Progress Feels Strange

Soon after Meredith and Derek have the anger/money talk, Meredith asks Lexie when she might discuss something important with both sisters. A few days later Meredith and Lexie work the same shift and Lexie finds a moment to tell Meredith that Molly doesn't have school that evening and Thatcher will be at an AA meeting. They drive together to what Lexie still calls home, and Meredith thinks of as Thatcher's house.

Once they're settled in the living room Meredith struggles with what she wants to say. Eventually Molly intercedes, "Is what you want to talk about positive or negative?"

"Positive, I think, from my point of view anyway."

"Spit it out then. Positive is good news, it's easy."

"Well, you know my mother, I mean, you don't know her, of course, but of her, you know of her. She didn't spend money when I was a kid, but, well, she paid my college and medical school tuition, I didn't have to take out loans. And she left money. I don't know where it all came from but I guess that isn't important, what's important is that I don't want to be one sister having more money than I need with two sisters who have school loans and mortgages and worry about their husband's medical care and what I'm trying to say is I think we should split it. The money Ellis left."

A stunned silence falls, followed by a confusion of protests and objections and Meredith's rambling attempts to explain herself. She eventually finds a formulation that sums up her feelings.

"Look, this about feeling like we're part of one family. Me feeling like we're part of one family. Maybe half-sisters is right for you, Molly and Lexie, and if that's what's right for you we'll leave it there. I was starting to want just to be sisters, and if we're sisters, family money belongs to us all."

Molly and Lexie both protest that they already feel like the three of them are sisters and Meredith responds "Maybe that's easier for you because you already knew about me, but you have to remember that I only found out last year."

Molly is always the first to speak up, she's the more assertive sister, she's more like Susan.

"But you'll need it yourself for your kids or retirement or something. Just because you don't need it now doesn't mean you won't need it later."

"I'm pretty sure I won't. Derek and I went over our finances, in a big picture kind of way, you're supposed to do that before you get married, we'll have plenty of money."

Lexie, like Meredith, has trouble articulating her thoughts clearly and concisely. Perhaps they're both like Thatcher in that respect.. "How did you . . . I mean at the hospital . . . the clinic . . . you and Derek donated a lot . . . was that your mothers' money too?"

"No, that was – well, an outcome of Derek's divorce. He probably wouldn't mind if I tell you about it but I should ask him first."

"Well, if it's none of our business . . ."

"I know – but the clinic donation is public knowledge, and I don't see why you shouldn't know where the money came from and why we gave it to the clinic. Especially if . . . I mean, my philosophy of money is that I don't want more than I need. I'm not trying to – like, help you with this money. I didn't earn it, Ellis just left it in the bank, she didn't have a will or anything, she didn't leave it to me. So the way I look at it is, it's family money, if we're family we should all have a share."

Molly remarks "Most people wouldn't see it that way. I don't feel like I have any claim to your mother's money."

"That's the thing, I don't feel I have any claim to it either. But I'm legally stuck with it, so I have to find a way to use it that feels right to me. The two things I want to do are to split it with you, and to find a way to – some of my friends' parents used to give me dinner and drive me places, you know, with their kids, because my mother didn't and my mother's accountant reimbursed them for gas, but I don't think he knew about the meals. So I'd like to find some way to honor that. But that's a relatively small amount."

Molly cuts to the chase. "How much money did Ellis leave?"

"About half a million."

The stunned silence resumes.

"What would you do if we couldn't accept it?"

"Give it to the clinic."

"Wow, you really don't want this money."

"No, it's not want, I don't need it. Ellis was a terrible mother, but she left me financially secure, I'm thankful for that. But I don't believe people should keep more money than they need. I don't believe in it. I don't want to be rich. If one sister inherits money, all the sisters should inherit money, not like the way they did it in England – you know – when the oldest son got almost everything, and the younger sons got more than the girls. Like in Pride and Prejudice Mr. Darcy had 10,000 a year and his sister had 1,500 a year."

"But Ellis wasn't our mother.'

"She was hardly mine either. She just wasn't a mother. I hardly ever saw her. She was never home so one of our neighbors enrolled me in all the classes her daughter took – ballet and swimming and riding – just so I'd have some company and supervision. At Dartmouth I usually spent vacations with my friend Anna's family."

"What if we thought it over?"

"OK. Can I leave you with one thought?"

"Sure."

"The way things are, because of, you know . . . the way my mother treated your father, we're kind of like sisters unconnected by parents. So who started the bank account should really not be an issue."

"You don't think of our Dad as your Dad?"

"No, we – he and I – we talked about it. I think of him as your dad, still family, just more distant."

"How can he not be your Dad?"

"Well, like the place where the dad would be in my life or my mind or heart or whatever, that's all filled in. When Susan, when your mom tried to get us together – me and your dad – after Ellis died, I really didn't feel that he wanted to be my dad. There was a little opening then and if he'd wanted it, maybe he could have been my dad. But when he hit me, it closed up once I fin–"

Molly interrupts. "He hit you?"

"Oh, shoot, I forgot you didn't know that. People saw, but I never meant to tell you. Thatcher and I talked about it a little when he came to see me on his AA mission, so I guess it's unburied in my head or something."

Lexie speaks up in a very small voice. "I know about it. People have told me. People at the hospital."

Molly and Meredith speak simultaneously: "Lexie! How could you know that and not tell me?" and "Who told you?"

Lexie answers Meredith first because she knows the answer to Meredith's question. "George told me first, when I was such a pest last summer, he said to back off, give you time because of what happened when my Mom died. And, Molly, I just didn't know how to tell you that. I thought I should when you moved in here, but I just didn't know how. And I really don't know what happened besides he hit her."

Molly is completely distraught and crying, so Meredith moves over to the couch to sit by her, and she jerks her head at Lexi towards Molly's other side. Meredith holds Molly's hand and says "Look, I'll tell you exactly what happened and I think you'll see . . . I mean, it's OK now. I'm OK, I'm fine. And I really don't think Thatcher would ever do it again. OK?"

Lexi and Molly both nod.

"Ellis had an affair while she and Thatcher were married and I was little. She treated Thatcher very badly, contemptuously. She told me all about it while she was in the nursing home. She thought I was one of the interns from when she was an intern. She expected to divorce Thatcher and marry this other man, but he was married too, and he stayed with his wife. So when the affair ended Ellis took me and went to Boston. But she was horrible, just horrible, to Thatcher, if the way she talked in the nursing home is any indication. And people say I look like Ellis. So you know it must be hard on Thatcher just looking at me. And when your mom came into the hospital, you know, when she died, I encouraged her to have the operation, and I kept Thatcher updated on her progress, and I was the one who told him at the end. And I think he saw Ellis when I told him Susan, your mom, died, he saw Ellis wrecking his family again. And he just lashed out at Ellis, only it was me he hit. It's wrong, terribly wrong, but also, under the circumstances, something I can empathize with. Not then, of course, it took a long time to get over it. Maybe I didn't really fully get over it until he apologized the other day. But something good came of it, because I stopped being jealous of you two. Not because I thought bad things about your dad, it wasn't about Thatcher at all. I just, I don't know, I accepted that things are the way they are, you had two parents and I didn't have any, I have a house and no school loans and you guys don't have that. I mean, people don't get to pick the problems they have. You didn't chose to have the dad who, if things had been different, we all would have had, so it was wrong to be jealous of you. But I wouldn't have been jealous if I hadn't wanted family myself, so then I knew I wanted to be sisters with you. Maybe, I don't know, but maybe things have to be pretty bad before you can accept, the, you know, what they teach in AA, to accept what can't be changed. I couldn't seem to accept that until after Thatcher hit me. So the bad thing lead to a good thing. Not cause and effect really, the bad things didn't make the good things happen, but they set the process in motion, the process of making bad things better. I saw a lot of that with Derek and Addison, she did something bad and he did something bad and I did something stupid and in the end we're all better off. Am I making any sense? I feel like a volcano with words instead of lava."

They all pause a while and breathe.

Molly asks, "You and Dad talked about this?"

"Yeah. Fewer words though. We didn't talk about why, you know, what happened to make him do that. He said he was sorry and I said that it lead to me not being jealous anymore. And at some point I said Ellis talked about the affair, but not in relation to this, I don't think."

"She was really that bad, your mother?"

"Derek thinks she had a personality disorder, but I don't know much about it. His sister Kathleen is a psychiatrist, I'm going to ask her. So, yeah, she was that bad, but how much of it was bad wiring and brain chemistry? There's no way to know."

"Why would she not give you dinner?"

"She wasn't home."

"You were home alone even at night?"

"Yeah. My friend Freeky's mom figured it out when I was about 8 and gave Ellis hell. So Freeky's mom kind of adopted me and handed me over to Leesa's mom when they moved."

"Freeky?"

"Fredericka. She thought Freeky would distract from the Fred aspect of her name."

Molly is, as usual, the decisive one. "Maybe we should talk it over again, but I think I understand, Meredith, and I think if I were in your position, I'd like to think I'd feel the same way, want to split the money I mean. You don't want to hog something that would be good for all of us."

"Right."

"So we'll talk about it again, but I think I will accept, very gratefully."

Meredith says "OK, good. Are you OK about Thatcher?"

"Well, I want to talk to him about it. He never hit us ever when we were kids, not spanking or anything like that, he's really very gentle physically. But I want to know what happened to him, I mean, what you thought was going on sounds reasonable, but I want to be sure. And I like it better when things are out in the open."

"What about you, Lexie?"

"The way you described it – it's so wrong – but the way you describe it, I feel sorry for you and Dad. But part of the reason I moved out was because I was afraid the drinking might cause him to be more - I don't know, not violent – but that's what I was afraid of. If it really was an aberration, I could come back. But I didn't know your mother was so . . . mean . . . Meredith. I didn't, um, realize how awful things were for you. I was jealous too, of the famous surgeon mom, and the respect everybody has for you, here and at Harvard."

"Ask George about Ellis, he had to babysit her at the hospital and she thought he was Thatcher. OK. Well, I'll talk to my mother's accountant, actually, Derek's trying to get me to humanize the poor man, his name is Jack and he's my accountant, no, he's our accountant. Anyway. Sorry. I'll talk to Jack and he'll know what's the best way to do it."

"Are you and Derek engaged now?"

"When we get back from New York we probably will be. He's very excited about it."

"You're going to New York?"

"He has four sisters and they all have families, so I've got 17 more family members to meet before he can pop the question. I never thought I'd use that phrase 'pop the question'."

"So you're going to get married!"

"Well, engaged, for now. I mean, we will get married, but we have to work out stuff like who's going to be the primary parent and if we'll bring the kids up religious and who will do the chores – there's this list of 15 questions and we've only done two."

"When are you going to New York?"

"In about two weeks."

"Can we celebrate?"

"Now or after it happens?"

"After."

"Of course."

"And you're going to have kids!"

"When I'm settled into my specialty, so that's a couple of years away at least."

Lexie has been trying not to yawn. "I have to be at the hospital for pre-rounds and I can't not yawn any more. I have to go home."

Molly says, "Why don't you sleep here, Lexie? It would save you time and I've got dinner waiting for Dad. Do you want to eat, Meredith?"

"Thanks, but Derek will have something ready. I'll call when I get back if I don't see you before I leave."

As the sisters are saying their goodbyes and Meredith is searching for her bag, Thatcher returns from his meeting. He is tense and unable to look at Meredith, but Molly says "How was the meeting, Dad?" while Lexie says, "Hi Dad, ready for dinner?" and Meredith says "Hi Thatcher, we just finished our meeting." Thatcher's discomfort turns to confusion until the sisters laugh at the commotion they made, their laughter is infectious and makes Thatcher smile. Lexie follows Meredith to her car to get her stuff, since she's staying over. When they reach the car Lexie says in surprise, "We didn't even thank you."

"Thank Ellis, it's her money."

"You thank Ellis, we'll thank you."

"I've still got her ashes, we could have a gratitudinal ceremony with the ashes."

"Um, ew."

"Right. Goodnight!"

"Goodnight!"

Meredith calls Derek but she gets voicemail. He's probably at the hospital, since it's too late on the East Coast to be on the phone with one of his sisters, making more plans for their trip. His sisters are apparently as excited as he is, although, to Meredith's relief, the visit won't be all Meredith&Derek, all the time. With Julia and Martin moving, and the end of the school year approaching, and several birthdays in the month, there are plenty of Shepard clan excuses to assemble and celebrate.

When Meredith arrives home she finds Derek was called into the hospital for an emergency, but he left dinner for her and did the washing up before he left. Meredith gets to bed early and appreciates the extra rest.

Meredith's rotation in the ER is going reasonably well, but she doesn't enjoy the rushed pace, the short exposure to patients, the blankness she feels when she dispatches them to another department of the hospital or discharges them, especially patients she can see are at risk. It's definitely not the job she wants for her future, but she needs a thorough understanding of the department, including its limitations and how to interact with the chronically busy doctors because many surgical patients are admitted through the ER. She will probably spend part of every year of residency in the ER, and she hopes she likes it more as she gains more experience. She does a lot of suturing, patient histories, blood drawing, IV installation and other routine tasks. She has yet to actively participate in a traumatic emergency, but after observing for several weeks, she can tell what each of the doctors and nurses swarming over the distressed patient are doing and why.

The days at work fly by, but she nearly always gets a break and a reminder to go eat. The Chief Resident has not forgotten the fainting incident, and specifically asked her ER resident to give her at least one break. Meal breaks are usually the only boring time in her day. The rhythm of the ER is so different from the rest of the hospital that she rarely sees her friends during the workday. Fortunately she sees Lexie and Molly outside of work, and she and her old friend Leesa talk on the phone regularly, just as they did in high school. Their schedules aren't compatible now, but when school is out for the summer they'll be able to get together in person. She also received a letter from her Dartmouth friend Anna:

"Dear Meredith,

"I was planning on waiting six years to write back according to your suggestion, but curiosity overwhelmed me, and besides, I wasn't offended that you ditched me in Glasgow for a medical emergency. There was the emergency aspect, for one thing, and for another, I got to spend two weeks alone with Rob Roy.

"Which brings me to the present.

"Rob and I got married a couple of years ago. Surprise! After he finished his fellowship we got married over there for his family and came over here to get married again for my family. He's got too many family to drag them all to the US, but they had to witness the event to believe it. They're a skeptical lot, the Scots.

"Speaking of skeptics, Rob believed for several months after you left that your mother's emergency was a fiction and that you bolted to give us the chance to be alone. He abandoned that theory eventually, but did not pay up until I got your letter. He owes you one too. Not a letter, I mean he owes you what he owed me for losing the wager.

"I will now try to answer your questions:

"We're in Denver for two years while Rob does a guest professorish thing at the University of Colorado. His field of study, you may recall, is Mathematical Biology, and now that you've been to medical school you may be able to understand what that is. Talk to me in French, Spanish, Gaelic, even English, and I will understand you, unless you talk about Mathematical Biology. So that's what he's doing in Denver. I'm not working myself, the "do what you love and the money will follow" philosophy hasn't paid off for me yet, unless you count doing my husband . . .

"I volunteer weekdays at a literacy clinic the University sponsors. It's always called the "literacy clinic" but I've taught math, computer use, interview skills. One day I taught a teenage mother to diaper her baby because she was afraid to ask her own mother. One the one hand that's a sad situation, but on the other hand we laughed a lot and played with the baby and she seemed more comfortable with her baby when she left. (I didn't know how to diaper either, lucky for me there are instructions on the package.)

"Is it fun? Well, yes, university life is always fun. I hear from other friends from Dartmouth that making friends, having a social circle, is a lot harder outside of university. Rob and I don't know what we're doing next, it might be academic or it might not, so I'm savoring the society while I can.

"The rest of Scotland was longer than two weeks, I never left except to visit home. Originally I hoped to get a work permit, even if the job was serving coffee or cleaning houses, but the rules are strict and I didn't qualify. My very generous aunt (Aunt Sophie, you met her briefly at graduation) gave me tuition for five courses and I studied Gaelic (language) and Scottish literature. I learned a lot of old Scottish music too. The country is wilder and darker the further north you go, all the myths and legends seem to make sense then, but when you return to the 21st century in Glasgow it's like waking from a dream. I would love to take you to some of the places we planned to visit that you missed.

"We called him Rob Roy because he has red hair (the "Roy" part of Rob Roy), we'd just seen the movie, and it made him feel superior to the silly American girls who didn't know Rob Roy from Roy Rogers. Also, it got his attention. I was keen on him, as you no doubt remember.

"I sing Celtic music (as best we are able) with some friends. We have two languages covered – my Scottish pronunciation is good, and one of the singers is Irish – but our favorite songs are Cornish and Breton and we just do the best we can with them. There's quite a market for this music today, but we're not good enough to earn money, so we do what you and I did with the Total Amateurs at Dartmouth, we sing for anybody that asks us and just have fun.

"I have no secret sisters or long-lost family of any kind. My mom and dad are great, in good health, and were thrilled that you surfaced at last. They were visiting us when I got your letter and send many messages, congratulations about medical school, sorry about your mom, yay! about Derek (I haven't told anybody what is not yet public knowledge), and huh? about your sisters. I know there are many criticisms one could level at your mother, and I would be glad to list them all if there was a need, but really, keeping your sisters away from you has got to go in the top 2. Anyway, it's great that you have some family that you can enjoy.

"And finally, yes, I still like you. Silly.

"And now on the subject of you, you're a doctor! A surgical doctor no less. Your boyfriend, his sister and BIL, and your sister are doctors. Your mother was a doctor. That's a lot of doctors. And yet, I hear that there is a shortage of doctors. Is the conversation at the dinner table quite gory? Being a doctor I suppose you don't have much free time, but I would really like to see you. How would you like it if I invited myself to your very own house for a couple of days? I know nothing about doctors' schedules except that people get sick and hurt on Saturday and Sunday too, so you probably don't have weekends like ordinary weekday workers have weekends. You wouldn't have to be off work, I'd be satisfied to see you a couple of hours a day for a couple of days. (If that's not too much pressure.)

"I'm sorry the last years with your mother were as painful as the rest of your time with her. In your letter you sound very different, lighter, more free, which could just be your writing style but what I hope is that you are at last out from under the long shadow she cast. The one time I met her she struck me as the unhappiest and angriest person I ever saw. It didn't seem helpful to mention that to you at the time. I'm glad some of the mysteries were cleared up, I'm glad your mother didn't suffer any longer than she did, and I'm glad she left you a house!

"Here's my phone and email so we can use electrons instead of paper and ink in the future and let me know if I can invite myself to come and see you and Derek. Rob sends his love and a bawdy comment about you and your boyfriend that I'm not going to write down, and he wants you to know that he'd invite himself too, but he has to hear oral defenses and read a million theses and would be glad to have me out of his hair for a couple of days so he can harass the PhD candidates in peace.

"See you soon?

"love from Anna"

So Meredith and Anna are emailing daily, and between her sisters and her two friends Meredith feels like she has a social life, and it's kind of nice not to have her social time limited to talk about hospital gossip and politics, patients, complaints about residents and attendings. Meredith still misses Cristina, she's made several attempts to get together with her to enjoy Cristina's caustic humor while she can before Cristina leaves for Stanford. Either Cristina really is that busy, or she's avoiding Meredith. Meredith suspects Cristina's avoiding her, but doesn't know what she can do about it.

Derek is working extra shifts in exchange for cover during their trip to New York, and making arrangements for their visit. The plans so far are that Derek and Meredith will arrive in New York in time for Meredith to shop for summer clothes at the boutique where they do the shopping for you, and Kathleen will come to Eileen's for dinner that evening. The next morning Eileen and Claire will show Meredith what art historians do, and meet anyone who can make it for lunch at Meredith's favorite deli from the last trip. Claire wants Derek and Meredith and Julia and Martin to dinner Saturday night. Nancy will host the entire family in her large house and garden for the whole of Sunday, with brunch at noon and a barbeque late in the afternoon. Friday evening and Saturday day aren't planned for now.

Derek is especially eager for Meredith and Claire to spend time together. Julia and Kathleen will be accessible later in Seattle, but Claire's family isn't very mobile at the moment and Derek is closer to Claire than Meredith realized. Claire was Derek's only little sister, he took responsibility for Claire very seriously, even to the point of making sure she had someone with her on the subway ride in and out of The Bronx to school. Though neither of them are especially talkative, they share the intuitive thought processes that make Derek unique as a neurosurgeon, and they can communicate under the radar of the rest of the crowd. The call Derek made to Claire the night she made Addison admit Derek had left was not a fluke. In that situation, Claire was the sister he felt most comfortable with, the sister who would make the difficult call least painful.

Meredith is starting feel spooked by her new maturity, by the fact that she hasn't done anything really stupid since Christmas, and by the fact that she's handling difficult tasks – Julia's visit, Thatcher's visit, the anger/money talk with Derek, the money talk with her sisters – with greater skill and grace than she ever expected to achieve. She had this feeling at Harvard, when she stopped the bar- and bed-hopping and really worked at medical school. She lost it in Seattle when her relationship with Derek unraveled the first time. She's beginning to be aware that this state of mind, the sense that she can handle whatever life throws at her, is something she needs to be ready to marry. She also needs to know Derek can handle whatever life throws at him. She's confident enough for now to agree to the publicly visible ring of engagement but she needs more confidence than this before she's ready for marriage vows.

Meredith mentions her new sense of maturity and her lack of confidence in it to Derek as they eat breakfast and drive into work together.

"You could stage a crisis and see how we do."

"What kind of crisis?"

"Sleeping with Mark?"

"Who would have to do the sleeping, you or me?"

"I don't sleep with men."

"I don't sleep with Mark."

"So that's out."

"You're not married to anyone else are you?"

"That's not funny."

"I'm sorry. Are you really offended?"

"A little bit."

"As offended as when I started the McDreamy discussion?"

"I would be very happy if you never spoke that word where I could hear it again."

"OK, but can I make McJokes at all? You weren't offended when I said you would be a McDad, and you made the McDog joke."

"You know how I've never said anything bad about Cristina?"

"Yeah."

"Not making the McJokes would be the equivalent of me not saying anything bad about Cristina."

"Wow. You really don't like her?"

"I really don't. But you do and I respect that."

"Crap. Now we're having a mature fight! It's a crisis we need!"

"Then you're going to have to sleep with Mark."