They'd been at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park for an hour, most of it spent at the "Petting Kraal" and the Nairobi Village Playground. They were heading for the Tiger Trail when the screaming started. Meredith made an about-face and started running with the stroller before she identified the source: the carousel.

What the actual fuck? There'd been a study done a year or so ago, stating that carousels were responsible for twenty percent of amusement park accidents. Cristina had forwarded it to her. It had been funny; in a way she couldn't explain when Derek asked what was so amusing on her phone. That didn't make it less ironic.

The park crowd was moderately thin at eleven on a weekday, but nothing made people congregate more than a chance to rubberneck. She managed to push through to the ride entrance where an employee in a sweat-soaked blue polo was trying to convince people that they didn't want to wait for the ride to start up again, and they should go look at a real animal.

"I'm a doctor." Three words she hadn't spoken more than four times in six months. She'd forgotten how much power they had. "Can I leave these two with you?"

"Uh, yeah."

She eyed him and got on the kids' level. "Guys, I need to go see if I can help people. I won't be far, and I'll be back as soon as I know everyone is going to be taken care of."

"Mommy." Zola grabbed her arm as she started digging through the bottom compartment of the stroller for the emergency kit. "I wanna help you with the 'mergency!"

Meredith didn't pause; could only hope that her smile conveyed how much she appreciated the offer. Zola loved zoos. Compared to the time they'd spent at the Woodland Park Zoo, the one August Saturday spent at the main San Diego Zoo with Fati did not begin to make up for the times Meredith had put the outing off. It'd become been their go-to activity since the aftermath of the lion encounter, when the hospital community liaison arranged for discounted tickets to the Woodland Park Zoo. A fall-back plan kept from feeling repetitive or haphazard by the seasonal events and premium tours. More than once a playdate, or some unassuming kid at the lion display, had been told, breezily, "I met him, I was a baby. Right, Momma?"

Meredith had been the first to say, "You did cross paths," and the face Derek made prior to dead-ass walking away to keep Zola from asking why Daddy was laughing at her, was one of her greatest triumphs.

Zola understood that emergencies took time, and she knew that they'd been on their way to the big cats. She definitely thought her "help" would get them there faster, but Meredith was still amazed that she showed no hint of being cranky. Any kid would have the right to be upset at being literally side-tracked.

"Not this time, love bug. I don't even know what's going on yet."

"Kid freaked out; Mom tried to grab him, fell; other kid tried to get to her, impaled," the employee offered.

"Impaled?"

"On a bird. They got her down."

"They…." Goddamn. People always assumed they needed to remove the spike, or beak, or what-the-hell ever, and they were wrong. "Where?"

"I can hand you stuff," Zola pleaded. "Like BokHee."

"Sweetie…. Tell you what, if you want, I'll start teaching you the names of the things in here, and maybe another time you'll be my scrub nurse. Right now, I need you to keep your brother company. That's a big help."

"Okay."

One of these days you'll argue back, and I'll have zero leverage.

After delivering a kiss to both foreheads, she ran in the direction the employee— She checked his name tag. Prescott. If he took off with her children, she had a name— pointed.

The horses on this carousel weren't horses; they were a motley collection of endangered animals that Zola probably could've identified more readily than she could. She was intercepted at the panda by an employee wearing a khaki shirt. She wasn't sure if that was a hierarchy thing or a fashion choice. "I'm a doctor." Fifth-ish time. Still powerful.

"This way. I'm Alanna, team manager for Safari Base Camp. First-aid is right next to us. They've been swamped with heat issues today, so they're sending someone to escort the party to their pavilion. Everyone is technically ambulatory, but I'm not sure —" Cut off by a high-pitched shriek, Alanna hopped up onto the carousel and offered Meredith a hand. "They're right here."

A woman was sitting on the ground next to a wildcat, trying to wave off another employee who was holding a balled-up t-shirt to a lac on her forehead. "I'm fine. My kids! Take care of them."

"She passed out?" Alanna nodded. "The kids?" Alanna pointed. A girl who looked to be about twelve was sitting hunched on the edge of the platform, her hand held out toward a younger boy who was balled up on the ground, his hands pressed over his ears. One of the other blue polos tried to approach him, and he scuttled backward with another shriek.

"GET OFF, GET OFF, GET OFF."

The girl jumped up, crumpling almost immediately. Blood seeped across her pink gingham shirt. Meredith crouched next to her, realized that she would not be able to hold that position for long, thank you fetus, and knelt.

"They're both autistic," the mom called out. "I'm sorry, Shelley, I know you don't want me to tell people but — "

The girl shook her head over and over, and as she snapped on gloves, Meredith could just hear her whispers. "OkayMomitsokayMomitsokay."

"But I'm a doctor, Shelley, so that's the kind of thing that's helpful to know."

"Tyler, my brother, Tyler, his leg."

Meredith looked over to the boy who'd backed himself up against a planter. She could see a discoloration around one ankle. "I'm gonna check him out, Shelley, and your mom, but you're bleeding pretty badly right now, and I'd like to see if we can make that stop. Can I touch you? I won't do anything without letting you know what's coming, okay?"

"What kind of doctor are you?"

"I'm a surgeon."

"Not something dumb like a pediatrist or a proctologist?"

"I am not a butt doctor, no."

The girl grinned, and then gasped, her hand pressed against her side again. Meredith held back. Trust. With kids, everything depended on that. "What's… your name?"

"My name is Meredith."

"Not a doctor name."

"I'm Dr. Grey. I'm a general surgeon, visiting from…well…I work in Seattle."

"Dr. Grey. You can take care of me."

"Excellent. This might hurt."

"Already hurts."

"I bet. Can you tell me what happened?"

"He wanted off. I don't like rides, but… but I do like them. How they work. I wanted to try a kiddie ride. Mom stood beside me because I don't like rides. Tyler wanted off. Mom fell. I wanted to help her. The bird poked me."

"The bird?"

"Here," Alanna said from beside a blue bird with spiky wings.

"Yikes. Shelley, to look at this, I need to get to it. Can I help you get your arm out of your shirt? Your tank-top needs to come off too, and the easiest thing will be for me to cut it."

"You'll have to cut my bra too. It's only a training bra."

Meredith smiled. Once she had the layers of cloth pulled off it, she could finally get an idea for the wound. "This isn't too bad. A little deep, but you didn't get anything important poked. I'm going to wrap this abdominal pad around you very tightly, and then I want you to keep pushing it down with your other hand."

"Pressure, right?"

"Yup. Apply pressure."

Meredith wrapped the temporary bandage a little further up than the wound required to preserve the girl's modesty and helped her sit on a bench seat close to her mother.

"Your turn, ma'am."

"Tyler—"

"Did he hit his head?"

"No…I don't think so."

"He caught himself," Shelley said.

"Great. I've got an eye on him, but it seems like he'll do better if I can approach him slowly. I can't do that until I check you out. Can you tell me your name?"

"Mira."

The penlight from the emergency kit had Derek's name engraved on it. An inordinate amount of things had Derek's name on them. Apparently, that happened if you ran a practice. It didn't distract her from watching the woman's pupil response, but…it had his name on it. Was there a similar one in the tattered bag they'd dug out of his fucking totaled Porsche?

"Mira, can you tell me what happened?"

"I told you, Dr. Grey!"

"You did, Shelley, but I'd like to hear your mom's side."

"I…it all happened so fast. We were having such a good day. Tyler likes the carousel. At other places, the rides are too much for either of them, but he always…he always likes the carousel."

"Today he didn't," Shelley observed. "Dr. Grey, are you having a baby? I couldn't tell while you were hurting me, but I can from here."

Even with Meredith examining her head wound Mira sat up and snapped her fingers. "Shelley!"

"Inappropriate," Shelley groaned.

"No, it's okay. Well, I don't mind," Meredith amended. "Some people might."

"'Some people' rules are frustrating."

"They are," Meredith agreed. "Yes, Shelley, I am. In a bit more than three months. Mira? You might have a concussion. I'd like you to go to an ER to get some scans. Shelley is a very lucky girl today, nothing punctured, no blood vessels involved. If there's somewhere we can go that's a bit more private and sterile, I can get her stitched up, or she can be seen —"

"I want you to do it, Dr. Grey."

"Tyler…?"

"I'm going to go check on him now. Is there anything I should know?"

"He's usually the good one," Shelley offered. "He doesn't talk much unless it's about baseball, or horses, or zombie books. Those are his special interests. Mine are horses—we share that, girl superheroes, and building things. Not boys, but Mom says probably that will be my main one, one day."

"Zombies, huh?"

"Zombie books," Mom and daughter chorused.

"Gotcha. Alanna, you have a coworker named Prescott who is probably tired of being harangued by my four-year-old."

Meredith started toward the edge of the platform but turned back when Shelley called her. "He doesn't like most doctors. And he had a meltdown, he can't help it, he's not bad, it's not being bad, and he's scared, because we got hurt, and—"

"Hey." Meredith leaned on the bench. "Can I put my arm around you, Shelley?" She waited for the girl to nod. "You are a great big sister. This wasn't your fault."

"If I hadn't wanted to ride too…."

"If you hadn't decided to be brave? Nah. Your mom might've decided to ride a tiger, because she didn't have to worry about him. She might have stayed with you on the ground. There are a lot of what ifs. It's hard not to think about them all the time, huh? But what matters is what happened. And what happened, is that you were very brave, you tried very hard to protect your brother, and there was an accident. Okay?"

"If you say so."

"I do."

At the base of the platform, a frustrated man whose shirt identified him as Medical Services. "Ma'am, one of my team is coming, and we're gonna get him strapped on the gurney."

"It's 'doctor,' actually, and I don't think restraining him— "

"He's not gonna let us examine him, and respectfully, in your condition…."

"Respectfully, my toddler kicks me in the stomach at least once a day."

Did she panic every time Bailey got a wallop in? Abso-freaking-lutely, but this dick didn't need that information. She shouldered past him, and walked in Tyler's direction, not directly to him, but toward the far end of the planter. She sat beside him, far enough away that he wouldn't see her as a threat. He had his forehead pressed against his knees, and the way his bunched fists were thumping the back of his neck made her wince. She knew he was aware of every move she made.

"Get off, get off, get off," he repeated rhythmically. Meredith wondered if it was an explanation or a demand.

"You got off the ride, Tyler, and no one will touch you again until you say it's okay. I hear you like zombie books. Is that because your mom is named Mira?"

At most other times in her life, she could've how about them Sox-ed this conversation, but she hadn't followed anything in the past year. If he was a Padres fan, she definitely had no opinions. But a little over a year ago, she and Alex had treated a teen girl with Crohn's whose anticipation for the third book in Mira Grant's Newsflash trilogy had her talking about it constantly. More interestingly, Meredith had been able to see it influence her understanding of her diagnosis, and the complexity of clinical trials. Needing a distraction around the anniversary of Lexie's death, Meredith had picked the books up while the kids were at story-hour. The virology had been accurate enough that she could read it without wanting to throw something. Whether or not it'd affected her dreams this year, she couldn't say, but if it could help this kid, she'd get through a few zombie-Lexie dreams. The zombie-Derek dreams could go to hell, but she'd been clear since early August. She'd been able to sleep at night. Three months until that ended again.

Tyler turned his head far enough for her to see his eyes were the same amber color as his sister's. "Newsflesh."

"Yup. I had a…." patient. "Friend who really liked those, and I read them in a weekend. The Rising in those would've happened this summer, wouldn't it?"

"'The Last Stand of the California Browncoats.'"

"Hm?"

"'The Last Stand of the California Browncoats.'"

"I don't know what that is."

"Newsflash. Short story. ComicCon. Takes place this year."

"Really? I might've left town if I'd known that was possible. The city was crowded enough."

"Not real. Alternate universe. No zombies here."

"That's true." There's always a darker timeline. Not the worst perspective. "Tyler, my name is Meredith. I've been talking to your mom and your sister. Sounds like something pretty scary happened today." He looked away again but didn't cover his ears. "They're going to be fine. They're worried about you, though. It looks like you might've hurt yourself getting off the carousel."

He didn't move. "Get off! Get off, get off."

She held her hands open, resting on her knees, casual but visible. "You did get off the carousel. There was a lot going on over here, huh? I bet after you got off a lot of people were loud, and you were scared, and mad, and worried, and frustrated. Maybe you don't know if you got hurt because there was so much happening."

She got one eye back.

"I thought maybe we could make a deal. I'll check you over, and hopefully help things hurt a little bit less, and you can tell me all about 'The Last Stand of the California Browncoats.'"

He kept tapping the top of his spine with his knuckles. She glanced over at the first-aid worker, hoping he'd give her the chance to wait the boy out. Enough time passed that she started considering alternative plans, and then Tyler raised his head. His cheeks were stiff with dried tears, and his brown hair stuck up in every direction. He was a little boy who couldn't identify or vocalize his feelings all the time. If he'd been a couple of years younger, no one would've been talking about restraining him. She understood that he was big enough that an accidental blow might hurt someone, but that didn't make the expectations on him any fairer.

"Hey there, Tyler," she said, scooting herself over to sit directly across from him. "Can you show me your hands?"

He unfurled his fingers slowly to reveal badly scraped up palms. Sometimes catching yourself hurt far more than the fall.

"I'd never read Jane Eyre. Never had it on a syllabus, and I figured I'd osmosed enough about it, but what you get in articles in Women's Studies is 'madwoman in the attic,' and you assume it's about a woman who's not a pious homemaker burning a house down. Which isn't wrong, but, C-plot, tops. I hadn't read it."

"And now you have?"

"It came highly recommended."

"By the librarian you pass notes with, because you won't speak to him?"

"Shut up.… I can't look him in the face, and not…urgh. Yes. He says I'm into atmospheric stuff. I'm not really a classics person…. I tried to read Anna Karenina after the liver transplant, but I get enough of unhappy families in real life. I mean, that whole situation…. The first line was like a…what's it? A trigger warning. I haven't even been a fiction person in a while. Since high school. Read plenty as a kid. Probably because I wanted to escape. For a long time, all I could justify spending time on was medical journals and reading to the kids. Since I can't focus on those…. Fiction."

"Still? A low dose of Wellbutrin might help with motivation."

"Oh, uh…there are studies where Wellbutrin has been associated with miscarriage."

"Not by viability. You've been doing research."

"I wouldn't take a medication without…I mean, I guess I…. I wasn't myself most of the summer. Figured I should make sure I wasn't poisoning this kid."

"I wouldn't have let that happen."

"Still. I, uh, can read the stuff on the Mayo's website. But even JAMA is just too…the words stay in one place, but by the time I get to the end of a freaking one-sentence paragraph I've lost track. Books are easier.

"Thatcher's an English professor, so I've got it in me. Even if he hasn't bothered to contact me since Lexie's funeral. Nary a postcard to let me know how my liver is doing. And, no, I haven't missed a one. USPS scans the mail. You can see it online.

"Anyway, what I'm getting at is Jane Eyre's about this girl who falls for her broody boss, who turns out to have a secret wife! And the crazy —sorry, bizarre—thing is that I was so critical of her through most of the book. It wasn't until she got to St. John that I realized…. It's me. Jane is me, and Rochester is Derek, and Reader, I married him, but I wanted her to find a life as far away from him as possible, but then…she knows, she has a feeling, and he sur…sorry you don't need a book report."

"I'm here to help you work through your thoughts, Meredith."

"It's, just, it's a classic. All kinds of things copied it. We're—we're a whatdyacallit? A trope."

"You have been reading."

"I went to college, Beni! I get it BS stands for Bullshitter, but my minor was in the humanities. I'm not a science jock."

"I didn't think you were."

"You…I know. Or…. I shouldn't have assumed. At Grey+Sloan.… I know I make it sound awful there. It's not. There are so many good people who love me. My early years there, mostly intern year, left me a little scarred. You may have noticed."

"I have."

"Sorry, that had nothing to do with a book about wuthering moors, or whatever. That's totally an euphemism. It's gotta be."

"Did you not read Wuthering Heights?"

"Sadie was assigned that one, so I'm sure I scanned the Cliff's notes at some point. I should have found a way to let that get passed around the hospital. 'Grey did double homework in high school.' It's not skipping multiple grades, or having a PhD, but it would've been better than 'Grey did every guy who turned up at Joe's last night.'"

"Hm. Tell me about that intern year."

"What about it?"

"Give me a quick run-down."

"Moved Mom to Seattle. Slept with my boss—boss's boss—without knowing he was my married boss's boss. Cheating… on someone, with someone…I just…I couldn't. Say you're poly? Cool, let me talk to your spouse. Give me a note. I just…. Maybe I understood what happened to Mom better than I thought. Dunno, just…I didn't. He tried to make things work with her. I slept with a lot of randos. And George. Derek, um…. I dated a vet…. We had this prom, for a patient, and I officially became the dirty mistress.

"He left her. I tried to be all…happy. Bright and shiny. I'd told him I was all glued back together…. I wanted to be. Then I died, Mom died, Susan died, and Thatcher hit me, and showed up again to shout at me the day of my intern exam. I sat there, in front of that test, the one Mom said I'd never make it to, never make it through…. and I realized: I'd spent this whole year wrapped up in Derek, and I wasn't enough for him. Mom hadn't thought I was worth living for when I was five, let alone twenty-nine…twenty-four…. However old I was to her the last day she was lucid. My father hadn't wanted me, and now he hated me, and I…I felt like it was justifiable… like I wasn't a good enough surgeon; I wasn't an extraordinary woman.

" So, you know. Not my best year."

"What are you not telling me?"

"You know about the bomb."

"I do."

"Um. There was a lot that wasn't my story. Cristina almost married an attending, and I got too invested. McStea—Mark showed up. Had my appendix out; that was a day. Being the Seattle Grace slut, even though Alex…oh. That."

"What 'oh, that?'"

"Look, I put the word ins his mouth. He didn't actually say…. You know how I told you envy wasn't a good look on Derek? We were…we tried to be friends. My roommates and I, we had this dog. Doc. He was such a good boy, but he—we were never home. I don't know how my mom…. I actually don't know if Thatcher took care of me as an infant, or…I know, I'm deflecting. It's—this is hard. Because he meant it. He didn't say it, but…I mean, it was my word."

"What was your word, Meredith?"

"I spent months seeing him try with Addison. Knowing she cheated on him.

"I…I truly like Addison. She's brilliant, and she treated me far better than she should've. But, shit, she slept with Mark. His best friend. I may have been a whore, b-b-but…."

"Meredith? Meredith, where did you just go?"

"The stairwell. Where…on my first day, we…officially met there. He looked at me like he'd seen me naked. It was hot. And less than a year later, we're there, and he knows almost everything. He knew about the boys. He knew about George. He'd brought Doc in to Finn's while I was…we were dating. We hadn't…. I helped birth a pony. Took a shower. Finn put clothes out for me. And Derek came in with Doc. And he looked at me like…like he'd never seen anyone more disgusting."

"You weren't together at that point? You and Derek"

"No. But, there were a lot of boys, Beni. And he didn't…he didn't know about the girls yet."

"Does that change anything?"

"Not to me. Sex-for-sex with attractive people isn't…it wasn't what I had with Derek. But, um—balls, I sound like Zola. This really wasn't…."

"A big deal?"

"Right. Just… A few days after Finn's…after he looked at me like that, we were in the stairwell. And he…he said I really got around. Asked if I would sleep with Alex next, because he got around, too. And I'd joked about being the dirty mistress, but it was ironic. I wasn't…not really, because I hadn't known. I didn't know! Not yet. Alex had syph earlier that year. He gave it to George. Well, he didn't… they slept with the same nurse. Although, you know, he is a wrestler, and who knows what goes on in those locker rooms…that's your 'stop deflecting' face."

"Well-spotted."

"I'm just saying, I might not be the only.… Look, I don't know if Derek was implying something about the whole syph thing, or just the thought of Alex as…fuck, I'm never going to sleep with Alex. There will never be dreams about Alex. Alex is my brother. He's the sleazy brother that didn't mature until his thirties, kind of like, oh, I don't know, Mark? Granted, he hated Mark, at that point. He'd probably always disapproved of him sleeping with every woman he spoke to, but the one long-term thing Mark had managed was with his wife. He'd betrayed him when they'd been friends their whole lives, and if I was like Mark, what'd that make him in the equation? If Mark and I were…were similar?"

"Why do you want to let him off the hook for this?"

"I don't, I just…. He said it was unforgivable. That I got around. I told him he didn't get to call me a whore. I'd thought…I'd thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. He lied. He chose her. He broke me. I was whole, and he didn't get to judge how I healed myself."

"You stood up for yourself well."

"Did I? I wasn't fucking healed. He called me out on that. The lemon night. On lying to him. Like…like if I hadn't said that…things could've been…he wouldn't have expected… but at the time, I thought I was…I wanted to be. And if…if that wasn't what he meant…. I did get healed. I did."

"You did. You did nothing wrong in that situation, Meredith."

"No, I know. I only…. Fuck. I never second-guessed myself. Before I met him, I never—the stupid choices, the good choices. All the ridiculous shit Sadie and I did? The 'near-death Meredith' stunts? They were near-death because I saved myself. I made the choice, did the thing, and I pulled up at the right second. I ran when I needed to, I jumped in the right place. I wasn't who my mother wanted me to be, but I was going to figure out my way of being. Then, he chose Addison."

"You believed no one had ever chosen you. That was a core belief."

"Yeah. Now, I know Mom had. Lexie did too, later. Intern year…he didn't choose me. And he kept not choosing me. The day he told me he couldn't keep trying to breathe for me…ugh, that…for me, that was lower."

"But you didn't avoid telling me about it."

"If, after explaining the Addison of it all, I'd said, 'also, this man I loved; the man I'm mourning so deeply, called me a whore, and I let it go,´ you don't think it would've changed how you saw me? Or Derek and me?"

"Perhaps. It would've given me a certain insight into some of your contradictions. But people are contradictory, Meredith. I know now, and I don't think anything less of your love for him, or his for you. I do think you had different perspectives on sex, and that you tended to let his opinion influence your thoughts more than your actions."

"That's…. Not wrong. Look, I'm not saying it didn't hurt. It was the truly unforgivable part, not my sluttiness."

"So, you haven't forgiven him?"

"I don't forgive what he said. For judging me that way, regardless of if he changed his opinion, or didn't believe it, just wanted to hurt me. I don't forgive that I had to know my husband could possibly think that, much less say it. We never—we tried to talk about it once or twice, but never…And I couldn't forget it, because I refused to let him ever make our child feel the way I did in that stairwell. Dirty, and degraded. Shameful. The other thing… the breathing…. He expected me to know how to cope with losing the only family I had left. He never—My mom and I had a complicated relationship, but she was my mom. I'd missed work recovering from drowning, and I'd was trying so hard to be everything. To be who he wanted… I didn't know when he wanted me to need him, and when he didn't. I moved on too fast; I didn't move on fast enough…. Thatcher did that whole thing, and Derek had said that, and…. I didn't want to admit that Thatcher affected me, first of all. Didn't want him to mean anything to me. To admit I'd been ready to let Susan be someone. It was like…. A while ago, Sadie asked me if I'd ever mourned the father that I thought I had."

"Essentially, you'd lost both parents, and the possibility of a third."

"Yeah. I hadn't asked him to breathe for me…to save me… and saying it like that…I don't know. He was being sincere, but it felt like a belittlement. Like I couldn't survive without him, and he was tired. Like-like he had to spend all his energy protecting me, or-or keeping me moving forward? I wanted to save myself. I wanted his support; I didn't think I deserved it; I didn't know what I needed.

"So, that was the worst for me. But I didn't have to worry about it happening again. He came to understand me more, to realize that he wanted me with all my…Meredith-ness. I started to heal for real. We got through more near-death experiences. Loss. Figured out how to be there for each other. I didn't have to worry he'd say something like that to anyone else.

The whore thing sounds bad. It was, it was a lot of things, but I knew he was wrong. But Zola will need to know that, that sleeping with whomever you want, whenever you want, doesn't make you a whore. Bay, too…so, it would've come up, so…so. Both things sucked. Not a problem anymore, though. I don't have to worry about his latent Catholic puritanism. Come to think of that, I might have been judging Jane because of all the God stuff. Sorry, I know I'm harping on the book."

"Stories can be a helpful lens for interpreting our lives."

"Yeah. I guess. The best—maybe the worst—thing about it is that Finn really was my St. John. He had plans, I considered being part of them, but nothing happened. We hadn't consummated it, or whatever. Derek said all that, and he'd gotten it wrong. Not that he would've been right if we'd been doing it like the rabbits Finn treated. I got that, but I did… after we got back together, I didn't have sex with Derek immediately. He'd been my first grown-up relationship that had the romance thing. I wanted to be sure he didn't…want me to be his whore. The slutty intern. I wanted to be the girl in the bar."

"What did that mean?"

"It meant…whatever he needed it to mean.

"He had a Finn. During the second break-up. Maybe that was something we both needed. A palette cleanser, or whatever. Sorbet. Some people are satisfied with that. No one is sorbet, though. Not in the long run. You…eat it…them…ha… long enough, and there are… flavors. He'd decided Addison's weren't for him, and I had totally different…spices—I borrowed this metaphor without thinking it through, and now we're here, sorry—Rose's recipe was in between. Similar to me, but it probably didn't just substitute in a series of secret half-brothers. Turned out, she wasn't what he wanted.

"I don't know if she trended toward dark or light, but considering she sliced his hand open after he ended it, I have suspicions. She could be the woman in the bar. The one he'd built up in his head while we were broken up. Smart. Attracted to that freaking huge ego. Former party girl, who, according to my gossipy little sister, didn't put out until after the fifth date…which doesn't matter, but at the time, I thought…thought that was…I don't know, just…he'd been infuriating about me wanting to wait, and we should've…should've talked more, but I was trying to be…fresh. Easy, but not easy. All the old stuff was water under the thing, or whatever. And she could be that. She could stand beside him in the OR; she might challenge him, but she wouldn't challenge him."

"And you did?"

"I'm a project."

"In the OR, though?"

"Oh. Yeah, I definitely…. We got back together at the end of a clinical trial. It was extraordinary; we were extraordinary. We treated an inoperable glioma by injecting—never mind. Neurosurgery isn't like anything else; the brain is just…incredible. There are already two completely different branches of medicine—we dug into the brain, you dig into the mind—and there's still so much we don't know. It's terrific in the original sense of the word."

"It is, I agree. You ended up specializing in general, though?"

"Uh-huh. Neuro didn't work out, and I'm good where I am. It's my birthright. That's not why I chose it, but it is. I like the variety. People get all squeamish at the blood and guts stuff, but it takes finesse. Patience. And…yeah. I'm brilliant as a general surgeon. I miss it. I'm starting to miss it."

"Excellent news. That must've been a hard decision. The papers you were named in prior to specializing are all related to neurosurgical procedures."

"No…. I got taken off…took myself off…the service. I did something. The year Zola came to us, we were working on another trial, for Alzheimer's patients, and I made sure someone got the treatment, not the placebo. Someone who mattered…. Meredith let it get personal. Nothing new. It got discovered. Derek…I'd broken more rules than he was comfortable with, and to him the personal part was me. That I might get Alzheimer's. It was a lot. He left me for-for a few weeks. We almost lost Zola over it. It wasn't the first time my perspective led to a choice that he couldn't understand, and it seeped into our home life. He decided we couldn't work together."

"He decided?"

"We…I…No…he couldn't trust me at work. He was the head of the department. There wasn't a choice. We were…Our worldviews were just so different that for my decisions to reflect on him as my boss, and it not to bleed into our marriage was impossible, and he-he knew it'd probably happen again. Having me as his resident, and his wife was too much of…I challenged him too much. Compartmentalizing that was hard for him, he cared about his patients so deeply, it made sense for me to offer—"

"Because he was your boss."

"Because he was my husband."

"Hmm."

"Don't 'hmm' at me. I knew what I was doing. It's not like he could stop being a neurosurgeon, and I'm happy with my career. If I'd known what was coming…but that's life, right? There was no way to know he wouldn't be Head of Neuro, or even alive, within three years."

"Did you discuss other options? He was very highly regarded, could he have transferred? Taken leave so you could finish out your residency, and find another hospital? Step down as head of department?"

"There wasn't time! We had to compr…to figure it out, or Zola…. I did it for Zola."

"Did you think if it would come up again? His not trusting you at work"

"No. Why would it? I'm in general, he's—was—a neurosurgeon. End of issue. I mean, we've had debates about patients with overlap, but…no."

"Parenting is work."

"Screw you. We could parent together! We were good at it. He trusted me with them. Having one issue that hadn't come up because our daughter is four doesn't mean—"

"It doesn't mean anything in itself, no."

"Right. Good."

"But I wonder, were you concerned about challenging him in that?"

"We were great at parenting, and I say that knowing I was terrified of it. That I'd be horrible. But we…we were…. We were like we were in surgery, natural. Connected. And it was better because he wasn't in charge. I didn't always know…my mom wasn't a traditional parent, so I don't always know how things are supposed to go. Once or twice, he used that to do the thing…the really good at knowing how to use words to help or harm thing. Exaggerated it. He didn't really think I'd forget Zola's jacket or that I—This isn't a thing! He wanted more kids. Did you miss this? Did you miss the whole D.C., Seattle tug-of-war? I spent months raising them without constantly consulting him."

"And if you had consulted him?"

"If I had, nothing. We would've discussed the sex thing, eventually. He knew I didn't want them being freaked out by it, and it's not like he wasn't…I told you, his best friend was way worse than I ever was, and he only judged him for getting it on with his wife. And his sisters. Punched him for doing my sister. Kind of my fault, actually, and he was dealing with a lot."

"Meredith, would you say Derek respected you?"

"He…Derek loved me."

"That wasn't what I asked. I'm asking: as a doctor, as a woman, as a person, did Derek respect you?"

"Did he…? Of course, he…Sure, sometimes…he was twelve years older, and-and I didn't really…. Most of the time we were incredible. When Bailey was first born, and with Zo, and…. We had issues last year, okay? But they weren't…it didn't mean we…. Damn it, why are you doing this?"

"What am I doing?"

"Making me think about him like this? I can't talk to him about it. There's no reason for this! All it does is—it hurts, Beni. I'm tired of hurting. I've been hurting for-for—Godammit. God fucking dammit. I made the sacrifices. I get it, I made the sacrifices. And I was ready to sacrifice him if I had to. That doesn't mean I was ready for him to be taken."

"No, it does not."

The outdoor café at Central Library was crowded. There might be as many people who had assumed that most would avoid the area directly across from Petco Park on the day of a Padres game as there were at the Padres game.

"See her?" she asked. Zola tugged up on the push-bar of the stroller to get up on her tip-toes to see over it, while continuing to move forward. Meredith had one hand on Zola's back and the other on the center of the bar.

"No, but, Momma, I got it."

Rolling her eyes purely for her own benefit, Meredith released the bar and tried to lean against the stroller subtlety enough to keep her from catching on. It listed toward a chair at the next table, which at least held a pile of books, not a person. A group of middle-aged women all carrying the same book filed past them. When the last of them cleared the aisle, Meredith found her quarry.

Cal had her heels up on the seat of her chair, one hand holding the sketchbook in her lap, and the other gesturing at one of the other teenagers collected around the table. Her hair was twisted up messily, secured with a Padres cap, and she was alight in the way the uncovered seating area didn't quite explain.

One of the others at the table noticed Meredith moving toward them and nodded toward her. Cal's feet slammed onto the floor, and she jumped up. "Dr. Grey!"

"Cal, you know the strawberry milkshake mama?" the girl next to her interrupted, and Meredith realized she was one of the servers from the burger stand near their usual ice cream vender. "Oh, you left before she started coming in, didn't you?"

"Uh, I guess so, because I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry, Dr. Grey, these guys—"

"She's the one who comes in and gets like eight strawberry shakes, and—"

"Cal's hard to pin down," interrupted the blond boy across from her. "Gotta find her when she's not going to decide someone else needs her more."

"And get kidnapped in the process," the burger stand girl added, leaning up on the table to flick the bill of Cal's cap.

"That happened once, and thank you, Daphne, really thank you for making me look crazy in front of someone who wants me to hire me."

"Shiiit. I'm only making fun, Ms—uh." The girl on her other side elbowed her, and then hissed something in her ear. "Dr.—? Oh, jeez, sorry. You're not some new shrink are you? You would get one who wants to meet you in the real world or some bull," she said, at Cal's protest.

Cal shrugged. "Probably fair. Not that I-I'm not in therapy any—"

"I am," Meredith countered. "And no. Not a shrink. Surgeon. One who lived on milkshakes for a while, admittedly. I re-froze them, so I didn't have to…never mind."

"Momma is Dr. Grey," Zola said. "Stand up, please, I would like to see if you are tall enough for grown-up words. You have to be as tall as Momma."

Daphne's chair scraped the floor, and the other teens burst out laughing. "Nuh uh, y'all don't have one, you don't know. You do whatever the little Black girl tells you to do when it's silly, and maybe they listen to you when it isn't." She straightened the hem of her hoodie and squinted at Meredith. "That 'this tall to say 'shit' shit,' it works?"

"So far. How old's your…daughter?" she guessed.

The tough guy face Daphne had been presenting softened. "Tasha. She's two. Be three soon."

"Bay is two," Bailey announced.

"Yeah, little man? You're big."

"So big!" he agreed.

"You one of her moms'—momses?—friends?" the girl who'd corrected Daphne asked.

"Kiara!" Cal pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead.

"Not saying anything," she added. "You know, I love Stef and Lena. Just, you know, one Black kid, one white kid, got the whole…vibe going on."

"What vibe?" Meredith said along with three of the five teenagers. Kiara held her hands up in surrender, and Daphne clapped her on the shoulder.

"We're the token straights here, Kier. C'mon, we gotta jet, anyway."

"What, why?"

"So that Cal can have her interview, and I can get a burger before getting you back to Rita. She doesn't like her girls being out too long on game days. Ask me how I know."

"Yeah, yeah, you were the most trouble in the world, that's why you're using our social worker as your reference these days," Kiara got up, and dragged the boy's chair backward on her way around the table. "Cole, you too."

"All right, fine." Cole came around the table and hugged Cal, and then idled between tables while Daphne held her empty chair for Zola to climb on. "Uh, for the rec—for reference, what Daph was talking about, being kidnapped, Cal saved a girl's life that time. More than one, probably. She saved my life once."

"Me too," Kiara added.

"Not me," Daphne said. "Sorry, Cal. I have worked with her though, and she's really good. Shows the rest of us up."

"I can make up for Daphne." That speaker was the girl who'd been sitting by Cal's side. She seemed a bit older than the others, and during the banter she'd been packing up a case of art supplies and a portfolio. "She saved me and my sister."

"That's not strictly—"

The Latina girl put a finger on Cal's lips. "No ma'am. Me being deported would've ended our lives. You saved my life, Callie Quinn Adams Foster. Deal with it." She glanced up and met Meredith's gaze. It took a second, but Meredith got the message, and nodded. The girl leaned down and quickly replaced her fingers with her lips.

Behind Meredith, she heard Kiara mutter, "That why you were hanging back?"

"At the register Wyatt bet me ten it'd be today."

Meredith couldn't help glancing up to the till, where a boy with chin length hair was clearly watching them. Not 'speaking of shrinks,' at least.

"Sorry about them," Cal said, once her friends were out of sight, and the kids were sitting at the table devouring a yogurt and berries snack. "This place is…I mean, they wouldn't call it the Central Library if it weren't. Central. It's on the bus lines. My friend from Anchor Beach works here, so they don't kick us out, and—"

"Cal, it's fine. It's good to see you have so many friends. Must've been hard to achieve, moving around all the time."

"It was. Another thing I didn't really have 'til Stef and Lena."

"Aunt Sadie is Momma's not a ninternship friend," Zola offered.

"Fati's partner," Meredith clarified. "We've been—we've known each other since we were teenagers."

"Oh, cool! That'd be interesting, to know someone that long. Like, how they change and stuff."

"Interesting is a good word for it. So, you're a Padres fan?"

"Uh, no. I mean, not into sports. Stef's—my granddad, Frank, he was, and he died last year, so we all wear these on game days for-for her."

"Daddy die," Bailey said, and Zola froze. Meredith put a hand on her shoulder.

"I heard about that. It's a hard thing to go through, huh? I was bigger than you when my mommy died, and I was very sad for a while." Cal was speaking to Bailey, but Meredith noticed how she glanced at Zola enough to include her in the conversation.

"Um, but, isn't Ms. Lena your mommy?"

"She's my mama. I have three moms. The mom who died, and now my mom and mama who adopted me."

"I'm 'dopted!"

"I know! We're in the adopted kids club." Cal held a fist out to Zola who bumped it, solemnly.

"That's so exciting! And you got a mommy more than Sofia. She thinks that so cool."

"Sofia would think that, wouldn't she?" Meredith clarified. "You'll have to tell her." Her phone held another list, now, of things Zola wanted to tell Sofia. Meredith curated it, some. Otherwise, they'd still be going over this year the day the girls graduated high school.

"Um, but, did your family not have resources?"

"Zo, not all families have the same story."

"Uh-huh, I know. I'm just curious."

"And Cal has the right to tell you it's none of your business."

"It's complicated, Zola, but you could say my dad didn't have the resources to take care of us, yeah."

"There you go. Let me ask the questions for a little bit, okay love bug? So, Cal, your mom—sorry, your mama?" Cal nodded. "She told you why I wanted to talk to you?"

"Because you need a baby-sitter?"

"I do, but up to this point all my sitters have been professionals. I had a list in Seattle—but I could figure it out here. I've gotten really good at Yelp and all its variants."

"But you didn't do that?"

"Nope. You impressed me at the beach last month. You're good with them."

"Mari's the one who's really good with kids. She can brush a doll's hair for days, and do all the fiddly Barbie clothes, and—"

"Barbie isn't anatomically correct." Zola had a mouthful of yogurt, and Meredith held a napkin in front of her face. "Mommy!"

"Say it, don't spray it, Zo. Cal, as you just saw, my children are heathen sponges who've spent a lot of time around adults. They've been taught to ask questions.

"Of you and your sister, which one of you would be more patient with a two-year-old in a what-where-why phase?"

"Um. Me."

"This one's favorite phrase lately is 'explain it.' We're working on 'explain it, please,' right Z?"

"I mean it even when I don't say."

"Not everyone will know that."

Zola sighed and muttered, "They should."

Cal hid a smirk behind her hand. "She and Mari might be too alike."

"I don't know your sister. She seems sweet, and we should let…" She paused and pointed to Zola. She really should've gotten over herself and taken them to the kids' area, but she didn't want to be tripping over herself while talking to Cal. "Meet her again to make up for April, but I would worry about those associations. She'd either be bashful or defiant."

"She was fine in the water, but I'm not sure she recognized Mari, she was mostly with Bailey and 'Zeus. Mari was being bashful, but defiant happens just as often."

Meredith hoped Carolyn was right; that Zola was an at four, and Mari was the at fourteen—well, fifteen. "You also think of every contingency. Not everyone does that. There's optimism and there's complacency."

"Oh. I've had a lot of unexpected stuff happen to me, so."

"I gathered."

"Um, the stuff those guys were talking about…? I was trying to protect this girl from-from someone, and I knew Mom would come. I didn't used to know that." Cal winced, and Meredith guessed she hadn't meant to say so much.

Bomb in a body cavity much?

"It's good you do now. It took me much longer to let people help."

"I, uh, I don't have a car. My brother Brandon does, and he's pretty responsible."

"Zola, what's the emergency rule?"

"Call 9-1-1, they know their jobs and won't crash on the way to the hospital. Prob'ly."

Cal blinked at her, and Meredith steadfastly did not mention Zola had added the last word herself.

"'Zeus and Bailey really hit it off. He seems goofy, but Moms make sure we're all really —"

"Cal! Is there a reason I shouldn't hire you?"

The girl plucked at the wire spiral on the sketchbook she'd put on the table next to her. "I have a record."

Ah. So that was why her friend stumbled over saying "for the record." That was precious.

"Was it violent?"

"N-no. I—"

"You don't have to tell me."

"It's okay. Um. A while ago I ran away, which was a probation violation. That was…it was stupid, but it also helped me realize how much I wanted a family, y'know?" Meredith could only nod. She was considering snatching Zola's juice box if swallowing became more of an issue. "But the probation. I took a baseball bat to my foster father's car."

"What'd he do to you?"

"It-it was to Jude. He was…he put on one of the guy's ex-wife's dresses. He, like, lost it, and I had to-to do something."

"I would've swung at his head."

Cal's eyes went big, and she stayed quiet like she expected Meredith to backtrack.

"We all make mistakes, Cal. I'd rather leave my kids with someone who fights back. You don't seem like the type to punch down."

"No, definitely not."

"Okay, then. Why don't we go over some details, and then you can take them to the Children's Library for a while and get to know them. If you're in after that, we'll do a couple daytime runs." It may've been overkill when she only had one night's worth of plans, but it'd been so long since they had a sitter, Bailey especially might have an adjustment period.

"Any questions?" she asked, once they'd run through Zola's history, Bailey's allergies, and a few other issues.

"No. Do you have any for me?"

"What's her name?"

Cal went pink, and her smile was one Meredith was pretty sure only teenage girls with their first girlfriends wore. "Ximena."

"Did I tell you I got to do stitches!" Meredith crowed. Fatimah was not sufficiently excited about her achievement.

"So very many times, habibi. I'm thrilled for you, truly. I'm less certain about what is congealing in your trashcan."

"Oh. That." Meredith jabbed the taco meat in the pan in front of her. "I tried to make a casserole for tonight."

"You what?"

"Relax, it obviously didn't work."

"Here's the thing: you don't have to be able to cook anymore than you have to be able to hang out in the Pacific."

"It was the Bay. I'm covering my bases. If Amelia moves out, someone has to cook. I'm figuring out the mom thing."

"Your figure suggests you've got that well figured."

"Oh, fuck you."

"Kiss your kids with that mouth?"

"You know, the day I called Sadie, at the hotel? I thought I heard her call you 'Sparky,' and then I met you, and I figured it was the Xanax. I've reconsidered."

"Not the Xanax." Fatimah sat on one of the barstools. Meredith had no illusions; she knew her cooking was being monitored. Tacos were something she could handle. Besides, Fati had watched her measure out the seasoning she'd added to the ground meat. There wasn't a lot she could do to screw it up at that point.

And yet somehow you manage. Mental Derek could absolutely shut up. He'd loved her tacos. He had, hadn't he? That wasn't one of those I'm humoring you, and being more than a little condescending about it things?

"Damnit, Beni," she muttered.

"Rough session?"

"You could say that. I don't want to talk about it."

"No worries. I'm serious about the cooking thing. You know, the whole one person cooks, specifically the person who raises the kids is a very new idea, historically? It got to be a sign of privilege to be able to have a wife who didn't work, but even in the fifties, it was mostly all a lie. Using mixes and telling the men it came from scratch. Since we've lived in cities, it's been more likely that we get our food from stalls, or whatever the restaurant equivalent was at the time, or perhaps hire someone to cook for a household. No offense, but you're obviously not hurting for money. The kids won't care where the food comes from, they care that you're there to eat it with them."

"I know that. I do. I mean, spelling it out like that was probably necessary, so thanks, but…the more things you can rely on someone else to do, the more you're going to let them do them—the things."

"Every once in a while, you remind me that English is not my first language."

"I was the child of a single mom in the Regan-era. There were a lot of propagandized studies coming out that claimed to prove all of those 1950s stereotypes you mentioned were legit. Not even Ellis was immune to the pressure. Maybe especially not Ellis. Remember, she wanted me to be better than her. That's why I…."

"What?"

"Nothing. Never mind. The studies weren't always wrong. The eating together thing, for instance. At first, she had dinner with me on school nights. Around fourth grade, we went from baby-sitters to a housekeeper. She'd cook and leave it for Mom to warm up. But if it was cooked, well, she didn't have to hurry. I could learn to stick a plate in the microwave. Five days a week became three. Two. Whenever she had time. 'For God's sake, Meredith, I'm not starving you.'"

"You are not—"

"My mother, I know. But the more I think, really think, about the first few years…she was trying."

"You know how you always say her expectations for you were too high, or didn't take who you were into account?"

"I have occasionally said things along those lines, yes."

"Do you think perhaps she had equally unrealistic expectations for herself?"

"This is almost browned; can you bring the kids' plates over here? They're getting deconstructed tacos because they'd just deconstruct them themselves."

"Mer."

"I heard you. I did. I don't have an answer. My mother left all these journals, but she rarely wrote about anything unrelated to work. Which means Richard. Not me. At the time of her second pregnancy, the only hint was the lack of wine rings on the paper and tracking her meals. We definitely had my aunt around because Mom could make nothing she listed, except macaroni and spaghetti." Meredith scooped beef onto the kids' compartmental plates, and handed the spoon to Fati who had the tortillas. "I know nothing about my infancy. I don't know what kind of family she imagined having with Thatcher, or with Richard. After Maggie showed up …."

"How much for you? That enough or d'you want it…meatier?"

Meredith snorted. "Leave the penis jokes to those of us who enjoy them."

"A gay woman can like a good dick joke."

"I meant the dicks."

"I don't go with men. Doesn't mean I've never enjoyed a good cock, strapped on or otherwise. Trans women exist."

"I know! I've worked with, treated, dat—screwed." Meredith sighed. "Just—"

"Everyone in your real life thinks you're straight."

"Not everyone. But yes. For now. Maybe if there's ever a break in the drama…I'm not going to be dating anyone any time soon."

"You don't know that."

"No, I do. For many reasons. Derek and I—" A squeal interrupted her, coming from the direction of Zola's room. "Not like I wasn't about to go get them, anyway."

"ZO-A, NO!"

"Zola, yes," Fati murmured.

Meredith flipped her off and used that hand to grab Zola's door. "What is going on in here?"

"Zoie breaked cow-sel."

"I didn't broke it, dummy. I knocked it down."

"Hey, 'dummy' is not a word we use in our family. Not kids or grown-ups. What's your side of the story?"

"He stole my Duplo box!"

"That one?" A point. A furious nod. "The one that goes in your room?"

"Uh-huh."

"This room."

"Yeah."

"He stole it."

"Uh-huh."

"Were you using it at the time?"

"No. I was readin' us Sesame Street Hospital."

"So, he was listening. Remember, he hears just as well up and moving." Only at bedtime would he submit to being on a lap, but his improving comprehension was while playing. "Did you give him a chance to go get something from his room to play with?"

"He coulda asked."

"Would you've gotten mad over being interrupted?"

"M…maybe." The word started like it might become a protestation of Mommy!, but she course-corrected.

"And your Duplo boxes are exactly the same, so as long as he wasn't mixing them up—"

"If he busted one, could I have his one?"

"I don't think he can…." Meredith trailed off. Duplo were too big for the particular pain of stepping on a Lego, but a stomp from a sneaker could crack them. "We'll discuss that if it happens. Why don't you go down there and help him set it to rights."

Zola obeyed less than enthusiastically, flipping over the platform of the carousel, and jabbing the center tower into place. Bailey had the placement of the gears that made the little gizmo move down pat, and Meredith's thoughts had returned to tacos at the time of the next noise of dismay.

"This one is mine!" Zola dropped the Lego person—Duplo person? —into the plastic tub, and Bailey dove for it, head-first. "No, get out, that one's mine!"

"Guys need ride cow-sel!"

"You already have two guys on there! That one's mine."

"Guys need ride cow-sel!"

"It's not a cow-sel, it's a carousel. Car-oh-cell! You're not gonna be the baby anymore, Bailey. Stop acting like one."

"Whoa-okay," Meredith interceded. Thank goodness she hadn't decided to get on the floor with them; she wouldn't have been able to give the same amount of gravitas to scooping Bailey up, and marching Zola ahead of her out into the hall. She ducked into her room for her Seattle phone, pushing the button to let it power up and freak out for a minute.

"Trouble in River City?" Fatimah asked. She'd done something with the tacos and the oven that was probably going to make them a dozen times better than the version Meredith had been satisfied with for twenty years.

"Are you trying to use references I don't get, now?"

"You've never seen The Music Man?" Distractedly swiping and tapping, Meredith shook her head. "I've never thought you and Sadie exaggerated, per se, but up to this point I never quite believed you didn't have a childhood."

"I've said." She put Bailey down, putting the coffee table at his back to keep him from bolting.

"Z, B, look at me." Two confused faces turned upward, one blithely trusting, and the other trending more toward skeptical. "Lo, these many years since a failed Chemistry test led to strife, or whatever, I determined that to rid yourself of frustration you partake in a sacred rite passed down through generations of humans." She'd taken Zola from confused to transfixed. Bailey's open mouth made her think he wasn't sure she was using actual words. Time to take it down a level.

"If you're irritated at your little brother, or if you want to growl at your big sister, instead of using your energy to do something that might hurt someone, or yourself, You simply—" Meredith jabbed the phone once more and squeezed the volume button before setting it on the coffee table "— dance it out."

The strains of "Walking with a Ghost" started playing through the phone's crappy speakers. Meredith started moving with the opening chords.

"No matter which way you go

No matter which way you stay.…"

The kids were still obviously not sure what was going on. Bailey was at an age where he couldn't help moving with any music, wiggling his diapered butt totally off rhythm. Zola remained unconvinced. When had she last danced with them? Just dancing, not tricking them into cleaning up with the Hokey Pokey, or teaching Bailey the finger movements to "Itsy Bitsy Spider"?

"Come on, Fati," Meredith called, determined not to be the night's entertainment on her own. "Pre-dinner dance party."

If I bought Bluetooth speakers here, is there anywhere they could go at home? They had a crazy fancy stereo system that Derek had definitely thought would be his, but only she'd bothered to learn how to use. She could always pass them on.

"I said please, please don't insist

I was walking with a ghost."

Meredith walked with so many ghosts. She had to be able to dance with them all eventually.

"How, exactly, have you passed for eight years?" Fatimah murmured, joining them.

"Gave them a whole lotta other things to talk about. There you go, Zo!"

Whatever skepticism the little girl had been clinging to in order to preserve her right to be miffed over Duplo, it hadn't stood much of a chance. She swung her arms and twisted her hips, and Mommy twirled her, which made her dress poof out-out-out!

It'd been a little over four years since the first time Meredith heard her little girl laugh, and she was pretty sure it'd always sound like magic to her every time.

Did you ever feel this, Mom? I hope so. Sorry you lost it somewhere along the way.

A couple of hours later, she and Fati were cleaning up the kitchen. The bump had just started to stop her from pushing right up to the sink, but she'd been putting less into the dishwasher. There was something satisfying in taking a dirty plate and making it shine again with a modicum of effort.

She waited until everything had been returned to the cupboards to return to w the earlier conversation. Fati had brought a bottle of apple cider from the Trader Joe's Seasonal shelf and was mulling it on the stove. Meredith had never met a September that felt less like fall, but mulled apple cider reminded her of the good days on the East Coast. There'd been plenty of them. Beni was right, it sucked that they didn't imprint the way trauma could.

Beni hadn't asked for a happy memory this week. Shove it, I have plenty. Derek dancing with Zola, during the months she wouldn't go anywhere without a tutu. Derek teaching Zola how to jump in a leaf pile. Derek reading to Bailey, treating every sound he made like it was conversation. Finding Derek asleep in the hammock, with Bailey on top of him.

No crying. No stupid hysterical laughter. Not nothing, either.

"What I was going to say earlier was that not long after Maggie appeared in our lives, Webber…. Richard. My mom's ex. My pseudo-father these days. He told me that on her last lucid day, he told her about the life they could've had. Which is what Mark did as Lexie was dying, and maybe he didn't mean it, because my mom was basically dying, too. But. He said I'd needed siblings. A brother and a sister.

"I always thought…. Intern year I discovered the affair because of Mom's flashbacks. She said she never should have had a child. That Richard didn't want one. She was wrong. And she might not have meant me. Crap, I make it sound like I thought everything my mom did has to do with me."

"It was only the two of you for quite some time."

"Two of us and a lot of ghosts. What I'm doing a very bad job of getting to is that he was doing for Mom what Mark did for Lexie. Giving her this fantasy, and if all there is after is a last second flash from the brain, they'll, um, they'll find peace. He said Mom joked they'd be ordinary and happy—there's a lot woven into that, 'ordinary' did not have good connotations in Ellis-land—but…happy. My mom, happy with three kids? I can't imagine it. And I'm not her, but…."

Fati finished ladling their cider into two of the bland white mugs that'd been in the set of four picked up at Target in April. Strange. Meredith never actively collected mugs, but she'd shipped over a dozen with meaningful provenances from Boston to Seattle. These, she'd be all right leaving behind.

"Your father had three."

"Had. Raised? And I don't even mean because we left, I…" Meredith took a slow sip of cider, something she couldn't do without thinking of Lexie. She'd gotten the best faces out of her in the fall. Apple cider, Lex? had never gotten old.

Sometimes, she feared she considered her sister more now than she had while she was alive, but how else could she fill in for the wordless drives through morning mist; for the shared looks that'd slowly become their looks; for her naively thinking they'd have more than five years to make up for the first twenty-five? Thirty-one with Maggie. Thirty-two, soon. Her only consolation there was that she doubted she would've been much for sisterly bonding this year. The patient expression of the woman sitting across from her belied that. Surgery. I would've had surgery. Ellis hadn't had surgery for those six months. She hadn't bonded with anyone, particularly not her sister. What about her daughter? That question no longer had an obvious answer.

"Five years ago, I went into work one day, and the next time I left the hospital I'd donated part of my liver to my father. He didn't wanna take it. Said he stole my childhood; he didn't want to take anything else from me. Let me know my narcissism is genetic."

Fati snickered into her mug.

"It's a contradiction, right? I can say I put people ahead of myself, because I do it enough that it's considered a fault, and yet, I'm dramatic and self-absorbed. I told him that all I remembered him as was the guy who poured my cereal. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Like I must've been grossly exaggerating. But I-I remember more about the hospital. Seattle Grace. Hospitals look and smell the same to most of the world. Not me. Put me in a room at any hospital where I've spent a day, and I can tell you where I am. Seattle Grace and MGH feel different. I could navigate MGH blindfolded, but it wasn't part of me in the same way. I got fed by the cafeteria workers, and one of the gift-shop workers used to let me 'help' her do stock, but I wasn't allowed in authorized personnel areas until I learned to copy Mom's credentials. The day I interviewed at Seattle Grace, going through those automatic doors, it was like I didn't really know what coming home felt like until that point. I remember coloring on discarded charts, sitting in OR galleries playing with my doll, too short to see the viewing window. I was afraid of the film review room because I thought the x-rays were pictures of the skeletons they kept in there. Richard joked about changing my diapers long before I confronted him about their relationship."

She ran her finger over the date engraved on her watch. It'd been over a year since she'd thrown the carousel at him. Day-drunk, reeling, on the brink of dissociation while her memories re-contextualized themselves; she hadn't been able to process his expression in real time. It'd been devastation. Every other confrontation they'd had over it had been about leaving her with Ellis; never checking in, chickening out, and depriving her of either father. That was the moment he understood his actions, the ones he took, not the ones he didn't, had hurt her, too.

"It was a Thursday afternoon…"

What day had the nineteenth been? She might be able to figure out how long there was between the two events after all. It didn't matter, ultimately, but it might help some of her memories feel less nebulous.

Richard would forgive her for leaving. She needed to try to forgive his ignorance and move forward, aware. With Maggie, too. She should tell him she remembered more than the carousel.

"None of that is explained by saying, 'I went to the hospital day-care.' I did, and it wasn't twenty-four/seven. That didn't happen until I got on the board. Who needed more than 'day'-care, right? Mom was the only woman in her class and wasn't have a day-care at all enough consideration for the nurses? My father was an English professor at UW. Didn't they have some fancy, experimental preschool program? I have no memories of drawing on student's essays, not even at home. Mom taught me to read.

"I know nothing about my infancy. I don't know if I was breast-fed or bottle-fed. The seventies, right? But she would've seen the research. I was born in the spring before her intern year. Last semester of med school. She could've terminated. Denial is one thing, but she wouldn't carry for nine months because she couldn't find time off for a procedure."

"You were wanted. Is that so hard to believe?"

"Yes. She was an intern. I didn't have a baby that year, but I did have mild depression, and her in Roseridge, and a married ex-boyfriend, and I cannot imagine deciding not to wait. She did. Mom wasn't warm. She had unreasonable expectations, but she didn't always expect me to get there totally on my own. She read to me, gave significant amounts of unsolicited advice, took me to buy new shoes. There was the occasional movie. Sometimes she could be soft enough that I could withstand the times she was hard. I didn't…it took me a long time to see it, but she loved me. I'm starting to think she loved me more than I ever understood."

Fatimah made an obvious motion out of finishing her cider, and Meredith wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve. Flannel #3's scent hadn't been nearly as strong as she wanted when she'd cut the bag open, but on the positive side what smell it retained hadn't broken her.

Cal had brought two smiling kids back from the Children's Library, and Meredith had traded JAMA for The Martian after half an article. Not bad, considering how distracting the café was.

"All good?" she'd asked.

"They're great. I do have one question."

"Shoot."

"Is there a reason they say they're getting a baby girl, but never say 'baby sister?' It's just…something I noticed."

Meredith had made it sound like a quirk for Cal's benefit, but the question made her face thoughts she'd been trying to shove much further down.

"Is…um…I'm not…please, don't read too much into this question. Sadie said you started at, what is it here, Child Welfare Services? Is the system as bad as…as it seems from the outside?"

She could tell Fati was trying to adhere to her entreaty, but the loose drape of her dress did nothing to hide the way she stiffened. "Depends on the situation."

Meredith clenched her hands around her mug. Giving into the urge to brush her hand over her abdomen would confirm the suspicions that she could only sideswipe, not deny. "I'm not…" Her voice tripped. The cider she swallowed to clear her throat was nauseatingly sweet. She pushed it to the side, hoping to shut down the sudden aversion and kept swallowing until she could be sure it wasn't going to shoot back up. Her next clear thought was that she was out of practice, and since when did she consider not puking to be a skill? Then again, she hadn't even gotten to the point where the heartburn started with Bailey and…yeah, she really didn't want to address the way Fati was studying her.

"I'm not planning for anyone else to raise this baby." Hearing herself say words made her sure they were true; only years of controlling every muscle next to an OR table kept her from reacting. Fati raised an eyebrow. "Are those thin naturally, or do you pluck to achieve that effect, because I have to tell you, they're... effective, and yes, I know, I'm deflecting. I'm deflecting, because if I explain this, you're just gonna say I don't need to worry, and it won't happen, and that's not going to keep me from cycling through it, probably nothing will, so I just thought I'd try to head it off."

"Try me."

"I, uh, okay. No one ever just lets me go on like that without interrupting. Not sure if I prefer it or not. Okay, I am not my mother. We went through that earlier, but it bears repeating. Not in the 'resident's name listed first on the paper' good way, and not in the 'first move after getting dumped involves traumatizing her five-year-old' bad way, because Sadie's right, that was warped. Maybe she had some underlying condition, who knows? I've spent my whole life mixed-up over how I feel about not being her. In some ways, it'd be easier if I were, but for the most part I try not to be.

"Um, except, the thing is, I've been mirroring her since I started my internship. I don't mean, like, I picked the same specialty. Far bigger stuff in ways I didn't know about until afterward. Intern year, I became the mistress of a co-worker who stayed with his wife. My…affair ended differently, except, when it did, I took my kids and fled Seattle. I plan on going back, but…I think she did, too, or she planned on going somewhere else with Richard. I don't think she had MGH hold a job for six months, I think she approached them once it became obvious that he wasn't coming.

"In the kitchen in Seattle, Mom told be to be extraordinary. To be better than her. The day after she called me ordinary, I got knocked into Elliott Bay, and I died, and everyone—"

"You what?"

"Oh. Um. Sadie didn't tell you where the whole open water thing came from?"

"She said you're not comfortable in the ocean. I thought you were a city girl, not…what happened?"

"It is a very long story. I promise to tell you the whole thing, if you don't decide you don't want to know me after tonight—"

"Mer-e-dith," Fati groaned, exasperation drawing out every vowel in her name. "Are you ever going to believe that's not happening?"

Meredith smirked. "No. Eventually, I'm always right."

"Oh, really? Thought you believed in an afterlife. By that logic, you have no idea if someone you think 'doesn't want to know you' would change their mind."

"I-I…you may have me." She probably needed to tease out more of what she believed than what she didn't. "Actually, that's because of what happened, so…short version: Ferry-boat crash. Doing triage, I got knocked into Elliott Bay; it's part of the Sound. Can be really choppy, and that day was—" Can you say it was gray? There was a ferry crash, sure, but how much were you filtering the light? She backtracked, knowing Fatimah would think it only one of her verbal glitches. "I wasn't in a good place. I'd thought I was, which made it worse. Mom had this period of lucidity—sort of. Her memories stopped with her diagnosis. I tried to give her the rosy picture. She heard: I went to med school on a whim, I don't stand out, I haven't chosen a specialty, and I'm dating a neurosurgeon, isn't that great? She called me ordinary, which she had to know was a trigger, or whatever.

"The next day…. Ferryboat crash. I'm putting my jacket over an injured man on the boat dock, and then I'm in the dark, and I can't breathe, and I'm so tired, and for a second…I stopped. I died. Truly. Hypothermia.

"Everyone who was on-call worked incredibly hard, and they revived me. Meanwhile, Mom died. I woke up, and I knew she was gone." Fati's lips parted, and Meredith held up a hand. "Please. I don't…I've talked about this more recently with Beni than in yea— ever, and it's not any easier. Or clearer. I just knew she'd died, and I knew I'd heard her tell me I was anything but ordinary. I decided I would start proving my worth as a surgeon. It didn't fix how worthless I felt. Therapy finally helped me realize: if Mom had wanted to die, she would've cut her carotid. It wasn't that I wasn't enough. It wasn't that her career wasn't enough. She just didn't want to give hm up, either. I wasn't 'ordinary' for wanting love. None of that is super relevant—"

"Oh, isn't it? Sorry, but really—"

"It's not. Yes, fine, it took me thirty years to understand my mother wasn't sending me the message that I wasn't worth living for, but it's…. Iwas mirroring her without consciously knowing that. The difference is motivation, she wanted his attention. I wanted to…thought I wanted to disappear. A five-year-old saved her, and a little girl showed Derek where to find me. If she'd lost a little more blood, she'd have needed resuscitation, and it'd be the same thing, except my actions were more passive, which is par for us. She must've accepted that she could die. Deep down, I didn't want to die more than she did. Maybe less. I just…figured that out in the process. It's not a direct thing, I just…. She was pregnant, she left. I left, I'm pregnant.

"Mom had choices. Learning about Maggie in June wouldn't have made it too late to not have her. She chose to push pause for six months. To stay healthy, unable to help herself forget for any period of time while Maggie grew. I don't think she did the whole open adoption, biological mother chooses the parents thing. That would've given her control. Allowed her to give this child who, to her, represented the perfect way to stick it to the chauvinist, racist dicks she'd had to placate through her residency, to the 'right' people."

"But that's not what happened."

"No. Maggie's parents love her, but they're not doctors and Ellis…have I mentioned she was a snob?"

"Once or twice."

"Altruistic with patients, less with people. What I've concluded is that she didn't know for sure until she signed the paperwork. Do I think it crossed her mind in those six months? Yeah. Scared and in denial doesn't mean she was a different person.

"Richard told Maggie that, based on what he knew about Ellis, leaving her would have been the most difficult decision of her life. I don't know what he thinks he knows. I know she believed Richard didn't want me; she must've considered that he wouldn't want a biological child, a lovechild. Maybe she didn't believe it strongly. Thought he'd come for Maggie—even if it was because he disdained Ellis's parenting —or…I've thought that maybe…I remember the social workers' offices; I saw her sign those papers, and I expected them to take me away…."

"Do you think she did consider relinquishing you? Both of you, even?"

Meredith stopped running her finger along the strap of her watch long enough to meet Fati's eyes, grateful that her speculation hadn't been dismissed. "For so long, I did. I believed she didn't think I was worth living for…. Now? No. First of all, why not just leave me with Thatcher? Like I've told you, I don't know anything about them, but if he didn't… if he couldn't take me, why not leave me in Seattle? She was a practical person; in Boston, it would've gotten out—also…. She really wasn't a monster. And my room was big. 'All her things and a couch; never have to see her' big. 'Hide friends in strategic places, and Mom won't know they're here, big.'

"'Meant for two girls to share' big.

"I think Maggie came out, and Ellis saw this new baby girl who deserved time, attention, and love; parents who don't look at her and see the ghost of Richard. Ellis, who carried—maybe conceived—this baby as a form of honey-trap, couldn't put a child in that position, knew he wouldn't come if she did. Ellis, who'd alienated her sister, the last person who might support her without question. Ellis, who raised one child in a hospital with a spouse, even a flaky one, and couldn't imagine doing it alone.

"Ellis, who maybe didn't understand sunk-cost fallacy, decided to keep going with the daughter she had. Ellis who maybe knew she had a daughter who'd already been traumatized enough. Ellis went over her choices one more time and determined that she wouldn't be enough for both of us. Might've been the only thing she wasn't sure she could handle."

"Can I ask—no, sorry, that's not my business, this all gets intriguing from the outside, I'm sure it's awful to live."

"It is. I never react well to the next twist, either. I was horrible to Maggie. I'm just so tired of the next big thing. What'd you want to know?"

"You said you believed you were the reason he didn't follow."

"Ah. That. No, Richard admits he, uh. He loved me…loves me. And he regrets just…just leaving me with her." You can love someone, and question their parenting. Ask me how I know. "It was envy. She'd started getting recognition, and he couldn't be happy for her without getting in his feelings about it… shit." Meredith pressed her forehead against her hand. "Richard was Derek's mentor, and boys in this country are raised a certain way, so this isn't entirely a shock, but Derek—That's what Derek and I were dealing with last year. I didn't want to move to D.C. It wasn't the first time I wouldn't leave Seattle, but the other time would've been about my fellowship…." Had she really wanted to move back to Boston, though? Or had it been about the double opportunity? "Anyway, needing to be the one with the more important career was a flaw he and Derek shared. Granted, Richard thought he'd spend his life that way, and Derek…I suppose in retrospect it'd be nice to think he did, too."

That wasn't the only flaw they shared, either. She didn't want to consider them, which meant she would, in the darkness of the next few nights. Her failed night with George had made her think she was exempt from the you marry your father thing, but the illustrious "they" hadn't said you marry the man who poured your cereal.

"I may never know Mom's motivations. What I know is that I mirror her. When I don't intend to. So, uh, I wanted to know what happens if I have this baby and….

"I already have two wonderful, busy kids. Derek spent enough of last year in D.C. that I'm not totally overwhelmed at the idea of having them on my own while I'm working. There are good people who will help me, because they love Zola and Bailey, regardless of how long it takes them to get over this." She waved a hand around the living room. "Derek and I almost killed each other during my maternity leave with two, and we were insanely happy. There were three adults in the house when I went back. Also, an additional toddler, but…three. Then, I had his sister. I dunno if she'll…. I have to expect there'll be one of me, a toddle-schooler or whatever Bailey will be, a near-kindergartener who thinks she's grown-up but holds my hand going down the big slide, and a baby…three kids. Three under six. I can't carry three. I can't hold three. I understand that plenty of women do it. But if…" She closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath.

"Would you like to hold her?"

"No. Absolutely not. No."

It wasn't impossible for her to believe her mother capable of something Meredith was doing. What she didn't know; what decades of journals deconstructing the field of general surgery couldn't tell her, was: had Ellis believed herself capable?

"I used to think my mother was terrible, so I'd be a terrible mother. My mother was complicated. I'm complicated. So far, I don't rate terrible. I never want to. If this baby…if she's gonna get terrible…. She deserves better. I need to know what she'd get, but I'm not gonna…I won't know until I know, so I'd never set potential parents up to…." Meredith put her face in her hands again but sat up almost immediately when that put her across from Janet, about to be led away from her baby. "Maggie got lucky."

"That's true."

"And there's this girl I work with, well, not a girl, a woman. She seems younger than she is sometimes, which I'm sure is because…. She's a doctor. A good one. As a baby, she was left at a firehouse. She grew up in care, and she grew up fast. By sixteen, she was living in her car. There's nothing that would differentiate her from this baby. White, girl, hopefully healthy. Is…what's the likelihood…? Would she be Maggie? Or Jo? I mean, they both ended up at Ivies."

"That's your deciding factor?"

"No, of course not. I went to an Ivy. Clearly, it's not indicative of anything. All I'm saying is…. I don't know what I'm saying. I thought you might know statistics, or-or something I could do to make sure she wouldn't be bouncing from one shitty situation to another for eighteen years."

"Infants and toddlers are more likely to be homed, particularly if there aren't any supposed issues. Disabilities, drug exposure, things people wrongly think wouldn't have happened to their biological child. In all likelihood, yes, she'd be adopted. There's no guarantee. And if she was, not everyone outcome will be like your sister's, or Zola's. People adopt for good reasons, but a perfect home study means nothing, really. They miss plenty of red flags. You must know that; you've been through it."

"I have, but it was pretty intense. They almost didn't let us have Zola."

"She was from Malawi?" Meredith nodded. "So, they needed a waiver. You'd have been under abnormal scrutiny there. I'm not saying they can't be picky, but in a way that…. Well, it's not able-bodied, white, well-off parents who usually go through that rigamarole. Ultimately, you'd have no say over what kind of family she ended up with. I imagine you'll tell me it doesn't matter if they love her, but even naively thinking you could believe that, let's say they're religious."

"Derek's mom—"

"Against vaccinations," Fati continued. Meredith winced. "Homophobic. Spank and have them go out to pick their own switch. She comes out looking like you? White supremacist."

"Okay, okay, I get it."

"Thought so. You mean well, Meredith, I know whatever path you go down, that's true. You think she'd have a better chance of getting attention, perhaps grow up with a father. What you need to consider is what you can say won't happen. With you, she won't want for food, or heat. Her home won't be abusive. She won't be unloved. No matter how hard it might be for you, you can't tell me you don't already love her."

"Of course, I do."

"And your little village? If there are days when she, or any of the kids, remind you of your Derek so much that you fear you'll take it out on them, they'd simply let you?"

"No. They wouldn't."

"I know you've untangled a lot of your mother's knots, and maybe she wasn't Mother Gothel. That doesn't change your experience. Perhaps she did things a little bit more correctly than you believed, but you have prioritized the kids in everything since your husband died." Fati chewed the corner of her lip for a moment. "Tell me this: Did your mother leave Seattle for you?"

"Hell no."

"Why did you leave Seattle?"

"I couldn't breathe there. Derek was everywhere, and I knew I was gonna break…and I didn't want to risk using work to hold myself together and detaching from the kids."

"Can you say, for certain, that your mother's decision prioritized Maggie?"

"I understand. It's okay if you need more time."

"More time? More time? I needed more time with him, but it just keeps going forward faster and faster, and there is no more time."

"The social worker called Mom Ms. Grey. It was the only time she didn't lose her mind over that. She talked about Richard, and maybe there'd been other meetings, and it's all tinged with the fact that I knew just enough to think she was signing me away. But, um. No. However hard it was…I think she prioritized herself."

Fati gave her a Cheshire Cat smile. "There you go, then. Whatever you end up deciding, you'll do it for the right reason." She picked up Meredith's mug as well as her own and carried them over to the sink. It was weird not to have someone tell her she should put herself first a little more often. If Fati had, would she have argued with her? Or would she have accepted the advice, for once? Would putting herself first lead to the decision her mother made?

The baby was moving as constantly as Zola showing her the "gym-mastics" they'd done at Pre-K. "She's so active, it's like she knows we're talking about her. Good thing that's not possible."

"Well, maybe it can't hear anyway. Maybe it's deaf."

"Deaf is fine. Helen Keller went to Harvard, Meredith."

That night she'd spent spinning the worst-case scenario while pregnant with Bailey had almost been a game. It wasn't that she didn't expect something to bottom out, so much as, she knew they'd make it through if they did, and she liked the way her negativity drove him nuts. If something was atypical about this baby, Derek wouldn't be there to convince her it wasn't her fault. She'd have to find a way to reason through it, and she would. She'd mastered Zola's condition, and everything it could have led to, and she'd been prepared to take care of her on her own.

She'd run from a social worker, with Zola.

She imagined herself in her mother's place in that office in a Boston-area hospital that Meredith couldn't have identified with a scalpel to her throat.

"Ms. Grey, it's important you fully understand, by signing these, you sign away all rights to your daughter, now and in the future."

She would need more time. She would need all the time in the world, and it wouldn't be long enough.

"Yeah," Fatimah said. "Mama loves her, what a horrible thing to know in utero."