmother. She decided that she'd had enough with pictures, and tugged on Mary's sleeve. "Hey, I am a doctor," she announced.
"You are?" Mary asked, humoring her with an appropriate level of astonishment and praise. "Like Mommy and Daddy?"
Emily nodded quickly. "Nana, your heart goes boom boom boom. I can hear it."
"Can you give me a check-up, Dr. Shepherd?" Mary asked.
"Why don't you take Nana up to your office?" Derek suggested. He helped Emily scoot off the countertop down to the floor. Emily reached up, extending her hand towards Mary for her to follow where she led. She didn't wait for Mary to take her hand, and instead, dashed forward alone, towards the stairs that led to her bedroom.
"Mom?" Derek called as the two of them headed upstairs, "Just watch your eyes. She can get kind of close."
Mary laughed heartily and opened her mouth to say something but before she could get the words out, Emily called for her from the other room. "Nana!"
"I'm coming, sweetie!" Mary replied. "We'll be back," she said, and disappeared to go with Emily.
Derek settled into his chair, flipping through the remaining pictures slowly so Meredith could see as well. They sat in relative silence for a few minutes, smiling at most of the pictures, laughing outright at others, pulling favorites out of the pile for Meredith's locker and Derek's office.
"You ok being back?" he asked suddenly.
"Yeah," she breathed out after a second's hesitation. "It's weird. It feels like we've been gone forever and also kind of like we never left."
"No forgetting how to get to the grocery store or any of that?" he teased.
"If I can't remember how to get to the grocery store, I certainly shouldn't be cutting someone open on Tuesday," she shot back. "Fortunately, my memory seems to be razor sharp."
"Emily seems much better," he observed, putting the stack of pictures to rest on the counter.
"Yeah. She is," Meredith assured him. "She really freaked out last night."
"She did."
"But she seems to know everything now," she continued. "I don't think she forgot."
"No, I think it was just because it was dark and she was tired."
"I hope so." Meredith rested her elbow on the counter, propping her head up in her opened palm. Her hand found Derek's thigh again and she squeezed at his quads muscles. "She'll be ok to be away from us on Tuesday, right? I mean, she's been away from us before. And she loves Brenda. Brenda is great. I love Brenda. But do you think the separation will be ok? She's been with us every hour of every day for the past three months, and then to go back to the ten, twelve hour separations all in one day? It's got to be a lot on a three-year-old."
Doubt. There it was again. He tried to remind himself of the solution he had reconciled himself to earlier that morning--he could not make her know. But he didn't have to. Meredith knows already. Meredith knows the important things. One foot in front of the other. Go to work on Tuesday and deal with Tuesday's problems on Tuesday.
"We'll be right there in the hospital if she needs us," he said softly, reaching forward and touching her face, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "But Emily will be fine. She'll probably be excited to see all of her friends again."
"Yeah," Meredith agreed. "That will be good for her."
They fell quiet again. Derek shuffled the stack of photos in his hands, putting Meredith's selections—he and Emily napping together and a shot of Emily lying belly down in very shallow surf with her ankles crossed behind her, looking up at the camera with a big smile on her face—aside for her. He took two for himself as well—Meredith and Emily on the front step as fading sunlight poured in around them until their frames looked almost black in the picture, and Emily standing on the jetty early one morning with her windbreaker zipped up to the chin and the hood up, smiling so wide that her eyes were closed.
Sunlight poured into the kitchen. He could hear Mary and Emily laughing upstairs. He cocked his head ever so slightly to the right as he regarded Meredith. She smiled, and he nodded just barely. Maybe the problem, he thought, was her definition of knowing. He had to admit, he didn't know know either. But he trusted, and the way Meredith was looking at him now, she trusted too. And that was good enough for him.
"So, do you think your mom would be up to watch Emily tomorrow night?" she asked.
"What exactly did you have in mind, Dr. Grey?"
"Dinner. A movie. Maybe not so much," she smirked suggestively. "We've had a three-year-old with us every hour of every day for the past three months, Derek."
"I think my mother could handle that."
They heard a shriek and delighted laughter coming from Emily, followed by the sound of furniture being dragged across the floor. If Derek had to guess, he'd say that Emily had recruited his mother as a guest at one of her tea parties, and asked for her help in setting up the appropriate furniture and supplies. If Emily had remembered where the pink Easter bonnet was, Derek would bet anything that his mother was wearing it right now as she became the latest student in Emily's finishing school.
"It's ok, us being home," Meredith said, glancing in the direction of the stairs and laughing a little.
"Yeah," Derek agreed. "Yeah, it is."