Chapter Forty-Six: Susan Grey
Meredith quickly made her way to the nurse's station where she was paged to. She looked around not seeing any reason for her being required in that area.
"Hi I was paged" Meredith said catching the attention of one of the nurse's that was currently in the area.
"Oh Dr Grey, a woman came asking for you, she didn't give her name or say what she wanted she just said it was important she see you" the nurse told Meredith.
Meredith stood there puzzled trying to think of a woman would be there to see her, the nurses at her mother's home would call if there was something wrong but she had only been and visited her mother a few days ago.
"Okay well where is she?" Meredith asked. She was still none the wiser when the nurse pointed out the short middle aged woman. Meredith took a deep breath before making her way over to the strange woman.
"Hello, I'm Dr Grey can I help you?" Meredith asked her hands protectively over her round stomach.
"Meredith" the woman spoke looking at the young woman. "I'm Susan Grey, I was married to your father" she said introducing herself.
Meredith suddenly felt like she couldn't breathe. This was the woman he had left her and her mother for all those years ago. She wanted to runaway and hide but there was a part of her that wanted to know what she wanted with her.
"Thatcher, he might have been my father but he was never really my father. I'm surprised you even know he had a daughter" Meredith rambled nervously.
"I understand dear, I know you are probably confused but we have known all along about you, he had pictures" Susan said speaking softly.
"Confused yes definitely confused" Meredith agreed. "Is there something I can help you with?" Meredith finally asked rubbing her hand across her stomach where one of the babies was kicking.
"I was hoping that you would like to have dinner with me sometime, I always tried to urge Thatcher into contacting you but he was a stubborn man, but I would very much like to get to know you Meredith" Susan said kindness shining in her eyes. "How far along are you" she asked noticing Meredith rubbing her stomach.
"Um almost 26 weeks" Meredith said looking up at the woman who was now smiling at her.
"My youngest Molly she has a little girl, she is almost 6 months" Susan said without thinking.
"You have children….with Thatcher?" Meredith asked nervously.
Susan simply nodded. "We have 2 girls" she answered.
"Oh well that's nice" Meredith said trying to hold back the shakiness in her voice.
Meredith's pager began to beep before Susan could reassure the scared young woman.
"Do you have to go?" Susan asked clearly upset that her time with Meredith was being interrupted.
"Ah yeah I do, um maybe we could meet and talk some other time" Meredith said surprising even herself. "Here is my number" she said quickly writing it down.
"It was lovely to meet you Meredith" Susan spoke softly before farewelling Meredith and watcher her depart to go tend to her page.
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Meredith made her way to Mark's office, her head spinning with what had just happened. That woman was in a way her stepmother and had been the reason for her father leaving his 5 year old daughter behind. Even though Meredith should probably hate the woman for taking away her 'daddy' she found herself drawn to her kindness and warmth, something her own mother had always lacked. So engrossed in her own thoughts she didn't even see the figure walking toward her until she had collided with them.
"Meri, are you okay?" Mark asked as he realised it was his wife he had just collided with.
"Hey I was just coming to find you" Meredith said smiling up at him. "Are you busy?"
"Nope, I was just going to grab something to eat, are you on your break?" he asked.
"Not really, I've already eaten, I'm not needed at the moment so I wanted to talk to you about something" she said nervously biting at her bottom lip.
"What's wrong?" he asked concerned.
"Nothing is exactly wrong, come on and I will tell you everything" she said as they made their way to the cafeteria.
Mark sat across from Meredith eating and listening intently as she told him all about her experience with Susan Grey. After she had finished speaking he sat their watching her reaction. She didn't seem as freaked out about this as she usually would.
"And you are okay with this woman showing up out of nowhere wanting to know you?" he asked uncertainly.
"I don't know, a part of me really wants to get to know her but another part is telling me she is the reason my father left and now he has a whole new family" she ranted.
"So you have two sisters and a niece?" he asked making sure he had all the facts right.
"Apparently, that's the other thing, I have two half sisters I have never known, Susan said she had been trying to get him to get in contact with me but he was too stubborn. Like that went so well last time we tried it" she said sarcastically.
"He never mentioned his family when you met up with him after we got engaged" Mark reminded her.
"Exactly! I don't know what to do" Meredith moaned confused over what this all meant.
"Mer you know how I feel about you being under extra stress, maybe we should just leave it until after the babies are born and everything settles down" Mark suggested.
"Yeah maybe I will think about it okay" she said looking at her pager which signalled she needed to be somewhere. "That's from Addie I got to go, I'll meet you in the lobby at 7" she said giving him a quick kiss before leaving.