Sometimes I forget to love you like I should
But I'd never leave you; no, I never would
The general surgeons had their hands full today, with a board full of accidental injuries, and gurneys rolling through the hallways in all directions. Meredith didn't quite understand why, but it never failed; Halloween always proved to be extremely hectic.
Meredith stood at the nurses' station, trying to schedule a craniotomy to remove her patient's malignant brain tumor, when Dr. Bailey set a huge pile of charts down on the counter next to her. She looked harried, like she hadn't gotten a minute to herself for several hours, even though it was only nine in the morning. Meredith wasn't on the board at all today, but she was sure she had seen Bailey's name there at least twice.
"I've always said it," Bailey grumbled, "Halloween is the busiest day of the year."
"Yeah, well, let's hope nobody blows their head off today," Meredith replied, waiting for Debbie to find a time for her patient's surgery within the next few days.
"Lost your zest for the scalpel, Grey?"
Meredith smiled and shook her head. "Emily's Halloween show at school. She's one of the black cats. I think there are three of them."
Bailey nodded, and told her quite simply, "Don't miss it."
"Derek and I are leaving soon," she assured her. In moments like these, she wondered why they didn't talk about their kids more, why she didn't ask Bailey more questions. She knew what she wanted to say--How are you doing this? Am I doing this right?--though she wasn't sure how the words would come out, when her pager buzzed and beeped loudly against her hip.
She sighed and reached over the counter for the phone, dialing down to the ER. She waved a hasty goodbye to Bailey, and when someone picked up on the other end of the line, she said, "This is Dr. Grey."
"Dr. Grey, this is Hailey, down in the ER. We need you for a consult, guy accidentally stabbed his hand trying to carve a jack-o-lantern. It's not bleeding much, but he pulled the knife out on his own so we just need to make sure he's ok before we stitch him up."
She checked her watch, and realized that she had some time before they had to leave. "Ok, I'll be right down."
Derek caught her on her way to the elevator, rushing in the opposite direction like he was trying to finish a day's work in three hours. "We'll leave in about a half-hour?" he asked her in passing.
"Yeah, I just have to do a consult real quick in the ER. Halloween," she sighed. "It's just a small stab wound; it won't take long. But go ahead without me if I'm not in the lobby in 20 minutes. I'll meet you there. You have the camera?"
"Yeah," he assured her. "See you in a bit."
One look at Jake Cressman's hand told her that this wasn't just a stab wound. He'd somehow put the wide side of a butcher knife clean through his hand, trying to gouge out a particularly tough piece of pumpkin in order to make the world's most awesome jack-o-lantern for his girlfriend. In his shock, he pulled the knife out at home and wrapped the wound in a towel, and now he had a neurosurgeon and a general surgeon staring at it, trying to figure out how to fix it.
An hour ticked by while they waited for his scans to come back and Meredith tried to find anyone at all to pass this case on to. She didn't normally harbor ill will towards patients, but she wouldn't have minded if an intern did his nerve repair and lost him partial function of his hand for what it was costing her to do this surgery.
"This better have been one hell of a pumpkin, Mr. Cressman," she said with as much cheerfulness as she could muster 90 minutes after he came in as the anesthesiologist was about to put him under. They were a half hour into Emily's Halloween show that Derek got to see and she didn't, all because this guy decided he had to be freakin' Picasso with his pumpkin.
A surgery just long enough to take away her chance to see her daughter's first school activity. That's how she would remember this patient, she thought to herself as she quickly filled out Jake Cressman's post-op chart. He'd have most of his hand function back after physical therapy.
Her pager beeped again, with a number she didn't recognize this time. When she called it back, a voice answered that sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place how she knew it.
"Hi, this is Dr. Grey. I was paged?"
"Dr. Grey, yes, this is Mrs. Halifax calling from Emily's school."
Meredith froze for a second. What had Emily done for the principal to already be calling her parents at work?
"Yes, hi, what can I do for you?"
"We just wanted to make sure you knew that we were closing early today."
"Yes," Meredith replied. "Did the show run late or something? I thought the day was over at noon."
"It was, but we were wondering if you made alternate arrangements for Emily's care today. The other children have been picked up already."
She checked the clock at the nurses' station, just to make sure she had the right time. They were both taking a half day today, and Derek should have already picked Emily up and taken her home to get ready for trick-or-treating that night.
"My husband should be there," she said.
"I'm sorry, he's not here, Dr. Grey."
"What?"
"I'm sorry, Miss Norman brought Emily to my office after the show," Mrs. Halifax continued. "We haven't seen him. We just wanted to call and make sure everything was all right. Perhaps you were going to have a babysitter pick Emily up today?"
"No, no," Meredith said, dragging the phone, cord and all, across the hall to the surgical board. She scanned the list of names, and saw a recently erased slot that was filled in with Derek's name and an emergency craniotomy listed as the procedure. She didn't even care to look to see who the patient was. She simply sighed and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips in frustration. How the hell did they let this happen?
"We were supposed to be there, but I got called into surgery on a consult that was only supposed to take a minute and my husband apparently got called in as well. Halloween's a busy day at the hospital. You wouldn't think it would be, but it is. Lots of weird injuries, so busy time for surgeons," she stopped herself then, realizing she was rambling, and said, "I'll be right there."
* * *
The school's hallways were still relatively quiet since the older grades were still in session for a few more hours. The main office was one of the first doors from the entrance, a large bright room with a desk for a secretary and some office equipment, and a closed door leading to the principal's private office. Emily sat at a spare table with her back to Meredith, busily coloring and still wearing her costume. She was dressed all in black, so as to meet the requirements of a spooky cat, and had her hair in French-braided pigtails, but had taken her headband of cat ears off and laid it on the table next to her.
Mrs. Halifax, who she had only met once back when they were considering this school for Emily, was seated at the opposite end of the table, facing the door. Meredith knocked on the door's frame, and announced herself with an apologetic hello. Emily's head whipped around at the sound of her mother's voice. Her disappointed glare and the smeared cat whiskers on her cheeks, which Meredith had drawn that morning with black eyeliner, did not go unnoticed.
"I'm so sorry about this," Meredith said to the principal, who nodded in understanding. "My husband and I had a miscommunication. Regular hours on Monday?"
"It's ok, this happens from time to time," Mrs. Halifax said, standing up and gathering Emily's bag and coat for her. "Miss Norman would have stayed with her but she had an appointment this afternoon. And yes, we have regular hours on Monday."
"Ok," Meredith replied, taking Emily's things. "Again, I'm so sorry to inconvenience you. Ready to go, Em?"
Emily nodded, but didn't take Meredith's hand when she extended it. They walked silently out of the school, Emily dragging her feet and Meredith holding Emily's things limply in her hand. They had a little over a block to walk to the meter where Meredith parked.
"You missed my show," Emily murmured sullenly as soon as they got outside. "And Daddy missed it too."
Meredith's heart sank to hear how disappointed she sounded. She knew that she let her daughter down, knew exactly how this felt to her, only now she was seeing it from the other side. She knew she had a legitimate excuse, but she also knew that it didn't matter to Emily.
"I know," she replied. "Em, I am so sorry. I wanted to be there so much, but--"
"You said you were coming," Emily interrupted angrily, looking up at her.
Again, there was nothing Meredith could say but, "I know."
"You said," Emily repeated, both syllables feeling like short, swift twinges in Meredith's gut.
"I know I did. I'm so sorry I missed your show. Daddy is too. I wanted to see you so much."
"Then why didn't you?"
How to explain when she knew Emily didn't care about the explanation? How to justify it when even she didn't feel like there was cause for justification?
"We just had people who needed our help," she said helplessly. "I'm sorry."
"No, you're not," Emily shot back, much louder this time, almost screaming it at her. She took off running down the street, and for a split second, Meredith remembered screaming once herself and wanting nothing more than to be away, away, away, anywhere but with her.
They only had a half a block to go before they hit the street corner, and Meredith sprinted after Emily, weaving through the other pedestrians to catch up to her daughter. She couldn't believe how good Emily had gotten at running away.
"Emily!" Meredith cried, catching up to her and grabbing her arm before she ran out into the street. She pulled her back firmly onto the sidewalk, and steered her down the side street where she parked the car. Emily saw the car, just three spots ahead of the corner, and walked a body's length apart from Meredith.
"You're not sorry," she said. It was the first time she ever heard what bitterness sounded like in Emily's voice.
"I am," Meredith replied earnestly. "I'm so sorry."
They stopped in front of their car, and Emily looked up at her with such disappointment in her eyes and said, "Everybody else's mom and dad were there. But you weren't."
"Em, I--"
"You forgot me."
"I didn't forget," she replied immediately. "I just had--"
"Stop, Mommy!" Emily cried, and when Meredith tried to touch her arm, tried to hug her and calm her, to literally get down on her knees and apologize, Emily shrieked, "STOP!"
Meredith was at a total loss, watching her child stand there with her fists clenched and her face bright red, screaming and crying, all because of something she did. She rubbed her forehead with one hand, and stood there for minute or two, feeling the heated glances of strangers passing by, wondering what had been denied this child to make her behave this way. She didn't even feel right in scolding her for her tantrum. She wanted desperately to hold Emily, though she knew it would only make her worse. Finally, when Emily had exhausted herself and, though she was still crying, had stopped screaming, Meredith opened the car door. Emily kicked once halfheartedly when Meredith picked her up under her armpits, but otherwise didn't fight when Meredith silently put her in her carseat and buckled her in.
Emily raged the whole way home, alternating between loud sobbing and exhausted whimpering, but said no actual words to Meredith. Meredith was wracked with guilt, and as the ride wore on and Emily kept crying, her eyes filled with tears as well. Wiping them away as she navigated the road home, she couldn't remember a time when she felt more ordinary.
* * *
Emily wouldn't talk to her, but didn't fight her, when Meredith sat her on the counter in the bathroom and wiped away the smeared makeup. At first she tried to keep talking, but Emily would either shrug or answer her questions with as few words as possible, and so Meredith let her be for awhile.
When Derek came home as soon as his surgery was over, the stress of having a four-year-old giving her the silent treatment got the better of Meredith. She didn't care how his surgery went, or what his patient needed, or what her patient needed. The only question she was trying to answer was why they weren't there for Emily. Derek, of course, had no idea what she was talking about, but quickly understood how badly they messed up when Meredith couldn't stop herself from crying in the retelling of it, of Emily's screaming and then her silence.
The silence continued well into the evening, despite the time that Derek spent upstairs with Emily, where he promised Meredith that he tried to explain to her that it was an accident and they were both very sorry. But for all his explanation, Emily wasn't having it. Later that night, they took her to Alex and Izzie's neighborhood to trick-or-treat, still dressed as a black cat, but with her makeup redone, as they walked around Meredith's childhood neighborhood and returned afterward to Meredith's childhood home. At brief points throughout the night, Emily would forget that she was mad and be back to her old self, but when she remembered, she was right back to being sullen and angry.
At Alex and Izzie's house, after trick-or-treating, Cristina, Izzie, and Meredith sat at the kitchen counter while Derek, George, and Alex sat with Emily at the dining room table so she could spread out her candy and Alex and George unwrapped the leftovers from what they were giving out. Beers were served all around, and while everyone else chatted, Meredith couldn't help but focus on Emily.
"Look how much candy I got!" Emily exclaimed, after she dumped her bag and spread the mini chocolate bars and boxes of sweets out across the table.
"That's awesome, Em!" Meredith said. Emily's expression changed immediately to a scowl, forgetting her glee at having so many treats all to herself.
"So, how are you feeling?" Izzie asked Meredith delightedly. They told everyone at work about the baby a month ago, and Izzie, as predicted, had freaked out. Of course, she did already know, or at least suspect, she told Meredith hastily, but she was so excited.
"Hey, squirt, I'll trade you," Alex said, offering Emily one of the leftover mini Milky Way bars in their bowl.
Meredith watched Emily take and unwrap the small piece of chocolate while Derek inspected all her collected candy to make sure it was ok. She popped it in her mouth and smiled, and Meredith fell a little bit more in love with her and felt, if possible, even more guilty. Emily didn't ask for much. She had always demanded very little of them, and rarely complained about her long weeks in preschool and daycare. And, most importantly, she didn't ask for any of this. This lifestyle wasn't her choice, and Meredith knew that whether Emily realized it or not, she paid the price for it along with her parents. For a second, she found herself hoping that Emily would become anything but a doctor.
Izzie said Meredith's name and brought her back to attention, making her remember that she had been asked a question. "What?" she said. "Oh, um, good."
"Isn't it weird to think in couple of months, you'll have another one running around?"
Weird. Overwhelming. Terrifying.
"Yeah, it is," she replied.
"I brought up kids the other day to Alex," Izzie mused. "He kinda freaked out at first--you know how he is--but then we actually, you know, talked about it. After we've both settled into our fellowships, we're going to start trying."
Meredith mustered up the best smile she could, not wanting to scare Izzie with how hard it really was, how much sacrifice it really would take from both of them. "That's great, Iz."
"Yeah," Izzie smiled, as Cristina took a pull of her beer. She was dating someone now, a pulmonologist, but it was still new, nowhere serious enough to have that conversation, even if she was that kind of person.
"Is Emily excited about the baby?" Izzie asked.
"She's," Meredith trailed off, trying to find the words. They told Emily soon after they made the announcement to their friends, and Meredith was still trying to work out how Emily felt about it. She wasn't joyful, but she didn't cry or get upset. She didn't really do much of anything, Meredith realized; her reaction to the news was entirely anticlimactic, nothing of what Meredith expected at all. "She's something. I don't know if she's excited yet."
"How did you tell her again?"
"We kind of just sat her down and told here that we were having a new baby in a few months, and my stomach was going to get bigger because that was where the baby was growing," Meredith replied. "I had this doll when I was a kid--Anatomy Jane--you can kind of pop off her stomach and see all her internal organs, and it has parts to simulate pregnancy, so we dug that out and tried to show her."
"Well, what did she say?"
"She was just kind of like, 'Ok,'" Meredith said, as nonchalantly as Emily had.
"That's it?" Cristina asked incredulously.
"I know, right?" Meredith said. "I was expecting a little more too. She sounded a little worried when we told her that the baby was going to come live with us. But she really didn't ask any questions about it; she just kind of sat there. And then she asked to go back to playing."
Meredith was completely blindsided by it, and Derek definitely seemed surprised as well. She really tried to prepare for this moment, and how to help Emily adjust. She read freakin' pregnancy and parenting guidebooks about it. And Emily had completely thrown her for a loop by failing to properly acknowledge it and react at all. They told her over two weeks ago, and she really hadn't asked many questions or talked about it since then.
"It's probably just a lot for a little kid," Izzie assured her. "Just keep talking about it. She'll come around."
* * *
Emily went to bed angry. She let Meredith hug her and kiss her goodnight, but only because Meredith was there, not because she was sought out. Emily didn't return the gesture, for either parent, and Meredith could tell that all was not forgiven. Disheartened, Meredith left her room with Derek, but they didn't even make it past the bottom of the staircase before Meredith's guilt and remorse got the better of her.
"I can't believe I let this happen," she said, pushing her hair off her face with both hands.
She felt Derek's hand on her lower back, and when she looked at him, she saw only sympathy in his eyes, not fear. "Meredith, it could happen to anyone," he assured her. "It was a misunderstanding."
She realized then that this did not mean to him what it meant to her. In his mind, it wasn't the symbol of something much larger, it wasn't the start of a trend; it was simply something unfortunate that should have been avoided but wasn't.
"It didn't happen to anyone else in her class," Meredith said. She tried to keep her voice down, so that Emily wouldn't think that not only was she forgotten, but she was also the reason for her parents' argument. "It only happened to Emily. We were the only ones who weren't there."
"I know," he replied, with noticeable regret in the tone of his voice. "Believe me, I hate that we missed this."
"There won't be another one."
"I know. But Emily knows we didn't mean to miss it."
"No, she doesn't," Meredith cried, her emotions raging. When you're four and five years old, you don't understand misunderstandings. All you know is what's right before you--that your parents weren't there when they said they would be. "You should have paged me," she said. "To tell me you were going into surgery. You should have told me."
"What would you have done, Meredith?" Derek asked softly. She hated when he tried to keep her calm, or made her try to see reason. "Walk out in the middle of your surgery?"
Meredith paused to consider what she knew she wouldn't have been able to do. For a second, she saw herself walking out of the OR with a man still anesthetized and on the table. It seemed almost surreal. She could have never done it.
"No," she admitted. "But I could have tried to find someone to take over. Or I could have sent someone," she cried. " Anyone who Emily knows and wasn't busy. Someone could have been there."
"Emily didn't want someone," Derek said. "She wanted us."
He tried to hug her, but she pushed him away. She deserved to feel this guilt and remorse, not to be comforted. "Well, at least she wouldn't have been all by herself thinking we forgot about her."
"She wanted us," he repeated. "She still would have thought that."
"One of us--both of us--should have been there then," Meredith said, some of Emily's anger bubbling up inside of her, "Like we said we would be!"
"Are you mad at me?" Derek asked. He didn't get defensive or try to shirk the blame; he simply wanted to know.
Her eyes brimmed with tears. "No, I'm mad at me. And Emily's mad at me." She wiped a few tears away, and asked helplessly, "Why isn't she mad at you?"
"She was. She is," he said. "We talked about it earlier. She wanted us to be there and we screwed it up." In that moment, he sounded just as helpless as she did. "She knows it was an accident."
She didn't believe him. If he could have seen Emily earlier, flushed with tears and screaming, he wouldn't think that Emily knew they didn't mean it.
The baby fluttered gently inside of her, as if to remind her that it was there. The first time she felt it, a few days ago, she was in surgery, and it took her by such surprise that she almost dropped her scalpel and laughed out loud. It was doing it all the time now, and Derek started to joke that the baby was going to feel left out if he didn't come up with a nickname equivalent to 'Bean' soon. Derek wasn't able to feel it yet, even though her stomach had definitely popped, but the baby was constantly making itself known to Meredith. While she normally smiled when it did, enjoying these private moments between her and the baby, in this moment the reminder of its presence was another source for fear.
"How are we going to do this when there's two of them?" she asked.
"I don't know."
It wasn't exactly the reassuring answer she was looking for. All of a sudden, the balance she thought they'd struck seemed so out of whack. "Emily didn't ask for any of this."
"Meredith," he said gently. He touched her cheek gently with his fingertips, and smiled at her. She let him hug her this time, pulling her into his arms. "You're doing everything you can," he whispered.
"That's what I'm afraid of," she said. She sighed as she pulled away, and sat down on the bottom step. With her elbows on her knees, she put her head in her hands, changing position only slightly once to wipe her eyes. Derek sat down next to her, and wrapped his arm around her waist, rubbing her back a little.
"You didn't see her earlier, the way she looked at me," Meredith told him. "She was screaming at me. She was so angry, because of me."
"Because of us," he corrected, refusing to let her take all the blame for this.
"Yeah, because of us. I mean she's gotten mad before," Meredith said. "She's thrown plenty of tantrums if she didn't get a cookie after dinner or if we made her go to bed when she didn't want to or something. But this was different. She was furious. And you know what? I can't blame her."
"No, me either."
She hated what this day brought out in her daughter, hated even more that they were the reason for it. Derek was seeing some of the things she was seeing in Emily--first bitterness, first profound disappointment, first lingering anger. But he wasn't seeing so many other things--fighting, getting careless with boys, pink hair, downing tequila, keeping secrets, feelings of inadequacy and being ordinary that would linger well into adulthood. How early could she trace them back?
"I was always afraid I'd do this to her, Derek. And it's going to happen again, chances are."
She had to be realistic. Once she saw how easy it was for it to happen today, she knew that sometime between now and Emily's high school graduation, she would not be there for something else important. She could maybe look forward to fewer hours as she gained seniority, but the patients would always keep coming, pulling her away from her family. It was like fighting a losing battle and, in an instant, she understood something a little more.
"I never believed her," she said.
"Who?"
"My mother. She used to do this to me all the time. She always said she couldn't get away. And I never believed her."
"You're not her," Derek said quietly. "You're not. You try so hard. She didn't."
"Yeah," Meredith said noncommittally. "I remember wanting her to try harder, but then I just gave up. After awhile, I didn't care if she tried or not."
She stood up, putting her hand on Derek's knee and using him for leverage. She turned to go back upstairs, and he asked, "Where are you going?"
"I don't want Emily to give up."
* * *
"Em?" Meredith said softly, knocking on Emily's closed door. She knew they hadn't left her long enough for her to be asleep yet. "It's Mommy. Can I come in?"
"Ok," Emily replied.
When Meredith pushed open the door, she found Emily sitting up in bed, with all the covers kicked off. Her long-sleeved purple pajamas exposed her wrists and ankles, and Meredith made the mental note that she was growing and would need new sleepwear for the winter.
"Can I sit?" Meredith asked, feeling a little strange to actually feel nervous right now.
Emily nodded and Meredith perched on the edge of the bed, close to where Emily sat, but she didn't touch her. " I want to talk to you about what happened earlier today," she said. "I want to know how you felt when Daddy and I missed your Halloween show."
"Sad," Emily replied immediately. "And mad. And more sad."
"Why did you feel sad and mad?"
"Cause you forgot to come to my show cause of the dumb hospital."
Meredith was going to explain again that they didn't forget, and that she and Derek had a misunderstanding, but she knew it didn't matter. Emily only had three lines in her show this afternoon, but she wanted her parents to hear them and they didn't. It didn't matter what the reason was.
"I know," Meredith replied, owning their mistake.
"And you said you would."
"I know."
Emily's bottom lip trembled, and her breaths came heavier and more quickly. She burst into tears, and curled herself up into a ball, drawing her knees close to her chest. She buried her face in the space between her knees, and said, in muffled words, "And there were orange cupcakes after and you didn't get one of those either. And all the other moms did. And they had pumpkin faces on them."
"I know."
Emily looked up at her with tears in her eyes. "If you know, then how come you did it?"
"I don't know why it happened," Meredith admitted.
"You're just gonna forget me," Emily said, in a resigned way like she had already accepted it as fact.
"What?" Meredith asked, genuinely taken aback. "Em, we would never forget you."
"Yeah, cause of the dumb baby and the dumb hospital," Emily said, her voice wavering. Her tears kept coming as she told Meredith what she'd probably been thinking about all day. "Cause babies need mommies more than kids do, and sick people have to have surgeries. But I don't."
Meredith's heart sank, and she wondered if Emily had been worried about the baby from the beginning, or if it was something she considered a contributing factor to today's debacle. Either way, she acutely understood what it felt like to feel like you were the last priority, even in your own family. It was something she never wanted for her daughter.
"Can I tell you something?" Meredith asked. "I know how you feel."
She put her hand on Emily's back, and took it as a good sign that Emily didn't immediately shrug her away.
"My mom was a surgeon too, and she used to miss things all the time. And I hated it, because all the other kids had moms who came to stuff, but I didn't."
"Really?"
Meredith and Derek didn't really talk about Ellis much (or Thatcher ever), preferring instead to focus on Derek's family and the much happier, more normal stories there. Once or twice, Emily asked where Meredith's mommy was, they just told her that she died a long time ago, and that was that. Meredith never planned to tell Emily, at least until she was much older, any of the details of her past and how borderline-scary screwed up she used to be.
"Really. It used to make me so mad, so I know that you're mad now. And you should be, because we messed up," Meredith said.
She had her hand in Emily's hair now, running her fingers through her dirty blonde locks. Her curls were starting to unwind a little as she got older, forming loose waves instead of the more defined big ringlets she had during her toddler years. Emily was starting to lean into her, or at least close the gap between them.
"I look at you and I want to do everything right for you," Meredith said. "I never, ever want to hurt you, and I know I did that today. I love you more than anything else in the world. So much more than the hospital, even though it didn't seem like it today."
"Promise?" Emily asked earnestly.
"Yeah, I promise," Meredith assured her. "And just because a new baby is coming doesn't mean I'm going to be any less there for you. The baby will need me and Daddy a lot, but we are not going to forget about you. We know you need us more than the hospital does, and just as much as the baby. We're going to try harder."
Emily looked up at her with so much trust in her eyes, like she believed that it would be ok just because Meredith said so. Meredith never wanted Emily to look at her any other way.
"I'm so sorry, Em," she said again.
Emily leaned fully into Meredith, letting her embrace her completely for the first time all day. Meredith kissed the top of her forehead. Emily sighed, and repeated a phrase that Meredith and Derek often told her when she spilled something or during the long weeks of potty training: "Accidents happen, Mommy."