The Ring of Engagement

"Why do you hate talking about money so much? Why is it a big deal?"

"I really don't know."

"You can dig deeper than that."

"Why do you hate talking about your character flaws?"

"I strive for perfection." Meredith looks as skeptical as she feels, and Derek can't help laughing. "Do you not think I strive for perfection?"

"In the OR you do. With patients or your family and children you do. With other people I think you think they should strive for perfection on your account so they don't annoy you."

"Ouch!" It's a two-syllable ouch, indicating real shock and pain.

"You asked."

Meredith and Derek are attempting the anger/money talk. Rain is pouring, so the ferry and the 40 acres aren't appealing alternatives to the house, but the house isn't comfortable either, with workers in the kitchen pounding and banging, installing new cabinets and appliances now that the floor is refinished, the walls are depapered and freshly painted, and the wiring and plumbing are upgraded.

"What do you like about me?"

"You seriously don't know what I like about you?"

"Some are born insecure, some achieve insecurity."

"It was a yes or no question."

"Yes, at this moment."

"OK. The night I met you, remember? I wanted to ignore you, but I couldn't because talking to you was fun. You're smarter than anyone I know, so it's a challenge keeping up with you, that's fun for me. So, one. Another thing is you're a grown-up. I feel older than I really am, a lot of people my age seem kind of childish. Before Addison came to Seattle you always treated me like we were equals. I liked that. That's two. You strive for perfection in your work, I couldn't respect anyone who doesn't. Three. Well . . . sex. That's four. You take care of me in some ways, I take care of you in other ways. That's five. The way you feel about your family, six. Do you need more?"

"I'm enjoying it. Is there more?"

"All my life I never felt that I could love or be loved, until you. Seven. You're faithful. I mean, I know we cheated on Addison at that dance, but it was kind of an explosive situation. Eight. You try new things, you're not afraid of risk, you're adventurous. Nine. You like dogs and kids and simple things like the land and the trailer. Ten. You're funny, we laugh a lot. Eleven. More?

"Make it a dozen."

"You're stunningly beautiful, but you don't use your appearance to take advantage of people or intimidate people like Addison or Mark do. Twelve."

"They do?"

"Yeah, they do. You can't be manipulated that way because on your worst day you're more beautiful than either of them on their best days, but ordinary people like me feel it. Addison made us feel even grubbier than we were with her perfect hair and clothes and legs and make-up. Mark makes people feel great when he pays attention to them, and invisible when he doesn't. You don't even seem to know you're beautiful. That's very rare."

"You're not ordinary."

"I am, actually. I'm attractive, but in an ordinary way."

"You're beautiful."

"You just think that because you love me. Addison's beautiful. I'm ordinary attractive."

"I don't just think that because I love you, you are beautiful."

"Thanks."

"You don't believe me."

"I believe that you think it. That's really all that matters, isn't it?"

"You don't see people looking at you when we go out? On the rare occasion that we go out?"

"I hate to break it to you Derek, but it's you they're looking at."

"Don't be ridiculous. People never looked my way till I started hanging out with you."

Meredith smiles, a little smile at first, but it grows and grows. "You amaze me, you really do. Everybody assumes you're vain, that you must be vain, because nobody could be so beautiful and not be vain. And you're not. You're so not vain that you think when people look at you . . . you think they're looking at me. And they're not. I can't make eye contact with them. That's how I know they're not looking at me."

"Are you trying to make me vain?"

"No, I don't like vanity. I like that you're confident in your work, you earned that. I wouldn't like it if you were vain about your looks, because it's just DNA, you didn't do anything to deserve it. It's just a freak of nature."

"So why do you think that I think other people should strive for perfection – what did you say before?"

"I think you think people who aren't patients or students or children or your family should strive for perfection on your account so they don't annoy you."

"What makes you think that?"

"Actually, I think the criteria is really more specific, it's people whose approval you're not looking for. You're never short or irritable with Dr. Bailey, because she won't let on that she likes you and you want her to like you. But I begged you to want me and ever since then, you know you've got me. So you don't work for it."

"I don't feel that I've got your approval right now."

"Well, we're talking about your character flaws."

"Let's talk about yours."

"OK. I'm whiny, I have a tendency to feel sorry for myself, I can be envious and jealous. I'm not very aware of people's feelings, people that aren't important to me – like George when he had a crush on me. I guess that would make me self-absorbed. I have some of Thatcher's weaknesses, like the drinking. George said I was selfish, I'm not sure about that."

"You're not selfish. Look at the way you took care of your mother."

"That wasn't generosity. I was still hoping she'd wake up one day and love me." Derek tries to take remarks like these in stride but this one is too much for him, he looks so distressed that Meredith reaches across the table for his hand. "Don't look like that. It's all in the past."

"It breaks my heart when you say things like that."

"People are hard-wired to love their parents. It's a survival thing. Parents are supposed to be hard-wired to love their children. Ellis wasn't wired correctly."

"What about Thatcher?"

"He loves Lexie and Molly. He's capable of love. I think he probably saw me as an extension of Ellis, especially when Susan died, until the other day."

"What 'other day'?"

"He came around on his AA mission to apologize and stuff." Meredith briefly recaps the conversation she had with Thatcher.

"Did you know he was coming?"

"Molly emailed to ask if she should encourage him or just leave it, so I knew he was thinking about it. The email came while Julia was here, I didn't have a chance to tell you."

"But you had time to think about it."

"Yeah."

"Is the window of opportunity closed, or were you just making it easy for him?"

"No, it's closed. I mean, he did seem willing to take on some responsibility, which I didn't feel that he really wanted, so yeah, he did get off easy. I didn't realize it myself until I said it, but it's true that Ellis died and Thatcher hit me but there were no empty spaces where the parents should have been. When Thatcher hit me I wasn't upset because I lost a father, I was angry that I never had a father. But you know that AA mantra about accepting the things you can't change? So that happened, I accepted it, and everything got easier."

"And after that you hauled me down to the cafeteria and made me nervous."

"Yeah, I guess that was chronological order."

"You're making me nervous again."

"Treat 'em mean and keep 'em keen."

"You lost me there."

"I learned that in Ireland. That's how you keep your 'young fella' in line."

"Does it work on the women?"

"When the men do it, it's usually domestic violence."

"You are in a very strange mood today. What is it?"

"I think I just got very depressed."

"Why? Was it Thatcher?"

"I haven't had a chance to think about it until now, so that might be part of it."

"What else?"

"What I said before. 'I begged you to want me and ever since then, you know you've got me. So you don't work for it.' I see myself standing on the bridge twelve years from now, trying to get your attention and you're saying impatiently 'Now is not the time, Meredith.' and walking away from me in front of the whole hospital." Derek looks bewildered, puzzled, a deer in the headlights, wondering where this thing bearing down on him came from and why he didn't see it coming. "Do you remember the first time you got mad and yelled at me?"

"No."

"But it breaks your heart when I say things like that about Ellis." She can't go on, she lays her forehead on her arms on the table and falls silent. She's crying, but silently, so Derek doesn't realize. All the hurt she ever endured from Derek's anger is accumulated somewhere but she never tried to deal with it until now. She doesn't know how to deal with it.

Because Ellis's anger never softened, Meredith never figured out how to recover from it, to repair its damage, to forgive or be forgiven, to forget. When Ellis and her anger died, they became part of Meredith's past, and Meredith accepted that the past was what it was and couldn't be changed. The future, though – that was hers to shape as she wished; she could let the future be poisoned by the past, or she could build better a better future, with lessons learned from the past but not poisoned by it.

She needs to know how to handle someone else's anger, specifically Derek's, but she never learned how to do that. Until now, in the rebuilding of their relationship she's known what to do, what she wanted, what she would or would not accept. Now she's stuck.

After a few minutes in bewildered silence Derek comes around the table to Meredith, sits beside her, puts his hand gently on her neck, his fingers comb her hair away from her face and he realizes she's crying. He gets up again and disappears behind the sheet of plastic that keeps the dust from the kitchen out of the dining room. When he reappears he says "Come on Meredith, let's go upstairs." It's more a command than a request, and she doesn't feel like fighting it, so she follows him up the stairs into their room, shuts the door and leans on it. He brings a wet cloth from the bathroom and wipes her face and takes her hand to pull her into the cushioned chair in the corner with him.

"What do you do when people get mad at you?"

"I don't know."

"What did you do when your mother yelled at you?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? You didn't say anything at all?"

"Not most of the time, there wasn't any point, she would just get more angry."

"And when I get mad at you, you don't usually say anything."

"Once I did."

"I remember." Derek pauses and thinks. "I don't think it's true, what you said about not working for your approval. I think there's another explanation, but I don't know what it is."

"Is it because I'm younger?"

"I don't think of you as younger."

"Who else do you get mad at?"

"Addison. Mark. Nancy when she wants to make me mad."

"That's a fine group to be in."

"I understand. It's not the same with you though. You never betrayed me, or lied to me, or took advantage of me, or broke my trust. Though I have done all that to you."

"You let it go. I let it go. I don't want to hear about it for the rest of my life."

"You won't."

"Why do you get mad at them for such big things and get mad at me for such little things?"

"What are some of the things I've gotten mad at you about?"

"The first time was when you didn't sign the divorce papers you said you didn't have to think about, so I broke up with you, which you ignored and kept chatting at me like we were still a couple, you with your unsigned divorce papers and me wanting to get back to work. So you yelled at me about the eleven Thanksgivings and Christmases and a little understanding from me would be nice. And stomped off."

"I wanted to sign the divorce papers, but I wasn't sure it was morally the right thing to do. I wanted to be with you, and you broke up with me. I was already hurt and you hurt me more. So I hurt you back." He pauses and thinks. "I've done that before. To you."

"George. And Finn."

"Did you really like him?"

"Derek!"

"Meredith!"

"Why do you ask?"

"I'm morbidly curious about whether you really liked him."

"So what do you want the answer to be?"

"Hell no!"

"That's what you want the answer to be?"

"Yes."

"That's not the answer."

"What is the answer?"

"What was the question?"

"You're teasing me in the middle of a discussion about my temper?"

"What was the question?" She hopes he'll drop it.

"You are teasing me in the middle of a discussion about my temper."

"I've forgotten the question."

"Did. You. Really. Like. Dandridge."

"He was nice to me. He seemed like a good person, and I was trying to move on."

"So you didn't really like him?" Meredith bounces out of the chair, infuriated.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Derek! You were with Addison. Addison had my dog. My dog was dying. You were mean. I was trying to keep my head above water and you're asking me whether I really liked the raft I was clinging to? We don't ask ourselves whether we like the raft, we just cling."

"I guess you answered both the question and the question of why I shouldn't have asked it."

"Whether you should have asked it, not why."

"Why?"

"Why what."

"Why should I not ask?"

"Because you're trying to salve your ego at my expense."

"Is that what I did?"

"You dug the hole, you climb out."

"I never let go of you, not in my heart. The situation was dragging on, but I'd told Addie I loved you. I thought she was beginning to get it. If she left, I wouldn't have to push her. I admit I was procrastinating, but I also thought it was better for you and me and her if she left on her own."

Meredith sits down on the bed, but remains silent.

"Of course, you didn't know that. Also, I was still jealous even after you broke up with him."

"How can you still be jealous of someone I broke up with?"

"Because I was insanely jealous. That's the insane part, that I was still jealous."

"Well, get over it."

"I'm over it."

"And stay over it."

"I'm forever over it. Now if I apologize very very nicely and fetch you one of those root beers you said were fabulous, will you forgive my morbid curiosity?"

Meredith mutters something that Derek takes as agreement and he leaves to get the root beers. While he's gone Meredith takes over the chair in such a way as to keep Derek out of it. He has to assert himself to reclaim his spot in the chair, or think of an alternative, so he gets the blue leather chair out of the office and parks it across from her, sits and gives her a root beer.

"What's another time I got mad at you?"

"When I fainted at Christmas."

"I was worried. I didn't know where you were for about two hours."

"So you got mad when you were hurt, and you got mad when you were jealous, and you got mad when you were worried. Have you ever gotten mad at me because you were mad?"

There's a long pause. "I'm thinking," Derek says when Meredith nudges him with her toe. "When you didn't want to live happily ever after yet. I was angry then. I wasn't justified but I was angry."

"Yeah, I don't know what to say about that."

"I don't either."

"Getting mad is a fight or flight thing, it tells you something is wrong with the situation."

"OK."

"But you still have to correctly identify what's wrong."

"Fair enough."

"So you can't get mad when you're hurt or jealous or worried. I didn't faint to worry you. You weren't the only one hurt when Addison showed up and you weren't the least innocent. If you're just plain wrong, I don't know what else to do besides remind you not to be mean."

"OK. I have a plan."

"What?"

"Next time I get mad, ask me what I'm really feeling. Insist on it. You're bossy, you can do that."

"You'd better cooperate."

"You're bossy, you can make me."

"I want to hear you say you'll cooperate, it's your responsibility to cooperate and I can get mad at you if you don't."

"I'll cooperate. You can get mad if I don't. I'll know you're mad because you'll swear at me."

"I did like Finn. I wasn't in love with him. I wasn't attracted to him. He was a nice, decent guy, who I hurt because I was still in love with you."

"I'm sorry I asked you that."

"It wasn't so much that you asked, as it was the way you asked it, really. I know how you felt about Addison, not then, but now I do. But you wanted to know that I didn't like him, not how I really felt."

"I was insanely jealous when I thought you were sleeping together. I forgot to take the level of jealousy down a couple of notches when I learned you weren't sleeping together."

"How did you 'learn' that? Did I tell you?"

"I'm afraid it was a gossip item when you had your appendix out, and Bailey tested you for pregnancy. Nobody told me but I overheard two of the nurses talk about it."

"We should move. Portland is supposed to be nice. Nobody knows us there."

"It doesn't matter. People talk about what's interesting. If Nurse Debbi was interesting, people would talk about her. She's not, so she talks about us. When we get boring, they won't talk anymore."

"I can't wait."

"Want to do the money part now?"

"No, I don't ever want to do the money part."

"I'm using your accountant now."

"Why?"

"I don't live in New York, I don't have any property there, I'm not going back. I'm not sure I'll need an accountant here, since I'm not in private practice, but until we get things sorted out, it's easier."

"Are you using him just to have the same one?"

"No, I interviewed a couple of CPAs. Yours is good, very knowledgeable, and seems to have done his best to take good care of you when you were a kid. Do you know his name?"

"He used to get cash to me so I could give my friends' moms gas money, because Ellis never drove or joined the carpools. I was thinking the other day I could have gotten grocery money and asked the maids to shop. And no, I don't know his name."

"It's Jack Dufresne. I got him to write up one balance sheet for you, which is in this envelope that you have to open, and one for me."

"What's a balance sheet?"

"It's a report that balances all the things you have that have value against all the money you owe."

"Do I owe any money?"

"You'd have to look at your balance sheet."

"Do you?"

"No."

"When we're married can you take care of the money?"

"Say that again?"

"When we're married can you take care of the money?"

"So we're going to be married?"

"Eventually."

"How soon is eventually?"

"Shouldn't I meet the rest of your family first?"

"How much vacation have you got left?"

"Four or five days. I'm not sure."

"Can you get the Chief Resident to give you six days in a row?"

"If I have five vacation days left and work August. That's when everybody else wants off."

"Do you have a pay stub lying around?"

Meredith gets up and rifles through the trash for her last pay stub.

"Meredith, that's not a good place to keep them." But he opens and reads it and says, "You've got five days. We could go to New York and stay with Mom. It should be over a weekend so the kids aren't in school and the parents aren't working. We could meet everybody and have a day to ourselves."

Derek stops making plans and looks at Meredith. "Am I going too fast?"

"No, I know you're excited about it."

"It's just meeting the rest of the family, a lot of noise and activity, very little of substance. After the way I left New York, though, they have to meet you or I'll be banned from the family. Will you be nervous about it?"

"Probably."

"We'll have a day to ourselves to look forward to. Mom and Claire will take you to the Cloisters and you know Kathleen will be easy. The other husbands won't stake a claim. Except for Martin they don't even take much interest in me. You know the kids will love you and you can handle them. Two of Claire's are very young, and Nancy's may not even be free. They always have sports and meets and that kind of thing planned well in advance. Also, Kathleen is thinking of vacationing here when Julia and Martin move, so that she can help with Ben and Tina and Roo and entertain her own at the same time. Kathleen likes to camp too. So she might want to see us without them."

"You should make charts of the sisters' families with ages and occupations and stuff, so I can study."

"OK. Let's get this money talk over with so we can have some fun."

From the sound of Derek's voice Meredith is pretty sure she knows what kind of fun he's thinking of. "Derek, there are workers down in the kitchen."

"They'll be gone soon. I told them to leave at 5:00. Open your envelope."

Grumbling, Meredith breaks the seal and pulls out one sheet. Derek got back in the soft chair while she was looking for a pay stub, so she lies down on the bed to study her balance sheet for a while, until she asks "Is it self-explanatory?"

"Do you understand it?"

"I don't know."

"Let's go to the office. If I get on the bed I won't have money on my mind."

"I need another root beer."

"Take the chair back and I'll meet you in the office."

Meredith's balance sheet is pretty self-explanatory, there's the assessed value of the house and her share of the 40 acres, the book value of her car, as well as the money her mother left in the form of various mutual fund shares. She has no debt. Derek's is only more complicated by the greater variety of financial instruments, and the larger number at the bottom.

Meredith is incredibly fortunate to have a house and no school loans. Derek is incredibly fortunate to have lived in New York without paying rent or a mortgage. A significant percentage of the proceeds of his lucrative, albeit life-saving, business are still his. Money will not be a source of stress in their daily lives. However, Meredith remains uncomfortable with Ellis's money, so Derek makes a suggestion.

"Your mother's money can be like the brownstone money – you don't have to keep it if you don't want it. If you want to share it with your sisters, I think they would accept. If you want to give back to the people who fed you and drove you around because Ellis wouldn't, I bet you could get them to talk about it, and find a way."

"You're a good man, Derek."

"That's a relief."

"I'm sorry I was so moody before. Anger and money are about my least favorite topics."

"It's not your fault. I've been using anger as the default reaction to stress for too long. You'll help me break the habit."

"Good. Before any hypothetical kids turn real."

Derek tugs at Meredith's hands to pull her off her chair and into his, so he can whisper in her ear, "You actually said 'married'."

"I know."

"Were you planning it?"

"No, it just popped out. Can we keep it quiet for a while?"

"So I shouldn't start planning dresses and rings and cakes and guests?"

"Are you wearing a dress?"

"Mean."

"Are you really excited about wedding things?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Are you going to plan it?"

"You don't want to?"

"I wouldn't know what to plan. I've never been to a wedding, unless you count Cristina's debacle."

"It won't be like Cristina's. Nothing will be forced on you. I'm not going to rush you, I promised. What about being engaged? Do you want that?"

"Aren't we already? You put me on the deed of your land, I said we would get married when I'm ready, I'm working on being ready."

"A real engagement is just a little bit more public."

"How public? You mean like in Moonstruck? We're in a restaurant and I boss you around the whole proposal? 'Could you kneel down?' and 'Where's the ring?' and 'You propose to a woman, you should offer her a ring of engagement.' Like that?"

"Less public than that."

"What did you have in mind?"

"I could formally ask you and you could formally answer 'yes,' I'm stipulating that the answer is 'yes' and I could formally offer you a ring of engagement."

"So what makes it public?"

"People can see the ring. When you're in public."

"Oh, I bet I know what you want to do when we're alone in New York."

"Only if you want to."

"Tiffany's?"

"No, Cristina is right about Tiffany's when you want an engagement ring. The diamond district is much better. If you want to we can visit some small shops and you can try rings on and find out what you like, if you like them. You don't have to have a ring."

Meredith is not at all romantic, she's so realistic that objects rarely, if ever, have symbolic meaning to her. She knows, however, that Derek is hopelessly romantic, even in surgery he can be influenced and guided by his imagination and intuition. For Derek the engagement ring itself will be a symbol of his love for Meredith and her love for him, and it will also represent to Derek that he loved and sought and finally won the woman he truly loves, that despite all his past mistakes, he got it right at last. On Meredith's hand, the ring will have yet another meaning for Derek, it will proclaim to the world that he loves her. To Meredith the ring might actually be cold metal and stone, but she would never deny Derek the glow he'll feel seeing his ring on her hand.

"It won't be 'a' ring, Derek, it'll be your ring. Of course I'll wear your ring."

Fortunately, the workers have left the building.