Merit
Monterey, California
Present Day
I start the text with, Hey.
I delete it.
I start again.
Me: It’s me, Violet.
I delete it.
I start again.
Me: Hi. Just checking in on Hero.
I delete it.
I rub my forehead and chew on my thumbnail as a ball of nerves builds in my stomach.
“Be honest. Be open.” I remember Dana’s words.
I want to hear his voice, not read his words—if I’m being honest.
It’s been two weeks since my first therapy session with Dana. Some sessions, I just sat and cried.
Dana said, “When you cry, it’s just the grief letting you know you’re not done yet.”
Some sessions, I didn’t want to be there. Some sessions, I didn’t want to end.
But, today, the sun is shining, and I’m looking out the window that overlooks the Pacific.
“Hey.” I hear Abbey’s voice.
I turn to look at her. “Hey. You look like hell,” I say.
“I feel like hell.” Her bag is pushed behind her as she walks toward me.
“What happened?”
“No more tequila.”
“What happened to just two drinks?”
“Oh, yeah. That.” She pauses. “Ruben left early. We’d gotten into a fight. From what I remember.”
“What was it about?”
In the hallway, we walk toward our shared office at the aquarium.
“Honestly, I don’t remember. He was late for our date. I knew the bartender. Told him to pour me a shot of tequila. Then, another. Then, another. By the time Ruben arrived, to my recollection, I used a few choice words. He got pissed. Told me he was taking me home. I wanted to stay. He wouldn’t have it. Woke up in his empty bed this morning with a massive headache.”
I don’t offer any advice to Abbey. I can’t in situations like these because I’m not qualified to offer sound advice. Probably due to my track record of failed attempts at love or not trying at all. Not even with Ryan. Not after what happened.
“Did you call him?” I ask.
“No.”
I cave. “Maybe you should. Clear the air.”
We reach our office.
But, before Abbey walks in, she turns to me. “Maybe you should call Ryan. Clear the air. Sounds like great advice to me.”
The mention of Ryan’s name from someone else’s lips reaches every sore spot and every right spot in my body. I do want to call him.
“I’ve gotta get me back, Abbs. I’ve gotta get me back before I make that call.”
Her eyes grow big, as if my answer has caught her off guard. “That is the most honest answer I think you’ve ever given me.” She stops. “Whatever you’re doing, it seems to be working.”
Abbey turns to walk to her desk when she sees the flowers. She turns and looks at me. “I need to make a phone call.” She doesn’t have to read the tag to know who they’re from. She sets her bag down in her chair, slips her phone from her pocket, and breezes past me. “I’ll be back soon.”
I smile, a tinge of jealousy at their ease to forgive so easily.
Is it that easy? Were words exchanged last night that will leave marks, scars, on their hearts for years to come?
Maybe there aren’t scars. Maybe it’s the mind’s ability to keep tally, to keep track, and every time the heart says it’s time to forgive, the mind snaps shut. Maybe that, too, is a layer of protection. A way the mind preserves the heart, so it won’t die a broken one.
Eddie watches his daughter walk down the long corridor before he enters our office.
“Hey,” I say, leaning against my desk. My feet crossed. A smile on my face.
Eddie stops in his tracks. “Is that … is that a smile from Merit Young? Holy shit.” He pulls out his flip phone.
I laugh. “What are you doing?”
“Sending a text to the world. News flash: yes, Merit Young does smile.”
I chuckle again as he shoves his flip phone back in his board shorts.
“Anyway, do flip phones have the capability to text?”
Eddie smirks. Walks to the copier. He peeks back over his shoulder and smiles. “It’s just real good to see you smile.”
A reminder pops up on my phone: Dana @ 5:30 p.m.
“I’m going to feed Benny.”
He’s the new river otter we received from SeaWorld. They’ve got too many, so they sent one up here and two to San Francisco to rehabilitate. Benny and two other river otters had been caught in a fishing net and severely dehydrated when a fisherman came across them. Benny had some fairly severe cuts, caused by the nets, that needed care.
Benny’s in our quarantine enclosure when I toss a few mudminnows to the rock. He swims to the rock, hops up, and eats the fish.
“Hey, Benny. How ya feeling, big boy?”
He waits for another fish, up on his back two wide, webbed feet. I watch him as he stands and then dives back into the water, twisting and turning up toward the surface and then back toward the bottom. Benny pops back up out of the water, still waiting for another fish. I toss a handful of small fish and some carrots. Though he’d rather have fish, carrots are a close second.
The medical staff at SeaWorld didn’t think Benny would survive. He had severe lacerations to his webbed feet and hind legs. In fact, when he had been found, they’d thought he’d already expired. But, with modern science and technology, Benny made a comeback they hadn’t expected.
Benny nibbles on the carrots, one by one.
“Got to keep you healthy, buddy.”
My phone begins to ring. It’s Alex.
I answer the phone with the hand that doesn’t have fish guts on it. “Hey.”
“Hey, Mer.”
“Hang on. I need to wash my hands. Just did a feeding.”
Behind the stairs of the enclosure is a hand-washing station. I wash my hands and grab the phone from where I put it down on the makeshift shelf above the sink.
“Sorry.” I wipe my hands on my pants as I hold the phone between my shoulder and cheek.
“No need to be sorry. You are doing your job. Sorry to bother you at work.”
“No bother. What’s up?” And then I panic. Why is Alex calling me in the late morning on a Tuesday? “Everything okay?” Panic festers deep in my stomach.
“Everything’s fine. You’ve just been on my mind lately, and I wanted to call you.”
His name pops from my mouth without control. “Is Ryan all right?”
There’s a long pause.
A long pause can mean several things with Alex. It could be that she’s simply choosing her words wisely, sensitively. Two, she’s got news, but she’s not sure how to deliver it. It isn’t bad news either—all the time. Three, she’s embarrassed to talk about it.
“He’s fine,” she finally says.
I can breathe.
The fear in the pit of my stomach disappears.
“He’s been really different since you left. But that’s not what I called you about.”
“Oh?” From the other side of the glass, I watch Benny slide agilely through the water. As if he’s posing for a picture or being playful. I put my hand to the glass.
“So, your brother and I were talking about wills—”
“What?”
Alex sighs. “Mer, if something happens to us, we have to have a plan for Emily.”
Right. That’s the responsible thing to do. Have a plan.
“Oh, right.”
She’s hiding behind words. I can tell.
“Come out with it, Alex.”
She sighs. I know she’s picking at her nail right now, probably chewing on her thumb. “If something happens to Eli and me, we want you and Ryan to have custody of Emily.”
“Ryan and me? As in … together?”
“Well, yeah. You’re family.”
“But we’re not together, together.”
“It doesn’t mean you have to be. Co-parenting. And, Mer, it’s just in case. It’s a just-in-case plan.”
“Of course,” I whisper into the phone. My mind still attempting to catch up to speed.
“I’ll send you some documents via snail mail that you need to sign. Nothing big, just some documents that explains what will transpire if something happens to us. Money. Etcetera.”
There’s a long silence on my end.
Did our parents have a plan when Mom died? Of course, we’d live with our dad, but was there a plan if he died?
For whatever reason, the grief pops up again. Masked behind the current situation with Alex. Funny how grief does that. Hides. Stays hidden for days on end. Then, someone brings something up, and there’s grief again, smiling from across the room, waving, as if an old friend. One you’ve dreaded. One you own a past with. One you seem to shake but can’t get rid of.
“Merit?” I hear Alex’s voice.
“I’m here.” Really only half-listening.
“I’ll put the documents in the mail today. Call me when you receive them, and we can go over them. Ryan’s already signed them.”
Did you hear that, Merit?
He’s already signed the paperwork. Meaning he’s okay with this. He’s already committed to this decision. Or maybe it’s just Emily. Maybe it’s me, too. Because, if we have to co-parent, he’s up for it.
When Alex says his name again, something in my body shudders. It’s hidden beneath the hurt, and it comes to life. Maybe it’s my heart, allowing me to feel again. Feel like a woman that God intended me to be. A woman who doesn’t need a man, but a woman who wants a man.
“Send me the paperwork, and I’ll sign it.”
“Thank you, Mer. Oh, shit, Emily’s up from her nap. I’ve gotta run.”
“Yeah, run,” I say.
There’s silence on her end.
“Mer?”
“Yeah?”
“Funny how life keeps putting you two back together.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “And, Alex? Thank you for asking. It’s an honor I don’t take lightly.”
I hang up and rest my back against the cement wall.
Ryan infiltrates my mind with his hands. His scent. His bare chest against mine. How his lips feel against me. On my body. On my lips. In unspeakable places. There’s something that’s in his touch, in his way, that commands my need for him. It’s not something I’ve admitted to needing in a long time.
I’ve always told myself, I can do things on my own. Handle my own business since we lost Destiny. I’ve never relied on anyone else to pick up the pieces. But maybe, with this piece of vulnerability I see in front of me, it’s not a need but a want.
When we made love a few weeks ago, it was for my heart. Ryan did it for me, knowing I’d leave. Knowing I had to leave. But also knowing it was what we both needed. The connection, although seventeen years had passed, was there. More intense. More present than it’d ever been. We made love in our own wake of memories—if not for our past, then for our future, which was uncertain. We stayed in the moment, drunk on feelings and passion. We pushed.
It’s just past five thirty, and I’m meeting with Dana.
“Maybe you ought to do a trust retreat? It’s something where you rely on a team. There are several in our area,” Dana suggests.
I laugh. “Like what? I close my eyes, fall back, and trust someone will catch me?”
Dana shakes her head. “Something more. Like a retreat. I have some in mind. I’ll send you a few links.”
“Do you think I have trust issues?”
“Do you think you have trust issues?” Dana is seated in her chair. The chair she always sits in. The red chair made of velvet.
Her think chair is what I call it.
I toy with my fingers, more able to look at myself, my actions, and my past that has brought me here to Dana’s office for reoccurring visits.
“I feel like, if I protect myself, my heart, from hurt by keeping them at a distance, becoming too vested in them, then I won’t be too hurt when they leave or let me down.”
Dana takes down a few notes. I’d love to see that notebook. What she writes about her clients. Or maybe it’s an ongoing grocery list, a to-do list. Or maybe technical terms in the field of psychology for diagnoses.
“I feel, if I keep walls of separation up, then I won’t get hurt again.”
“So, it’s fear-based?” Dana suggests. “From my experience, anger, jealousy, and sometimes sadness are fear-based, right? You were angry with Ryan for what he’d said to you.”
Smirking, I say, “Well, yeah. Wouldn’t you be? He asked me to have an abortion, Dana. I think that I have a right to be angry to some extent.”
“So, justified anger?”
I jerk my head back. My face grows warm as I feel her words crawl up my throat. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said. You’re justifying your anger. That’s what’s helped you cope. Justified anger.” She stops and holds up her hand. “Hear me out. You’re angry because why?”
“He hurt me.” My words are clear.
“And, when it hurt, when he spoke those words, said those things about the abortion, about another girl, what emotion did it all come down to?”
“I don’t know.” My voice is louder.
My head is swarming with past feelings and present thoughts. As if I’m trying to climb my way out of a dark hole without a flashlight.
Help, I want to scream.
But I can’t. Because the only way out of this one is through the dark, by myself.
“Fear. You were scared. Terrified of losing him. Terrified of the infant that was growing inside you. Did you ever stop to think there might be a strong connection to your mother’s death and what happened that day with Ryan? Perhaps you were fearful that you couldn’t be the mother Rebecca had once been. Or worse, that Destiny would lose you in a way you lost your mother.”
Tears start to fall.
My past meets my future in a collision. An explosion of truth and sadness. For the first time in my life, it’s clear.
And the truth falls from my eyes and splatters against my work shirt. The truth I didn’t know existed. Until now. My vision is blurry as I try to stare at the glass vase on Dana’s coffee table that separates us.
My perception of reality has been thrown off. What I knew about myself this morning when I woke up is the opposite of who I see sitting here with Dana in her office right now. A person I don’t know. A person who has been in her own body for thirty-five years has no idea of who she is.
I grab a tissue from the box next to me and wipe my eyes.
“Why did he hurt you?” she asks in a softer tone.
I shake my head and whisper, “I don’t know.”
“Maybe he had a reason. Maybe there was a purpose for it. Perhaps. I could be wrong. But, from what you’ve told me, it certainly doesn’t seem like his MO with your past together.”
My hands fall to my thighs. Weightless and without feeling, I stare at the woman across from me. She, too, is a different person than the one I met just a few weeks ago. My mind is spinning in all different directions, unable to focus on a single thought—or the spinning thoughts are too quick to grab.
“You asked me to help, Merit, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to help you get down to the causes and conditions of why you sought me out. That’s my job.”
But I didn’t know it would hurt like this, I want to say.