LOTF: Before and After

Paige Merridew

It wasn't until her first sleepover birthday party at the age of seven and a half that Paige Merridew was faced with the bitter revelation that she wasn't like the rest of her friends. At five, six, seven years old, she knew little to nothing of what money was, or how much of it the Merridew family really had.

The night of her first sleepover, Paige and eleven other eight-year-old girls made a catastrophic disaster of the birthday girl's living room. It was a tornado of chip bags, soda cans, wrapping paper, cardboard and plastic from opened Barbie doll packages, popped balloons, and snack crumbs. About half an hour before bedtime, the birthday girl's mom appeared from upstairs to remind the girls to have the living room clean in time for bed.

"Did your mom give the maid the night off?" Paige asked after the girl's mother left the room.

As all the other girls turned their heads to stare at her simultaneously, Paige scrunched her eyebrows in confusion. She wondered what she did to earn everyone's attention, and the other girls were baffled by the fact that she didn't already know.

That night, Paige discovered that she was the weird one. She was informed by the others that most families don't have maids, nannies, and drivers. She discovered that most kids were picked up from school by their parents who were almost always home when their kids were home. She discovered that other kids actually had to clean up after themselves, and that the word 'chore' wasn't just a euphemism for something a person didn't want to do, but an actual way children contributed to the maintenance of the house.

That was the year insecurity began to fester inside Paige. She suddenly felt embarassed by the mass amounts of things her family owned, by being picked up from school by a hired driver, by living in a house that was at least five times the size of those on the streets where her friends lived. Prior to this realization, she never thought much of it at all, and assumed most people lived a life as luxurious as her own.

Not only was Paige embarassed by her family's elite lifestyle, but she was pained by the realization that other kids' mothers actually dedicated their lives to their kids. She couldn't even begin to fathom the concept of a stay-at-home mother. She spent most of her dance career thus far stuck on her own mother's absence from her recitals, hence she failed to notice that the other kids' moms were always present.

Prior to this eye-opening experience, Paige considered herself a happy girl. She was excelling in school, had a handful of good friends, danced as often as she wanted to, owned more toys than she ever played with, had a big roof over her head, clean clothes, and a garage-sized pantry full of food. Her father loved her dearly, and she believed her mother did too in spite of her absence. Evan began to tell Paige that her mother was simply away so often so that she could provide Paige with every and anything she'd ever need or want.

At first, Paige believed him. And for a decently long time too. But after her brother was born about a year after the sleepover that opened her eyes, Paige finally concluded that her mother's hyperfixation on work had little to nothing to do with providing for her daughter.

Shortly before Jack was born, Paige learned her parents' marriage was in trouble. At first, she would overhear the two arguing and shouting at one another on the rare occasions in which they were both home at the same time before she was sent to bed. Neither one of them seemed to notice how loud they were, nor did they notice that Paige was in earshot of them. She didn't understand exactly what it was they were fighting about or why, but she did understand that her unborn baby brother was part of it somehow. Usually, Paige would eavesdrop for a few minutes, just until she couldn't stand to listen to it anymore. Then, she'd walk away to some part of the house she couldn't hear them from and pretend like it wasn't happening.