Page 111 of On Merit Alone
“Merit, I’ve got the kids in the car alone. Please just tell me.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t have anyone to receive news with me. To wait with me. To care if there’s something wrong with me. The eye doctor is the least daunting since my eyesight has always been off, but still. I’d rather not go if I don’t have to.”
I nodded. I’d assumed it was something like that, which is why…
I rubbed her shoulders, “Well, you can hate me for this later, Mer, but I had Julie make you an appointment.”
“What!” She stepped away, and I stepped with her.
“You need new glasses and every time I ask you about it you change the subject,” I explained. “So I told your trainer. I’m sorry, I know—but you can fight me later. Right now we have to get you and the kids inside so you can get checked out, alright sweetheart?”
“Do they have appointments too?” she wobbled out. Anxiety making her voice hesitant and small.
I smiled, trying hard not to show pity on my face even though I felt it in my heart. She didn’t want to do this alone. I was going to make sure she didn’t have to.
“No, but we’re coming inside with you. We’re here to cheer you on. And then, on Livy’s request, we have to get you a reward for being a good girl,” I said.
She looked up at me, her eyes wider now. “Youtoldthe kids?”
I laughed. She sounded the most appalled about this. “I told Olivia because she’s a great cheerleader and I needed her help. And Maddox is an infant, Merit. He won’t judge you, I promise.”
“This isn’t funny,” she breathed, completely serious. Her face was worried, her eyebrows drawn in so tight they might have touched.
I wrapped her up without any hesitation. My arms cocooning her body and my hand going to massage the nape of her neck like she liked. She melted into me, shivering as she buried her face in my chest. “It’s all going to be just fine. Quick and easy. And you’ll have three people waiting for you when you get out. So grab your stuff, grab a kid and let’s show them what we do when we’re scared, huh?”
“We run and hide?” she squeaked, squeezing me tighter.
I laughed. “No, sweetheart. We face that shit head on. Just like you’ve done your entire life. The only difference is, you’re not doing it alone anymore.”
She stayed quiet for a moment, letting a breath expel slowlyfrom her lungs as she continued to hold onto me. I didn’t mind. I knew she was coming around to it.
Not quite fast enough for a four year old, though. From the back seat Liv screamed, “Uncle Ira, hurry! We got an ab-poind-mant!”
Pulling away, we caught each other’s eyes and laughed. And like she’d done this a thousand times, she went over to one side of the back seat while I went to the other, and we started unbuckling the kids.
Unlike with me, when Livy asked Merit why she was scared of the doctor, Merit didn’t clam up. Instead, she told her some story about how the last time she was here, she saw a “Scaredy Cat,” and it cursed her. Then they spent the whole walk inside trying to find the “Brave Blue Jay” to cure her.
In the end they found none, but Merit promised there was another secret cure. Big hugs. And Olivia supplied her with plenty to braven her up before the optometrist called her name to follow them back.
And the whole time I played with the kids in the little kids section, listening to Olivia tell me how she liked Ms. Merit’s clothes and shoes and asking when she was coming back, I couldn’t get the vision of her with a little girl wrapped around her neck out of my head.
My little girl. And me not far behind.
One day.
“What happened? What did you do to the poor things?” Iris asked as she walked back into the living room after her day with Leah.
The “poor things” she was referring to were the three figures curled up sleeping on the chaise portion of the couch. Merit tucked up in the corner with her arm over the edge where she’d been reaching over the bounce a sleeping Maddox in his little babyhammock thing. And a sneaky little Liv tucked into Merit’s other side, where she’d curled up not long after putting on a princess movie and proceeding to conk out before I even brought them the popcorn they demanded.
This isn’t where things got “poor” though. That part came when you looked closely at the girls’ heads, where the two of them sported matching bumps. Both tucked underneath bandages on Liv’s request.
I snickered just remembering it.
After her appointment, Merit materialized a wary version of herself. It was so obvious that even the baby could tell, in which he supplied her with a hearty smack to the cheek as he tried to crawl out of my arms and into hers. She didn’t even hesitate. She scooped him up from me and snuggled him close to her chest, slobber and all, just like she had when I’d given her Cash.
“Can you see again?” I asked as I looked at her and tried not to beg her to have my babies right then and there. She looked so perfect using Mads’ bib to wipe his mouth. Already seeming lighter as Liv ran her mouth a mile a minute telling her new best friend Merit what she did the entire thirty minutes she was gone.
She gave me a half smile but listened to what Liv had to say before responding to me. We were on our way out to the car before she lifted her gaze to mine and said, “I’ll be as good as new soon. My new glasses come in a week. Contacts too.”
