A/N: Daryl and Glenn POVs ended up in the next chapter…
July 28, 2010
~*~ MD ~*~
After all the greetings between his family and those that held down the fort here are past, Merle whistles loudly, drawing everyone close. "I know everyone's worn out and probably aching for a shower and time out of a vehicle, but I'm going to need to impose on a few of you to load up and go with me to start pulling those portables. We'll get quarters assigned to everyone first though, so those who aren't immediately needed can queue up and shower so they'll all be free when the moving crews get back."
That holds everyone's interest, so he takes the notebook Hershel hands him. He scaled out the living quarters plan before, although finding Amanda and Jenny changed it a bit. Amanda wasn't sure how comfortable Jenny would be sleeping separate from her, but she told him they'd try it out. They'd get the girl an air mattress for her mother's room if need be.
"Folks already here are going to stay where they are, between the two smaller houses and the two RVs already parked over there. Gonna add Amanda to Glynnis' spare room, since her place is better set up for a wheelchair than the others. Jenny, you're gonna bunk in the other house with the girls. You know Amalia and Leo and their kids already."
The girl glanced to Leo's oldest son and his nephew and nodded. No objections there.
"Gonna assign the RVs to family groups for the most part. Dale, you and the two ladies in yours, of course. Donna, your family can stick with the RV you've been using, and Tyreese's family will take the other. On the rest of the RVs, Morales, Grimes, Henry, Ryan, y'all each take your pick for your families. That leaves a few for couples. Sam and Ana, Jim and Jacqui. Zach, you're welcome to bunk with Jazz in the main house or take a spare bed in one of the RVs."
He consults the list again. "Glenn, there's an office in the big barn there. Got a set of decent bunks for needing to stay close to the animals at night and its own bathroom. If you and T-Dog don't mind being that close to the critters, that's all yours."
T-Dog laughs. "A real mattress and a bathroom with working plumbing has me sold. I'd just about share a stall with one of the horses at this point."
"Well, luckily we're better off than that," Merle says, giving the other man a smile. He had been uncertain that the two men might feel offended about the barn room. "Alrighty, for the main house, luckily my two youngest liked having sleepovers, so they can house a few. Honey, you're going to room with Sophia, Beth, Isabelle, and Andy. If he can't settle with one of you girls, we'll reassess. Jimmy, you're in with Jazz, and Danny, you get a choice between bunking with them or sharing with Jamie, but I'll warn you that his room doesn't have bunks."
The youngest Marine eyes Jamie with pretend wariness. "You don't sleep cuddle, do you, Jamie?" The other man just shrugs and winks. Merle will let them figure that out.
"Hershel, you'll get the guest room. It's the first one on the right up the stairs. That'll put you next door to Beth." The veterinarian is already aware and in agreement to the arrangement, although he offered to take an RV instead and let one of the couples have the guest room. Merle had reminded him they'd all prefer the couples to have a bit more privacy. "Cricket, you and Tara take your place with Meghan and Lilly. Shane, I'm pretty sure Scout remembers the way to her little cabin, even if it's been over a year since she slept there last. Carol, Patricia, and Maggie, you ladies are taking the master bedroom. That'll put one of you on the couch in there, but I can attest it's comfortable enough for someone my size, so it should do well for y'all."
Carol frowns. "We shouldn't put you out of your own room, Merle."
He waves her off. "I got an office with a good futon that I'm fine with until we get some better places settled for everyone."
"You forgot someone." Daryl is giving him an exasperated look, so he chuckles.
"Grab one of the good camping cots and stick it in the office. I already know you sleep cuddle." True enough, although the futon really wouldn't sleep two grown men comfortably. He knows Daryl will want to keep a close eye on him though, so what sounds like the short end of the stick for his brother is better than what he'll end up doing if Merle doesn't give in. He prefers not to trip over his brother in a sleeping bag on his floor.
"We good to use the RV bathrooms?" Dale asks. "My water tank is full, and we used that dumping station at the quarry camp, so I'm good for a little while."
"Plenty of water. When your tanks run low, pull over to the big barn and use the tap on the well shed next to it. Hopefully by the time anyone's ready to dump, we'll have something sorted out that doesn't involve filling the on-site septic tanks. Gonna take a bit more ingenuity there. If you need more water pressure than the RVs manage, there's three and a half bathrooms in the main house, two upstairs, the master, and a mudroom bath by the laundry room off the kitchen. If you sweet talk Cricket, her garage apartment has a shower too."
Glynnis steps forward. "After you stash your belongings and manage a shower, come see me in the kitchen in the main house. We'll get organized on what to do this afternoon with the supplies we brought and start figuring out what folks want to do in the long run."
Folks are looking anxious about the idea of those showers, so Merle puts them out of the misery of waiting. "For the team going out, I need T-Dog, Tyreese, all the cops and Marines. 'Cept Daryl. Need you to stay and get the backhoe out and prep a spot for a septic tank for the retirement home we're cobbling together. Go toss your stuff where you're gonna sleep and meet me over by the green barn. Take gear like a supply run, but it's probably going to be too hot to wear it." They call it a barn, because that's what it could be used for, but in reality, it's where Merle stores all the equipment for the property. He's going to want his work truck and the gooseneck trailer for this trip, rather than waiting to unload anything that came with them.
They're lucky that a guy out near 575 ran a house moving business, so they don't have to go far. Glynnis verified when they checked in this morning before leaving Canton that they cleared his property and his two semis and all equipment were there. No sign of him or his family, but Merle doesn't figure the man will begrudge the borrowing of his equipment for the purpose they intend, if he did survive by some miracle.
Everyone scatters and he heads for the green barn, keying the smaller entry door open and being glad everything's off-grid here. It would have been a bitch to try to break into this particular barn if the electronic locks and automatic garage doors wouldn't work. He knows Daryl will shift his things out of the truck for him, so he might as well get everything else ready to go.
~*~ CP ~*~
Carol grabs her duffle and passes Sophia hers, smiling at Daryl from where he's reaching for his and Merle's. She's still wary of the idea that she's literally taking Merle's bedroom away, but since Maggie and Patricia seem fine with the idea, she supposes she shouldn't upset the status quo.
"C'mon, ladies. We'll drop Sophia with the girls so Honey can go show off her domain, and I'll show you where to put your stuff." Daryl shoulders the two big duffels with ease, tipping his head toward the house. They follow, with Sophia splitting off near the front steps to join Honey where they're still waiting on Beth and Andy.
The foyer of the house definitely exceeds Carol's expectations from the outside already being so large and pretty. The area has soft blue painted walls and a shiny wood floor, with a nearly overloaded wall-mounted coat rack to one side sporting a variety of light jackets and a couple of backpacks that have seen hard wear. Boots and sneakers are stacked mostly neatly in a shelf below the coat rack. But it's beyond the foyer that's truly impressive. While the foyer's ceiling is normal height, the living room opens up into the upper story, with a gorgeous fireplace to the right and a kitchen/dining area to the left. The big room is cool, not A/C level cold, but cooler than the already stifling morning heat outside by at least ten or fifteen degrees, and she can hear the gentle whir of some sort of fan in addition to the ceiling fans she can see running. An intricate wrought iron spiral staircase accesses an open 'hallway' that connects two areas upstairs.
The furniture looks comfortable and well-used, with a variety of mismatched throw pillows and small blankets tossed pell mell around the big sectional and separate recliner. It feels almost foreign to see the big flat screen television and all its various equipment settled between floor to ceiling windows that give an amazing view of the sparsely wooded land beyond the house. She thinks she can see some of the sheep she's heard about in the distance near a pond.
Before she can satisfy her curiosity about the kitchen, she startles when Daryl touches her elbow. She almost forgot he is guiding her, and those duffels he's carrying have to be heavy. "Sorry."
He shrugs it off. "No worries. You can poke around wherever you like once we drop off the stuff, if you want to let one of the others bathe first."
He leads her off to the right, to a hallway past the fireplace and away from the part of the house she knew the garage connected to. There's a door along the space, but he passes it in favor of another further down, where the hallway ends. It opens into a master suite of the type she's only seen in magazines or on TV. There's an alcove with the couch Merle mentioned facing a small flat-screen TV. Behind the alcove is a door that goes into a room that is back toward the living room, probably on the back side of the big fireplace. The king size bed dominates the room, with a fireplace beyond that she thinks is one of those double-sided ones. There's a door on either side of the fireplace.
Daryl points toward the two doors by the fireplace. "The one toward the back side of the house is the bathroom. Other is the closet. Just drop your bag on the chest at the end of the bed if you want, for now. Merle might ask you to shift some of his things into boxes so you ladies can use the dresser though."
He's heading for the other door as he speaks, opening it and stepping far enough in to drop both duffels on the futon she can see to one side of the room. That must be the office then, and it's the room with the other hallway door. So at least they aren't evicting Merle very far from his usual space. The bedroom both does and doesn't fit her image of Merle. It's masculine, with every indication that no woman took part in decorating it, but more tasteful than she really expects from a single dad. Then again, she figures nothing about this house will fit with any notions anyone from the quarry formed about Merle.
"I'm gonna head back out and go see if the backhoe decided to be cranky after not being used a few months. You good if I leave you? If you need to find Sophia, just take the spiral stairs up and go toward the right. It'll be the third door, since the bathroom's between the guest room and Honey's room. End of that hallway, you can access Cricket's little apartment over the garage if you need too, and there's a set of stairs that go down to the garage level and up to the attic between Honey's room and Cricket's place. Other side of the spiral stairs is Jazz and Jamie's rooms, separated by a bathroom same way as the other side. So, they're more or less right above us. Oh, and hot water for this bathroom has its own tank tied into the heat pump system for the house, eighty gallons, so you three ladies should be able to all shower before it needs a break."
She nods, absorbing the information and knowing she'll probably need to explore to really get it all memorized. He starts for the door and stops. "Almost forgot one little trick."
He surprises her by guiding her with a gentle hand at her back toward the door he said was the closet. He opens the door, revealing a nice-sized walk-in closet that would make most women envious, but it isn't the clothes or built in drawers he shows her. It's a set of stairs leading down at the back of the closet. "Basement access. There's another in the laundry room. When Patricia gets here, take her down and y'all explore." He flashes her that little crooked half-smile of his, and she wonders what surprise lies in wait below her feet that he's sweetly amused by her potential reaction.
Daryl really does leave this time, and since standing in the closet really does make her feel weird, she makes it back out into the bedroom just in time for Maggie and Patricia to pass Daryl in the hallway. Both women stop just inside the door, and Maggie gives a low whistle.
"I don't know what I did for Merle to hand me these digs, but I'm really glad that man likes me," she comments. She puts her bag on the big chest at the end of the bed too. "Mind if we share the bed? Patricia kicks like a mule, so I already told her she's getting the couch if you didn't mind sharing."
"I'm not that bad," the older woman protests.
Maggie puts her hands on her hips. "Otis outweighed you by fifty pounds and you managed to kick him out of bed more than once."
The blonde gives in and laughs, although her expression turns mournful as she walks over to plop her bag down by the couch. Carol figures Otis must have died, since Patricia still wears a wedding set.
"How far did you explore?" she asks Carol. "Because I'm dying to see what kind of bathroom there is, if the bedroom's this nice."
"I haven't made it to the bathroom yet. The office is through there and the closet's over there," she points to the open doors.
"So, let's open magic door number three," Maggie says, crossing to open the door and disappearing with a muttered "Holy shit, this is nice. How the hell did this man stay single?"
That spurs even Carol's curiosity, so she and Patricia join Maggie. The bathroom takes up two thirds of the width of this part of the house. There's a pocket door that leads to the closet next to a gorgeous shower and little alcove that must contain the toilet. A large bathtub is freestanding near the fireplace, with a view through the literal wall of windows that look out over the back of the property like the living room ones do. She thinks she remembers similar in the bedroom, but those had blinds obscuring the view so they didn't draw her attention like this one. She'd missed the deck out back while in the living room, or else it was only down on the master suite end of the house. She doesn't think she's ever seen a bathroom with French doors leading out to a deck, but she's in love with this one. The only part of the back wall that isn't a window is a mirror over the vanity middle of a pair of sinks. There's no chair under the vanity like there might be if a woman used it for makeup, but instead a wicker hamper for laundry.
"Forget the bedroom, ladies, I think I'm going to bed down right here in the tub," Maggie exclaims. She's bolder than the other two women, moving to look over the personal items set around the sink closest to the door. "Wonder which of the colognes he actually wears and how many are daughter gifts." She sniffs one of the bottles and hums happily. "Daddy begged us not to buy anything but Old Spice for him, because it would be a waste, but Merle's got four different ones here."
"Guess you'll have to just sniff him after he's had a good scrub," Patricia suggests. "And hope it doesn't cause your father to have a stroke in the process."
Maggie giggles as she replaces another bottle she's opened to sniff. "Might give Merle a stroke too. I got the idea off his girls that he definitely doesn't rob any cradles."
"Well, then, if you want to chase any Dixons, you'll have to see if you can catch Daryl then, since girls aren't your cup of tea," Patricia advises. She's opening the cabinet behind the bathtub and looking at the towels. "So rock, paper, scissors for the first shower?"
"I've got no problem taking a bath while one of you showers," Maggie says.
"You go first, Patricia," Carol offers. "Daryl told me to have a look around, and I kind of want to see where Sophia will be."
"Makes sense. I'll try to make it reasonably quick, since I'm not sure what kind of hot water we're dealing with."
"Daryl says this bathroom has its own hot water heater with an eighty-gallon tank."
"Guess Merle didn't like to share with a houseful of teenagers. Oh man, I'm going to enjoy this," Patricia says, setting out towels and washcloths. "Maggie, go get our toiletry bags and changes of clothes."
Carol leaves them to their happy chatter. It's clear the two women have known each other for years, although she isn't entirely sure if they're related or not. She closes the door to the office just because it feels better to have that part of Merle's space away from curious eyes. After the impressive bathroom, she looks around the room a little closer, noting it does have the big windows on either side of a set of French doors that look almost like windows themselves until you see the handles. She crosses over to inspect the blinds, realizing they're build into the glass, not hung against it. It takes her a minute to find the controls and she manages to open all the blinds and let sunlight in the room.
She can see from here that the deck does extend the length of the back of the house, the wood stained to match the deep color of the log exterior. The end down by the bathroom has a pergola overhang, with a porch swing hung, but outside the bedroom it's open air, with a set of pretty wrought iron patio furniture minus its cushions. Those are probably in the little storage chest she can see next to the outer rail. The house is so beautiful it almost makes her forget the ugly world outside the property boundaries.
Deciding to go find her daughter like she told the other women, she turns away from the view reluctantly. There'll be time to explore the outside later.
~*~ SW ~*~
Shane wipes his forehead with the tail of his shirt before taking a drink of the water one of the kids brought over. His part is on hold for the moment, since they brought the two halves of one of the modular classrooms back. He'd helped detach everything that needed detaching - gutters, duct work, and so on - and driven Merle's big Dodge dually back with the small construction crane on the gooseneck trailer. Merle and T-Dog drove the semi-trucks with the actual building, with Scout driving ahead in the flatbed truck to open gates. They'd squeezed through both gates on prayer and luck, but he figures that's by design. You didn't build a place like Merle's house without some big equipment having to come in. He wonders how long it'll take the old quarry camp members to put two and two together on all the equipment Merle wants brought back from his business just north of town that Merle owns it instead of salvaging it like the two semis and the setup underneath each building half that forms the 'trailer'.
Now he and the others from the building run are watching as Merle, Jamie, Daryl, and Tyreese use a weird little piece of equipment Merle called a Platypus to push the half on the Platypus into the other half where he backed the two semis together so close Shane thought they were certain to collide. Merle took them by to load up the crane before they got to the school and realized the buildings still had metal frames, so he could treat them like a doublewide mobile home instead of a full modular. Apparently, the other type would need a foundation set and a crane to lift them in place, but you couldn't use the crane to put stacked cinder blocks under safely since they weren't as stable. But they'll need the crane tomorrow anyway because Merle's sending a team after a septic tank.
"That'll never cease to be cool to watch," she says. "Much faster than the days of bottle jacks and a come-along to pull the two sides together."
"You go on the job site with your dad a lot?" Shane asks. The rest of the process seems to involve a lot of crawling under the building where the two parts meet now, along with the requisite cursing from the men as they manhandle things into place.
"Not as much as the younger ones did, but he was really just getting the custom home business started when I graduated. So, I did get to see more of the odd job work like this one, more when he was part of another company's crew."
"That why you've got your own little place instead of in the main house?" Tara's question is one that Shane is curious about too, but figured against asking since he liked the privacy of the cabin being off away from the rest of the residences.
"Yeah. He actually finished the house near the end of Cricket's sophomore year of college, which is why she's got the garage apartment instead of just a room. I figured I wasn't going to be here much, but the cabin was a good project when I was home to work on with Daddy."
Rick glances back over his shoulder at the big house and nods. "I haven't even seen the inside and I'm impressed."
"It was a project with an architect out of Atlanta. She wanted to experiment to show that green technology would work well even in higher end homes for a doctoral thesis. She got her thesis and he got a lot of crazy clients and a shit ton of profit for his company. Any of you other than Danny and Tara go inside?"
They all shake their heads and Tara shrugs. "I didn't go into the main house, although Cricket showed me the door into the upstairs hallway."
"Well, it'll be an interesting tour then, since we'll likely use that kitchen for preparing meals unless people just want to cook for themselves."
"Yeah, I'll pass, thank you," Tara says with a smirk. "I'm spoiled to the delights of Patricia's kitchen witchcraft now. I've seen what she can do outdoors. Give that woman a kitchen and I think we'll all be in food heaven."
"Then you're really going to enjoy supper tonight, when you get to taste what happens when I have fresh veggies to work with." Shane turns to see Patricia and Glynnis have approached to look over the work site. "That's going faster than I really expected. I know he was worried he'd still have to set a foundation even with the modulars. Scout's right, though. Until building us a canteen with a kitchen fit for feeding everyone can be arranged, that kitchen is going to be my favorite place for a while."
"You got enough help for kitchen duty?" Scout asks. Shane really hopes they're not about to be volunteered, because once Merle gives the all clear they aren't needed, he wants to try out the shower in the cabin. Today's heat is not helping with the travel funk they all carry, and he can smell the scented soap or shampoo Patricia's indulged in, which makes a shower even more appealing.
"A whole little platoon of helpers actually. Never seen a bunch of boys happier to peel potatoes in my life. We're having potato salad, roasted corn, and stuffed bell peppers for supper tonight. I'm going to miss that glorious monster of a grill your daddy's got on the back deck when the propane runs out, Scout."
Scout laughs, slipping an arm around Shane's waist and leaning against him despite the heat. "I'm sure you can talk him into coming up with a wood burning alternative by the time we don't have any more propane stocks."
The description of the menu makes his mouth water. He wishes Merle could actually use the extra hands in his audience, but he prefers to stick to the three helpers who've done the process before since he wants the building off the trailers completely by nightfall. Everyone is watching in case he changes his mind, although at least they'll have the general idea how to help on the next building, since there were three at the school.
"I think Maggie's plotting to be your future stepmama to keep access to that bathroom, Scout," Patricia remarks, drawing a lot of startled attention.
Scout laughs. "I'd wish her luck with that because if seventeen years was too much for him and that lady lawyer from Atlanta, I think twenty-one is really too far."
"Oh lord, you heard about Honey's matchmaking?" Glynnis grins. "Who complained, her or your daddy?"
"Both. He was disturbed that she thought he could just replace one lawyer girlfriend with another like tinker toys. I think I was the only one who ever liked Evelyn anyway. He didn't want to remarry and she wasn't looking for that either. Worked out best for both."
"I didn't realize you ever met Evelyn," Glynnis says.
"She picked me up from the airport when I flew in on leave once and Daddy was delayed getting to Atlanta. We kept in touch after."
"Evelyn?" Tara asks. Shane's curious too.
"She was a partner in the firm that handled Daddy's business' legal needs. They were together, as much as you can call it that, for five or six years... Huh."
Shane glances over at her and she laughs. "I just figured out why Andrea seems half familiar. She could be Evelyn's twin if she were twenty years older."
"That might explain the antagonism they had," Shane suggests.
"Maybe. Far as I know, they parted on good terms when she took a job in Seattle, but who knows where his mind wandered."
Shane files away the new pieces to the patchwork puzzle of the Dixons. Before anyone else can seek more, a spate of cursing erupts as Merle's climb from under the building snags his shirt on something. He frees himself, but the shirt is definitely worse for wear.
"A'right. Let's drop this baby off that Platypus and see what happens," he calls out to Jamie, who follows the order.
Shane finds himself holding his breath as the building half on that side drops onto the cinder block piers with a groan. Everything holds, so the process is repeated to drop the second side. There's still a lot of reattaching work to be done, but for now, they have the first new building successfully in place.
"Rest can be done by Henry and whoever he enlists tomorrow," Merle determines. "Let's all get cleaned up before Glynnis and Patricia refuse to serve us supper."
"Now, Merle, we wouldn't refuse to feed you. You'd just have to eat outside with the critters until you stopped smelling like one." Glynnis is grinning and Merle barks out a laugh.
"Those RV showers aren't really going to cut it. Glynnis, can you take Rick and Tyreese down to Daryl's old place and yours? That'll spread most everyone out to get a shower right away too."
Shane does the mental math when Glynnis agrees and leads the two men off. Other than he and Scout, that is everyone to a shower.
She grins at him. "C'mon, deputy. Let's see if the cabin shower can manage two."
Like he's going to turn down that offer. He follows her with a matching grin.
~*~ LG ~*~
Lori startles when there's noise at the office door. She looks up from where she's working on Merle's laptop, expecting Patricia or Glynnis. She can't help the flinch when it's Merle instead.
He's shirtless and grubby from the work he was doing outside, and she knows, logically, that she can't begrudge the man in his own home. But she knows he saw her involuntary movement because he frowns.
"Occurs to me that I apologized to folks on the Atlanta run, but not anyone else personally," he says, voice softer than she's ever heard him speak. "So, while the nature of what I did to myself makes most of the last few months murky, I owe you an apology first for being an active addict around your kid and second for anything I did to you yourself."
He sounds sincere. She's not so sure. She knows from experience addicts aren't always to be trusted on the longevity of their regret. "You never bothered Carl," she manages.
"That's damning with faint praise, cos I'm betting I did bother you." As if to prove he's of clear mind, he looks thoughtful. "Who was the user that taught you to be careful?"
It's a little sad that the first person to ever catch that is a man she has detested for months. She shakes her head, not willing to open that can of worms yet.
"A'right. I can respect your privacy on it. I'll make you a deal though. You ever think I'm slipping, call me on it." He starts to offer her a hand and then thinks better of it as he sees the grime. "Glynnis said you offered to convert recipes for bigger groups. She show you where the extra paper and ink are?"
"No, she just booted up the computer and helped carry the cookbooks. You sure own a variety."
He chuckles. "About two of them are mine. But at various times over the years, one or another of the kids would get it in their heads they wanted to learn to cook something different and along came a new cookbook. 'Bout the only kid who ever stuck with cooking enough to get really good at it is Jazz."
He pushes away from the door frame and crosses the room to the cabinet by the desk and swings a door open. She completely misses what he says about the supplies because she can't take her eyes off his back.
She must make a sound of some sort because he turns and arches a brow.
"Your back..."
Merle shrugs. "Been a part of me so long, I tend to forget what it's like for a new person to see. My father was not a good man."
"That's a lot more than not a good man," she says softly. She's not sure there is an inch of his back without some sort of scar. If someone just showed her a picture, she would've guessed a torture victim or POW. But if his own father did that, she guesses he was a torture victim. She can't imagine a parent ever doing that to his own child.
"Carol said he killed your mother."
"Yeah, he did. And the assholes running the parole system let him out early by mistake. Only regret I have about that man dying is that he stroked out and choked to death instead of me ridding the world of him after he hurt my family again."
"I understand." And she does, surprisingly. If a man who hurt her like that showed up after Carl, she'd want to end him herself too. "That's why you were protecting Sophia, isn't it?"
"Ed never had to lay a finger on her to leave damage. I just made sure he was more afraid of me than anyone else in camp to add any more to it. That much I do remember."
"You were quite an asshole," she says. It's something that would earn her censure from most folks she knows, but Merle just laughs.
"Hopefully not to the point we can't see eye to eye going forward."
She manages a smile and she's not sure who's surprised more by it, him or her. "We'll see."
"I can live with that." He motions toward the cabinet to remind her of the supplies. "Was just coming for clothes originally. Figured everyone would appreciate it if I showered before supper."
She nods and gets up to check out the cabinet while he goes to rummage in his duffle and dump out a few items on the futon. Going back to the chair, she jostles the electronic photo frame and has to catch it.
He turns with clothes over one arm and a net bag of toiletries to see her still holding the frame. "You're welcome to turn it on. That's all my favorites of the kids and Daryl."
She hesitates, although there's never been anything she enjoyed more on learning about someone than looking through their photos. Merle reaches out and flicks the switch on. The first image is of the kids much, much younger. Jazz is still in diapers, being held by a barely teenage Daryl. The girls are all making funny faces.
"Getting all five of them to smile for a photo was always worse than herding chickens." He sounds wistful as he flicks through to a new picture before moving away. She glances at the posed image, a father-daughter dance formal picture, and can't help smiling at the joy on Cricket's face in the image. When she looks up again, Merle's gone, although she can hear him humming from a distance away in the master suite.
With permission given, she scrolls through the pictures, feeling nostalgic for normal suburban life now gone. The contrast of the angry redneck with the rough but polite man she just spoke to is hard to reconcile. But the images of the smiling family tugs at her heartstrings. She doesn't think her own photos show this much consistent happiness, not in years. And Merle did it alone, something that always terrified her when she got to the point where she knew she was hanging on to a dead marriage.
It's a sobering thought, and she sits the frame back on the desk. The final image is one of Merle sound asleep in a living room different than the one she saw downstairs, surrounded by equally snoozing kids.
Maybe he made more of an effort than Rick because he is their only parent, but she can't help the surge of envy and regret that turns her stomach. She knows if she's honest with herself, her clinging to the ill-fated affair with Shane is as much because of his adoration of Carl as for her own sake. Rick is a good father, but he was never a hands-on one.
She bumps the screen as she goes to turn the frame off, and there's a new child, a beautiful little blonde with shiny curls and the biggest brown eyes she's ever seen, atop a shaggy little pony. She doesn't look like any of the Dixons, but she's important if Merle has her picture among his favorites in his office. Setting aside the mystery for now, she turns off the frame and returns to her project.
Feeling sorry for herself is what got her into this place where she's avoiding everyone and hiding out in an office rather than exploring their new home and getting to know the others. Finishing this project will show she's got something to contribute too.