Merit
Granite Harbor, Maine
Christmas Eve 1995
Ryan’s shivering on the porch. I have no idea how he got here. My heart wants to jump right out of my chest and grab him from the cold.
“Well, what are you doing on the porch? Come in,” Eli says, standing in front of me.
I move back as Ryan walks past us. Hero at his heels.
I bend down and take Hero’s face in my hands. “You’re cold, too, boy.” I put his muzzle in my neck and then stand and walk to the kitchen, grabbing a few dog treats.
The fireplace provides warmth as the Christmas tree lights twinkle, providing the only light in our living room aside from the fire.
“Where’s your dad?” Ryan asks, looking at both Eli and me.
“Shower. Just got home from work,” Eli says. “Ryan, it’s snowing like hell out there. You and Hero walked here?”
Ryan bites his lip. Stares at the fire. “Dubbs finally passed out.”
I can tell in the way that he sits, that Ryan’s sore.
“What’d he do to you, Ryan?” My tone is terrible. Hostile. I want to take Dubbs, tie him to a pole, and beat the living shit out of him.
“Nothin’.”
It’s Ryan’s go-to line. The one that keeps us out of trouble. The lie he tells us, so Dubbs won’t come after us.
It’s our first Christmas without Mom. I tried to make her potato salad and miserably failed. The ham is dry. The biscuits are burned. Eli said we could scrape off the top, but I’m tenacious, and I insisted that I make new ones. The oven dings, and I walk in the kitchen, hoping to give some space to Eli and Ryan. I hope Ryan tells him what happened. Ryan’s always been so strong, too strong, and I know, one day, it will catch up to him. I know, one day, he’ll fall apart. At least tell someone else what Dubbs does to him.
Hero’s nails click across the hardwood floor, following me to the kitchen. He knows Ryan is safe here.
Hero sniffs the air and sits as I pull the freshly made biscuits from the oven.
That’s more like it, I say to myself.
While I can’t remake the ham and potato salad, at least the biscuits will be all right.
I hear their voices, Ryan’s and Eli’s, whispering so low that I can’t make out what they’re saying. Part of me is scared to know. Part of me doesn’t want to know the beating Ryan took because I can’t manage both my sadness without Mom and knowing that Dubbs is slowly killing his son, whether it be emotionally or physically. Deep down though, I know it’s Ryan’s spirit that will die first. He’ll never show Dubbs that his kicks, punches, or cigarette burns hurt him.
A whine escapes my throat, and I quickly slap my hand against my mouth. Tears threaten my eyes, and I choke the sob back.
Enough, Merit.
Slowly, I release my mouth from my own hand. I look at Hero, whose head is cocked, ears perked. The biscuits are too hot to give him, so instead, I grab a few more treats, wondering when he and Ryan ate last. I bet the truth is, Ryan gave Hero what he found at his house, or he saved leftovers from last night’s dinner at our house to split.
“You should stay with us tonight.” Eli’s voice sounds like a man’s. Like a father talking to his son. “You don’t want to go back there, so don’t.”
Hero chomps down on the treats.
I listen to two best friends dealing with problems that they shouldn’t have to deal with.
Ryan asks, “How’s Merit?”
I hear Eli sigh.
Does he really know how bad I hurt? While I try to hide behind the stove, the housework, school, I know I can’t fool my own family. Or Ryan.
“Shitty,” he whispers.
Ryan doesn’t ask how Eli’s doing. I guess boys don’t talk about feelings to each other. Or at least, my brother and Ryan don’t. Maybe that’s boy code. Or man code. Or whatever.
I hear Pop’s footsteps coming down the stairs, and quickly, I hide behind the biscuits, checking their doneness with a toothpick, hiding my face from his so that he won’t feel my sadness.
Eli’s right; I am shitty. All I want is my mom back.
All I want is for Ryan’s dad to stop hurting him.
All I want is someone to tell.
“Hey, Ryan.”
Hero groans deep within his throat as he runs at my dad, sitting at his feet.
“Hey, buddy.” Pop gives him a good rubdown. “Merry Christmas. Did you get some treats?” he asks.
Why couldn’t Ryan get a dad like mine?
“Smells good in here, Bug.” He gives my shoulder a quick squeeze.
We all feel the weight of my mom’s loss. The big black hole that screams her name. Pop tries to play the part of a happy dad, a law enforcement officer, but really, he’s dying inside, too. I hear it when I’m in bed, and he gets home from work and gets in the shower late at night or in the mornings when it’s still dark, and he’s lying in bed.
“Dinner’s ready,” I say.
My mom taught me a lot about cooking. How to baste a turkey, how to get the biscuits to a golden brown, how to add salt to boiling water for flavor. How to cook with a Dutch oven.
Eli and Ryan make their way into the kitchen and seat themselves at the table that Eli already set.
Ryan helps me move the ham, potato salad, and biscuits to the square table. Hero has his own bowl of food, and I get it ready on the counter with ham, some potato salad, and a biscuit.
The four of us sit in our own sadness, and we wait for food to heal our hearts.
But it doesn’t.
It sits like a wound.
An open wound that keeps breaking open. One that won’t heal. One that needs attention. One that’s getting infected. But I’d take a scab wound any day over grief. I’d take it over this knot in my stomach, a plague that spreads throughout my entire body when I wake up.
My mom won’t be there to greet me in the kitchen.
Dubbs will continue to hit Ryan until he’s old enough to stand up for himself.
We finish eating, and Pop does the dishes. He won’t stand or take argument from me about doing them on Christmas.
We go back to the darkened living room where the only lights are the lights from the Christmas tree and the flicker of the fire.
The change of lighting gives me ease.
I watch Ryan as he eases down onto the couch. He looks in my direction because he knows I’m watching his every move. He doesn’t flinch, which also gives my heart a little satisfaction, knowing that it might not hurt him to sit.
It’s as if he says, I’m all right. This is okay. I’ll be okay.
His face is stoic—not because it doesn’t hurt, but for me and Eli. Dubbs takes it upon himself to hit Ryan where no one can see the marks.
When Pop, Eli, and Ryan watch the football game, I curl up in a ball at the end of the couch, next to the people I love most in the world. I chase sleep I know will not fulfill my need, but my eyelids beg for mercy. So, I give them some.
Hero sleeps by the fire, content.
Hollering.
I jump awake.
A man’s tone.
More hollering.
My brain is trying to catch up to where the pieces of the puzzle fall.
Pop is at the door.
Eli and Ryan are behind him.
Hero is gnashing his teeth at whoever is standing in front of them.
“Just go home, Dubbs, and sleep it off.” Pop is cool, like a morning layer of fog.
“I wan’ my son.”
“Go home, Dad. I’ll be home tomorrow,” Ryan says.
Hero growls.
“Chrissmas, for God’s sakes. Home with me.” His voice slurs.
What’s inside me wants to explode. I want to rage against Dubbs. Scream at him. Give him every reason why he shouldn’t have a son. But I don’t. I just stand behind Ryan. His shaking body. His broken body. His resilient body.
But I do stare down Dubbs as his eyes roll back in his head, floundering for answers that he’ll never find because he’s too drunk to find them.
“Go, Dubbs. Now,” Pop says in his official game warden voice.
Somehow, after a moment, Dubbs turns in the dead of winter with the cold and the snow. Without falling but in a zigzag way, he makes his way toward his truck, which is parked in our yard.
“You going to let him drive, Pop?” I whisper, though I’m secretly hoping he will and then Dubbs will kill himself.
Sorry, God.
I bet he’d have a funeral, and everyone would show. Not to pay their respects to Dubbs, but for Ryan. The boy who kept persevering, no matter the odds.
Before I get another thought in, Pop is on the phone.
“Sandy, this is Lieutenant Young. Dubbs Taylor is leaving my house right now, drunk as a skunk. Yeah. Yeah. Might want to nab him before he gets too far. Ten-four.”
Sandy has worked in dispatch at the Granite Harbor PD since I was born. She’ll send someone out.
Pop didn’t arrest him for one reason. This I know because I know my dad. He didn’t want Ryan to watch. He didn’t want Ryan to see his dad get arrested one more time. Even if he is a dirtbag.
As I peek out the window, the PD catches up with Dubbs at the end of our road.
We settle in again and finish the game.
Ryan and Hero will stay with us tonight and he won’t get hurt. Won’t get burned. He’ll be safe underneath our roof. Where there’s no drinking, no yelling, and no violence. But there is the empty sound of my mother not cooking in the kitchen, not calling us for dessert, not humming a tune, not asking Pop to get the milk for Santa, who we stopped believing in about two years ago.
But we all fall asleep in the living room. Together. All four of us.
“Mer, you awake?” It’s Ryan.
“Yeah.”
“Worst-case scenario.”
I smile, and my heart breaks into a million pieces at the same time. It’s an odd feeling that love and grief can be so real in the same moment.
“I’ll wake up tomorrow, and Mom won’t be in the kitchen, making coffee.” A burning sensation starts in my heart. My eyes almost succumb to the same burning and start to leak, but I don’t allow the tears to fall.
I feel his hand slowly take mine, and this makes my chest ache. I squeeze his hand.
“That Dubbs will get arrested and be released tomorrow.”
The crackle of the fire and the twinkle of the Christmas lights make me feel more at ease. Not because of what’s happening around us, but because all the people I love most are under this roof right now.
I think, secretly, Ryan and I both know that worst-case scenarios can be full of truth, a big truth. But also, what’s equally freeing is, we can walk through those truths together.
I scoot down on the couch, laying my head next to our hands, connected.
“You’re safe, Ryan.”
“I know.”
Hero groans contently and stretches in front of the fire.