September 20, 2015
Going to college in Atlanta was the first time Glenn had been away from his family, and to this day, he's not entirely sure why his parents agreed. They've tried to assimilate into American culture to an extent, but he always grew up knowing he was the eldest son. Even if his parents had had another son, it would never change his particular position in the family.
That's the thing. In his parents' homeland, the eldest son is responsible for the parents. Having back when Glenn was born was the ultimate goal, so much so that he remembers his paternal grandmother being puzzled as to why his parents had his two younger sisters. After all, once Glenn arrived, the family was complete in the elderly woman's eyes.
His father isn't an eldest son, and the closest Glenn can determine about being allowed to come to Atlanta is that his father regrets that he had the freedom to determine his life that his older brother did not. Customs are changing even in South Korea, especially by the time Glenn is old enough to attend college, but progress is glacial at times. Even by age eighteen, Glenn was pretty sure his parents would be far better off relying on his eldest sister Lana, especially since she was a partner in her CPA firm by the time he dropped out of college.
Thinking of his family has him more than a bit distracted, so it's a good thing he's just sitting up on the wall, staring blankly at the lighthouse in the distance.
"Hey, Glenn? Can you watch Merry for a while?"
Hearing Sadie startles him, but luckily not enough for him to tip off the wall into the moat. He looks over his shoulder to see the grinning teenager, who has her six-month-old niece on one hip. Merry grins and babbles at him, waving one arm in his general direction.
"Sure." Today hadn't been a run day, and he honestly doesn't have anything else to do. Getting to his feet, Glenn reaches for the baby, who makes the transfer happily and tangles a small fist into his t-shirt. Since the top of the fort is not the best place for a curious infant, he follows Sadie back to the stairs.
"She hasn't had a nap yet, but she just ate about an hour ago, so you're good to go until lunchtime," Sadie tells him when they reach the ground level as she passes him the small backpack they use as Merry's diaper bag.
As soon as they're back on ground level, Sadie trots off to join a group of kids on a construction project, so Glenn heads for the dining hall to see if anyone's around. Between breakfast and lunch, the kitchen ranges from being abandoned to being used for food preservation or prep, and the dining hall half is often a classroom this time of day. Since the kids are outside, he isn't surprised to find it mostly deserted.
Carol and Patricia greet him. Carol's steadily chopping tomatoes with an ease that he sort of envies, while Patricia has two huge pots of something simmering on one of the two restaurant-grade stovetops that were installed. From the clean canning jars sitting on the counter, he thinks today's a canning day.
"Do you need any help?" he asks, feeling a little guilty that he didn't offer earlier, instead of brooding up on the top of the wall. There's not as much he can do with Merry, but she's got her own little corner here with a playpen and plenty of toys.
"We're good," Carol says, waving at Merry so the baby grins at her.
That leaves Glenn to sprawl on his stomach on the padded mat to help Merry with blocks. She picks up and gnaws on the colorful toys as much as she makes any attempt to stack them, although cackling after she does that seems as much fun as chewing on them.
He's grinning and creating a stack for her to knock over when Carol drops down to sit cross-legged next to him and offers Merry a sippy cup. Merry's enthusiasm for the cup means that she overbalances and tumbles onto her back, and he can't help laughing at the perturbed face she makes.
"You're really good with her," Carol comments as they both watch Merry wriggle back to a sitting position with an odd, frog-like movement that scoots her forward to reach the cup without help.
It's not the first time someone's said something about how much time he likes to spend with Merry. They don't seem to make as much note of the fact that he spends an equal amount of time with Ellie, Sadie, and Sophia. But something about today, with thinking about home in a way he normally tries to avoid, makes him want to say something.
"I have nieces back home in Michigan, two of them." Glenn reaches out to run a finger along the bottom of Merry's tiny bare foot, smiling at her ticklish reaction. "The youngest one was a little older than Merry is now when I saw her last, about five months before the virus hit."
"How old are they?" Carol uses the present tense, just like Glenn. Most of their people with missing relatives stick to that because no one wants to give up all hope.
"Katelyn is five, and…" He trails off, doing the math since his youngest niece's birthday in June. "Grace would be about fifteen months by now. They're my oldest sister's daughters."
"How many sisters do you have?"
"Four. Lana and Corinne are both older, both married, but only Lana has kids. Maya and Lily are younger. Maya was at college, but it let out for the summer just as everything was shut down, so she should have been home by the time things got really bad. Lily is Beth's age."
"I imagine you miss them." Carol smiles kindly at him as she leans in to rescue the sippy cup from being poured out on the blocks. "I guess that's why you fit in with Ellie and the girls so easily."
Glenn just nods. There's a lot about Ellie that reminds him of his older sister Corinne, especially her eternal need to pass on knowledge. Corinne became a high school math teacher to do so, even though their parents had wished for her to become a professor if she felt the call to teach. Perhaps he wasn't the only one who felt pressure from their parents, but at least she completed college and graduate school both.
Carol's right, though, and it's not just Ellie, Sadie, and Sophia. Maggie and Beth would fit in with his sisters equally as well. He misses his sisters, and he knows that he'll probably never see them again. They wouldn't begrudge him this family that has sprung up around him.
"They always said I needed a keeper," Glenn says at last. "Y'all seem to have given me a half dozen or so."
Something about that makes Carol study him before speaking. "We aren't mother henning you too much, are we? I know I thought you were younger than you are when we first met."
He laughs because that's a common enough mistake. Even Ellie admitted she thought he was closer to eighteen than his actual twenty-three.
It's actually kind of nice, seeing different ways they all seem to feel they need to look out for him. Carol and Lori are motherly, unable to resist the impulse, but it's such a soft, laid-back sort of behavior that it doesn't raise his hackles. Jacqui has her moments where he can see she would like to give him the sort of stern admonishment his mother excelled at, but she generally resists the urge.
"No, I don't feel smothered," he admits.
"Good." Carol pats him on the shoulder before getting back to her feet and returning to the canning.
Merry makes a disgruntled sound when she falls over, drawing his attention back to the baby. She isn't trying to sit back up this time, just laying on the soft mat and chewing on her fingers and looking grumpy. Based on the amount of slobber, he wonders if she might be teething, but Sadie didn't mention anything, so he settles for gathering the baby into his arms.
Since Merry has a variety of caretakers, her corner in the dining hall is like a miniature daycare. Glenn hadn't even needed the diaper bag Sadie gave him once he came in here. Settling into the glider rocker next to the playpen, he isn't surprised to see Merry's eyes grow heavy as soon as she's tucked close and he's got the chair in motion. He finds himself dozing along with her, barely aware of the room around them.
"You know, she sleeps in the playpen just fine."
The country drawl startles Glenn to alertness, but at least the small jolt of movement doesn't wake Merry. He narrows his eyes at Daryl, who just laughs softly and reaches for Merry. Daryl eases the baby into the playpen, which is generally more crib than play area since all of Merry's toys are on the padded mat.
"You need me for something?" They don't have a run scheduled today, and as far as he knew, Daryl had taken Jimmy out hunting on the island.
"Nah. It's almost lunchtime though."
When Glenn looks toward the long counter used for serving meals, he sees that Carol and Patricia have put out the usual midday fare. There are plenty of sandwiches, although those don't rely on cold cuts the way lunch buffets used to. He doesn't mind the lack because the bread is freshly baked early this morning. It tastes like fluffy heaven all on its own.
He does miss cheese on everything though. They're getting there experimentally, and with Hershel's cows loose on another island and a few rescued goats, fresh milk is growing in supply. His favorite, cheddar, has to age at least two months, or so they tell him. Even then, they aren't sure it'll turn out as requested. He'll just have to be grateful that mozzarella isn't an aged cheese. Last night's pizza was amazing.
"Is the sign flipped?" Glenn asks groggily as he gets to his feet.
While it's a community-wide joke that Merry could sleep through a cattle stampede, everyone does try to be cautious of startling noises if the baby is sleeping in a public area. He asked Ellie once why she didn't insist on tucking her daughter into her crib each time she slept. The explanation made sense; a baby who always slept in an artificial quiet would never sleep as well as one used to conversations and random noises nearby.
Daryl nods, tilting his head toward the sign that Merle rigged outside the dining hall. It's like a domino, one side with a sleeping baby, one with a playing baby. Glenn still isn't sure who painted the little cartoons, but the baby reminds him of Jack-Jack from The Incredibles.
He follows Daryl to the counter, gathering up his own plate of food and following Daryl to the table nearest Merry's corner. It's a bit of ongoing torture for himself, spending as much time around his crush as he does, but the idea of giving up the friendship he has with the older man is worse. The crush will fade in time, and he intends to still have his friend when it does.
"You got Merry for the day?" Daryl asks after a few bites of his sandwich.
"Not sure. Sadie brought her to me so she could join in the construction lesson. I'm honestly not sure where Ellie actually is. Or Shane, for that matter."
"They're out on a run. Shane took a team out to see if they could break into the pharmacy of one of the hospitals. We're running low on a med that Dale takes, and Ellie figures a hospital is a better bet for still having stock even after the city was evacuated."
"You didn't want to go along?" That puzzles Glenn, because Ellie never goes out without Daryl, aside from the trip to rescue Merle in Atlanta that Glenn still prefers not to think about. It's not that Ellie isn't competent. She's a Dixon, and that rescue run certainly proved to Glenn that Ellie can hold her own, but it seems almost hardwired for Daryl to need to be on any team she is.
Daryl makes a disgruntled sound, and his expression is one Glenn would call pouting if it were one of the kids. "She told me that if I kept acting like a wart on her ass, she'd see about removing me in a way I wouldn't appreciate."
Laughing, Glenn nearly chokes on the cherry tomato he just put in his mouth. "I have no idea what she means by that, but it was probably a smart choice not to find out."
From the reluctant grin Daryl flashes Glenn, he must agree. "Figure she'll be doing the medical runs more now that Merry's older. I know enough to find most things off her lists, but I can't argue sometimes it's best to have someone more expert."
Glenn supposes that's correct. He hasn't forgotten the frustrated confusion he had in pharmacies back when they were at the quarry. The only other people with enough expertise are Hershel and Patricia, and tough country folk both of them may be, but they don't have the youthful athleticism that Ellie does.
"Speaking of medical, you got time to go over the EMT stuff with me?"
There's no one to certify Glenn, but after helping with Carl's gunshot wound, he just wants to keep learning. He's not the only one studying between Ellie and Hershel's lessons, but Daryl worked as a paramedic for years. It means that Daryl's got a different sort of expertise that works well for Glenn's learning style.
At first, he thinks that Daryl is going to say no. It's puzzling, as Daryl's been sort of standoffish lately for some reason Glenn can't determine. Part of him wonders if Daryl's figured out about his crush and is uncomfortable with it. It wouldn't be the first time a friendship went cold because Glenn got too attached.
But then Daryl gives a jerky nod, one hand going to a chain around his neck. His fingers tangle in the links, reminding Glenn that he's never seen what sort of pendant the chain secures. Daryl's been focused on it a lot the last few days. Maybe an anniversary or birthday is coming up that has Daryl on edge. The Greenes all had a rough day recently when Shawn's birthday passed, and Daryl's behavior with the chain lately reminds Glenn of that.
"Got a place for Merry at mine, so she can play. Grab your textbooks and bring 'em over."
"Thanks!" Glenn grins at Daryl just as others start to trickle into the dining hall for lunch.
Maybe he's just being paranoid about the crush, and it's something else entirely. As long as it doesn't get any worse, he can just wait it out and give Daryl the privacy to deal with whatever is bothering him. It'll work out in the end.