Merit
Granite Harbor, Maine
Summer 1995
Age Eleven
Ryan, Milton Murdock, and Travis Jeffers—fellow game wardens—Ethan and Aaron Casey, Bill Casey—my dad’s best friend and dad to the twins—carry my mom’s coffin out from First Christian Church in downtown Granite Harbor, just off Main Street.
Mom made us attend First Christian every Sunday. I remember asking my mother if church ever closed on Sunday. Took a holiday. A break.
She laughed and replied, “God never takes a break, and neither does the praise.”
Although Eli, Ryan, and the Casey twins are just ten at the time, that day, they look like men. Faces stoic. Ryan’s and Eli’s eyes are hidden behind sunglasses to hide the hurt.
I don’t cry. I don’t have tears left. I just sit, numb, and watch the parade pass by. Part of me pretends it isn’t her body in the coffin. Part of me pretends it is a stranger and that I am just a watcher. I am just there for moral support to console the man in uniform who sits next to me, cold and sad.
Please, God, let this all be a bad dream, I tell myself.
But I open my eyes and see the same sad scene with my mother’s picture up onstage, smiling, full of life. Anger starts to stir in my gut.
Why do men like Dubbs, who treats his child bad, get to live while my mother, who loved Ryan more than his own father and mother, goes to heaven? It isn’t fair, God. Nothing about this is fair.
My fists tighten at my sides, and my body grows hot.
Don’t you dare cry, Merit Albaleen Young. Don’t you dare cry.
I push my tongue to the roof of my mouth hard, just to be sure the tears don’t come. All I can do is face forward and stare at a picture of a woman who did good in this world. Loved her kids. Loved her husband. Helped others.
My dad’s arm comes around me.
It is the first time in my life that I feel empty and angry.
I remember the last conversation I had with my mom, alone, in the bed she spent weeks in before she died. She told me that it was my job now to take care of Pop and Eli. That, without a woman’s touch—someone to make meals, remember deadlines, run errands—they might not survive. She laughed and then coughed after she said it. But I didn’t. I was terrified.
I miss her terribly.
She took my hands in hers. Told me to take care of Ryan. That he’d need it, too. He’d need love. Someone to help him through the rough patches that life would bring him. I told her that I couldn’t be that girl. Couldn’t do what she did. Take care of so many people. She smiled and pulled me close to her chest, and I lay and listened to her heart thump in my ear.
“Don’t worry, Mer; you have life all figured out. All you have to do is show up and do the next right thing.”
A touch on my shoulder brings me out of my thoughts. It’s Ryan.
“Hey, you ready?”
“Yeah.” I stand, and we walk out of the church in silence.
The sunlight outside pains my eyes. What should feel good against my face feels more like a throbbing toothache. As if the sun and what I’m feeling on the inside don’t match, and it hurts.
Living in a small town, it’s no surprise that most of Granite Harbor is shut down for two hours with signs on local businesses that read, Closed from 10 a.m. to noon. Young funeral.
I’m sure my dad will be preoccupied with many of the community members passing on their condolences at the Firemen’s Hall.
“Hey, Ryan?” I guard my eyes from the sun with my hand and look at him.
He’s staring at the ground, still wearing his sunglasses.
“I don’t want to go to Firemen’s Hall.”
He shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. The black suit he’s wearing fits him perfectly. “Okay, where do you want to go?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
Summer in Granite Harbor brings the tourists from not only the neighboring states, but also from all over the country. We watch as a group of tourists unload next to the statue of Andre the Seal. Totally unaffected by Rebecca Young’s untimely death. Their world is wrapped around photographs and angles and where to go next.
But, hidden from the tourists, there’s a tree with my name on it. A place buried under the softwoods and evergreens, a place I don’t have to hide my heart. A place she used to take Eli and me to since we were little. The best time to be there is right before the sun rises. When the seagulls are starting their morning calls. When the seals make their first barks of the day though quiet, as if not to wake anyone. As if the animals know the human protocol of time and sleep.
We find a spot right on the water’s edge, and I slip off my open-toed sandals and let the Atlantic swim between my toes. I breathe deep as I feel the soft breeze blowing off the ocean, our faces protected from the mean old sun by the trees above.
There’s a long silence between Ryan and me, but it isn’t awkward. It never is. Even with the commotion from the harbor—the boats coming and going, the seals calling out, and the seagulls fighting for their next meal—this is my safe place. A place where I can disappear and just watch life go by.
“The obituary was nice,” I say to Ryan as I draw in the rocky sand with a stick. But that’s not what I want to say. I pause. Take a big, long breath. “You’ll still come over, right, Ryan? Nothing will change? You’ll still be there, right?”
“Your dad rented this suit for me. I don’t want to ruin it,” he says as he sits down next to me. “Nothing’s going to change, Mer. Nothing.”
“I wish you’d leave Dubbs and come live with us.” I know it isn’t the right thing to say, but I don’t care. Most of my life, I’ve tiptoed around others’ feelings, too scared to tell them what I think, for fear of hurting them.
“It’s not that easy, Mer.”
“Why not? He’s an awful man, Ryan. I lied to Mom and Pop.”
Ryan’s head snaps back to me. “What happened?”
I stare out at the ocean, plastering my tongue against the roof of my mouth, not allowing any tears. “They asked if I knew of anything that was going on at your home. Asked if it was unsafe and stuff.”
He picks up a small rock and throws it in the ocean. He doesn’t say anything. He just sits with his thoughts, and I welcome it. I welcome the silence of my mind, to just be. To exist in nature and not have the expectations of others weighing on my shoulders.
He tosses another rock in the ocean, this time softer. “Sometimes, people do really shitty stuff, Mer. But it’s not because they’re bad people. It’s because that’s what they know.”
I try not to react. I know I’m real sad right now, and the last thing I want to do is chase away one of my oldest friends. Ryan has made excuse after excuse, trying to justify why his dad treats him the way he does.
What I want to say is, Pop has seen some real bad stuff in his career as a game warden, real bad stuff. And never has he ever treated me or Eli shitty because of it. You can’t justify a jerk.
But I don’t answer Ryan. I allow his words to seep into my mind, and I question every last thing I’ve been taught.
“You going to school on Monday?” He tosses another rock into the ocean after a long silence.
I dread it, knowing that over half of my school was at my mother’s funeral today. Knowing people will look at me funny, not knowing what to say. What to do or how to act. I wish we could fast-forward through time and ask God to give others some grace. And me some peace and space.
“Probably. Why?”
He shrugs. “Just easier to face life that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Seems like school lets me forget about what’s going on at home. Gives my mind a break, I guess. Gives me something normal.”
“Yeah, I need that.”
“Me, too.” Ryan tosses one last rock in the ocean.
“Should we head back?”
“Yeah. Probably. Eli needs us.”
We stand, and I dust off the back of my dress, slip my shoes back on, and head back to my new normal.
“What’s with all the rock tossing?” I ask him on our way back to Firemen’s Hall.
A grin starts on the right side of his face and then disappears.
“What?” I hit his arm.
Ryan slips his hands in his pockets. “Wishes.”
And, as the sun fades behind the tree line, I see this imperfect human being who has spent the last hour with me, trying to console my heart. I can’t help but notice how the suit fits him. And, if I’m being honest with myself, when I first saw him walking up the road to our house to ride with us to the funeral, his silhouette made my stomach and heart do things that I’d never felt before.
“What’d you wish for?”
“For this not to hurt so bad for you and Eli.” He looks up the road and then back at me.
A knot forms in my throat as I stare back at him because I know how he feels. I pray for the same thing for him every night.
That night, I go to bed on my own while Pop falls asleep in his chair and Eli on the couch. I wait for my mother to kiss me good night. Even though, the last weeks before her death, she couldn’t get out of bed, still, I wait. And, every hour that passes, I cry. I cry for myself and Eli and Pop and Ryan.
“Please, God,” I whisper, “no more death.”