Off the Carousel

Too Much Magic

It was late at the Grey house, when Cassie had finally shooed Martha Tinsdale away, though the older woman, the erstwhile Mayor of Middleton had actually provided a clue about the stranger sleeping upstairs.

Meredith Grey was the daughter-in-law of one Carolyn Shepherd, or rather Carolyn Maloney... who'd married one Michael Shepherd, in this very house ages ago. It had been a surprising, yet welcome bit of news, something for Cassie to mull over the next time she encountered the new widow. She finished the last of her cleaning duties, folding up a throw that was draped over the chaise. Dusting her hands, she picked up a novel she'd been trying to finish and curled up to read.

Sometime later she looked up to see Grace.

"Hey mom," Grace said, ambling in to sit beside her.

"Hey. Done your homework?"

Grace sighed. "Taking a break." she said. "How's Meredith?" she asked.

Good question. She drifted back to the moment Meredith had returned from the creek.

Cassie was cleaning the last bit of JELLO from her dessert cups, when Meredith walked in from the kitchen door. "Hey, George put the rod and the um, fishing stuff in the garage."

"Okay," Cassie said.

"I think this is yours," she handed Cassie the Shepherd figurine.

She made no move to take it. "It's not mine. It's Derek's." Cassie said.

"Oh." Meredith stared at the piece, and then set it on the kitchen table almost as if she was in pain.

Cassie gauged Meredith carefully. She wanted to offer comfort, but Meredith was a hard person to read. And her 'second sight' offered no intuition on Meredith's experience at the bridge.

"Did you ever see him?" Meredith asked abruptly. "Your husband?"

Cassie put down her dishtowel. "We all experience grief in a different way. I've had visions. Sometimes I just... feel him. I know Jake's always there."

"I saw Derek. We fished. It was..." she stopped. Her lips turning into a frown,

Meredith spread her hand out on the counter and stared at her fingers.

Cassie reached, covering Meredith's cold hand with her own. "Meredith, he is always going to be there... and you know what? I think that's okay."

Meredith shook her head. "I don't know. I lost him once. Seeing him again- it's like I keep losing him. Again and again." She wiped a tear from her face and inhaled a shaky breath. "The kids?"

"They were great. They discovered a new way to enjoy Jello, and they drew some pictures." Cassie slid their latest creations over. Zola's looked particularly fun.

"Thanks.

They're good kids."

Meredith sighed. "They are. I don't know where I'd be without them." She picked up the pictures, "they're upstairs?"

"I think Grace is reading them a story."

Meredith nodded and trudged slowly to the stairs.

"Meredith?" Cassie called. She stopped, her foot on the first stair. "Maybe he's gone from this world... But you haven't lost him."

Meredith Cassie acknowledged with a slight nod, and then turned back to the stairs.

xxx

"Mom?"

Cassie blinked back to the present, smiling when she saw her daughter's face. "When your dad died... I saw him sometimes. Just... like in the morning when I woke up, I he'd be there with me in bed, for a few moments. Or sometimes, at the shop, the bell would ring, and I would turn and see him enter." She shrugged. "I would blink, and he'd be gone. Did you ever see him?"