Merit
Monterey, California
Present Day
“When I hired you, there was something about you that I knew would never fail. Like a machine, I knew you’d be the one to take over once I kicked the bucket or went crazy enough not to make decisions for the aquarium.” Eddie slides down against the cement wall next to me as we stare out at the Pacific. “But I also saw you were runnin’.”
I smile—not to appease Eddie, but because he knows more than I think he knows.
“Kid, you’ve been runnin’ from shit your entire life. You’re the type who has walked through life too scared to rock the boat because you don’t want to deal with the damage if it all falls in the water.” Eddie pauses. “But, when Abbey brought you here, I knew there was somethin’ special about you. Sometimes, we run because it’s easier.” He pauses, rests his elbows on his knees, and picks at his callous hands.
Seals bark in the distance.
I take in his words and allow them to settle in my skin, my heart, though I’m not sure I want to hear them.
“Abbey calls me Eddie for what I did to her mom. Can’t change it. Shit happens.” Eddie clasps his hands together. “She runs late because she knows I won’t fire her. She’s my daughter. She’s snippy with me because she’s still hurt. I get it. Sometimes, we run because we’re tired of dealin’ with a pile of shit. Guess I was tired of dealin’ with a pile of shit.” Eddie nods. “So, I left. Strayed from my marriage. The Mormon Church can be very unforgiving to people like me. But what I found out is, it wasn’t the Mormon Church at all. I just couldn’t forgive myself. I know God ain’t that bad. In fact, I’d say the dude is pretty forgiving—if you ask an old hippie.” Eddie smiles. There’s a long silence that falls in line with the sea line, right where the sky meets the ocean.
“What I’m tryin’ to say is, life doesn’t have to be one big consequence, kid, if you want to be happy. You’ve just gotta figure out where you hurt and get on with the healin’.”
“How?” I whisper as if the word is spoken with someone else’s mouth.
“Stop runnin’.”
When my mom died, I dived into taking her spot. Maybe more to keep her memory alive, but if I’m being real with myself, it was because it kept me moving forward, so I didn’t have to look at my sadness.
Every time Ryan came over with another bruise, another cigarette burn, I’d put all that hurt into fixing him.
When I got pregnant, I ran.
When Destiny died, I ran from anything that made me feel.
A sob chokes in my throat, and when it manages to make its way up through my mouth, there aren’t any tears. There aren’t any words. There’s just a hole in my heart that a sob is trying to protect. Because dealing with life on life’s terms isn’t as easy as running.
My life has been calculated. Carefully scientific. Set up so that I don’t have to feel anymore. Even when I told Ryan about Destiny. Stoic. All these little things are met with my memories of me.
Push it down.
Don’t feel.
Keep moving.
It will only hurt.
Protect your heart.
I feel a pat on my arm.
“Stop runnin’, kid.”
“What if I can’t, Eddie?”
“I think you just did.” He takes the outside of his thumb and wipes a single tear falling down my face.
“What about you and Abbey? You’ll be all right?”
He shrugs. “As long as I show up for life, I think we’ll be okay. But I couldn’t do that until I stopped runnin’ from all the shit I’d caused.”
“How will I know?” I look up at him as he turns away.
Eddie stops and turns back. “There’s a moment when you’ll know. You’ll stop runnin’.”
“Hi, Merit. I’m Dana.” She extends her hand from the plush chair she’s sitting in to me on the comfortable sofa.
Therapists probably shouldn’t make sofas so comfortable for patients. I assume they want to get their patients in, cured, and get them on their way. Dana won’t be able to do that with her patients if she keeps this sofa. I should tell her this.
We shake hands.
Slowly, she leans back in her chair, arms crossed in a relaxed way, as if we’re two old friends catching up after years apart.
We’re not. Another wall of armor.
“What brings you in today?” She has a pen in one hand while a pad of paper rests on the small table between us.
I’m not sure. I mean, I know. I think. I know why I called. It was the right thing to do.
I haven’t said two words to Dana, except, “Here’s my insurance information,” and, “I filled out a questionnaire that asked about self-harm and depression.”
“I lost a child.”
Slowly, Dana nods. “I bet that hurt.”
I chew on my bottom lip and bite hard enough, so the tears don’t fall. “I don’t want to cry. I want help.”
“When did this happen?” She leans forward to grab her pad of paper. Probably how she’ll diagnose me. Write down descriptive words that are used only by therapists in the psychology field. “The notepad is just for my own notes. I hope that’s all right?” Dana’s smile is soft. Inviting.
“Seventeen years ago.”
Dana nods again.
Is there a secret code word for nods?
One nod: keep talking.
Two nods: wow.
Three nods: huh.
Four nods: call security.
Does Dana have a secret phone line to 911? What if she has a crazy person that she didn’t know she was dealing with?
“Bet it’s been hard to walk through this. Have you seen a therapist before, Merit?”
“No.”
“Did you tell anyone about it?”
“No. Except the father, Ryan.”
“When?”
“Recently.”
Dana takes down the information.
“I want to be free,” I whisper breathlessly. Saying this is the most honest thing I’ve done for myself in a really long time. “I’m tired.” My voice grows hoarse. “Tired of being angry. Tired of fighting myself. Tired of grieving.” I bite my lower lip again.
Don’t cry, I tell myself.
“Whom are you angry with?”
That’s a really great question, Dana.
I fill my cheeks with air. Let it out. “Myself. Ryan. My mom. For dying.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
I tell her the story about Destiny. The same story I told Ryan. I don’t want to carry this around with me anymore. The conversation, the retelling of a story with an awful ending, feels more freeing every time I tell it.
Dana’s pen sits in her hand like a cigarette of a seasoned smoker. Light. Careless. Free.
“Can you tell me more about Ryan?”
How much time do you have?
I tell her the story of a girl who called herself Violet Ugly. A girl who grew into a woman, internally bitter and angry. A girl who loved a boy and he loved her the best way he could. A girl and a boy who made decisions based on what they knew at the time. I tell her about a young girl’s dream to go to San Diego to become a marine biologist.
“Did you achieve that?” she asks about the last bit.
“Yes.”
Dana jots down another note.
I go on, and I tell her about a young woman who lost her mother at eleven years old. Who tried to care for her brother, her father, and a boy she loved from a very young age.
“That’s a lot to take on for an eleven-year-old girl.”
Is it?
I don’t know. I don’t know the truth anymore.
What’s easy? What’s hard? I just did what I thought was right. What I needed to do.
So, we sit in the quietness, nestled deep in the confines of her office, protected from the world, as her statement lingers, hovering in the space around us.
“Yeah,” I finally say. And the emotion of this answer pushes at my chest like the finger of a person who’s mad.
Push.
Hurt.
Push.
Hurt.
It’s the first time I’m willing to accept that my childhood wasn’t what I thought it was. Maybe pain does this. Forces us to see what we’ve been avoiding for years. For the first time in my life, in a person’s office I don’t really know, I’m willing to see the truth that, when my mom died, my dad checked out for a bit, my brother hid behind whatever he could, kept busy, and I turned to Ryan because he needed me. That I willingly took over the position of Rebecca Young and that I didn’t allow myself to grieve.
“So, when you lost Destiny, I’m sure that hurt just as bad, if not worse?” Dana asks in a very kind way.
I don’t allow myself the tears. Once more, I push them down. Just like I’ve always done.
“How did you deal with it, Merit? Her death? How did you get through it?”
There it is. The one question I’ve never been asked about my daughter’s death. About my mother’s death. Because here’s the truth. “I didn’t,” I whisper.
Tears start to fall uncontrollably, as if the grief is met with shock. As if I’m just realizing this for the very first time.
“I’m sorry.” I push forward from the sofa and put my head in my hands. The pain in my chest is so severe; I’m sure my heart will fall at any moment.
Please fall. It will be easier than the pain, I tell myself.
Dana leans forward and touches my knee. “Why are you sorry, Merit?” she asks.
I shake my head.
I don’t know.
So, I’m honest. “I don’t know why I’m sorry.”
The sobs get stuck in my throat.
Destiny’s scent.
The heaviness of her body on my chest, right where it belonged.
My mother’s arms. I was curled up in them in her final days.
I feel as though I’m stunted—emotionally, mentally. Stunted by grief that I wasn’t willing to face and heartache. The pain in my chest grows, cracking in segments, just like a windshield. Section by section, the cracks push and move.
“I just pushed it down. I pushed it down, so I could keep moving forward,” I say with a strained voice.
“I think you pushed it down because you didn’t have the tools to deal with death.”
The sobs come out one last time, and the hurt in my chest moves.
I rock and cry.
For Destiny.
For my mother.
For me.
As I drive home from Dana’s office, the sun is glistening off the Pacific. The grief has met me where I am. But the hope is that maybe I don’t have to carry this baggage around with me forever. Baggage that I didn’t know I had. The secrets I didn’t know I was keeping.
For the first time in a long time, I see hope. Even though everything with Dana was exposed, someone else knows. Someone else knows, so I don’t have to keep all of these things tucked and folded into me like I need them. Keeping them for myself, to harbor the worries, the trouble, the grief, so no one has to see the ugly truths about Merit Young.
I couldn’t see enough to know how much Ryan cared for me. Loved me. I couldn’t see enough of me to know that maybe Eli didn’t care that Ryan and I wanted something more than just friendship. Perhaps I was too focused on what others thought of me.
As I drive along the coastline, back to my apartment, the pain in my chest loosens. Just maybe I’ll be all right after all. Maybe I won’t, but this is a damn good start.