Meret Edelstein

Quick Facts

• Role: Fourteen-year-old daughter of Dawn Edelstein and Brian Edelstein; later learns her biological father is Wyatt Armstrong
• First appearance: Introduced early in the novel as the emotional center of Dawn’s present-day life
• Defining qualities: Brilliant, analytical, painfully self-conscious, fiercely loyal
• Key relationships: Devoted to Brian, conflicted but evolving bond with Dawn, tentative new connection with Wyatt
• Physical details: Chestnut hair (often in a braid); self-conscious about her weight—details like a “Junior XXL” birthday shirt and a “plump roll at the waistband” sharpen how she sees herself

Who They Are

Meret Edelstein is the novel’s most immediate proof that choices echo across time. She is the living intersection of Dawn’s two possible lives, and the person Dawn most fears to hurt and most longs to protect. Intellectually hungry and emotionally raw, Meret wrestles with her body image and her place in a family whose past suddenly breaks into the present. Her story translates abstract questions about destiny into a teenager’s daily ache: who am I, and who gets to tell me?

Personality & Traits

Meret’s personality blends razor-sharp intellect with a tender, guarded heart. She reaches for science to make sense of uncertainty, yet her social world is ruled by how she imagines others see her. Sarcasm is her shield; empathy is her core.

• Intelligent and scientific: Thrives at STEM camp, isolates the DNA of spinach, and chats comfortably about concepts like “junk DNA,” mirroring Brian’s curiosity and methodical mind.
• Insecure and self-conscious: Skips a pool party rather than reveal her body; braces for judgment at a camp dance; fixates on details like a “Junior XXL” shirt and the “plump roll at the waistband” of her pajamas.
• Witty and defensive: Deploys sarcasm—especially with her mother—when she feels exposed, using humor to control the terms of vulnerability.
• Sensitive and perceptive: Reads the tension in her parents’ marriage before they name it, and absorbs peer cruelty with a sting that lingers.
• Loyal: Calls Brian her “only father” and proves it in how she holds him close even after the DNA reveal; later, she extends that loyalty outward, shaving her head to stand with Dawn.

Character Journey

Meret begins as a moody, brilliant kid who hides behind jokes and oversized T-shirts, convinced that other people’s eyes define her. The Genomia test detonates that fragile equilibrium, recasting Brian’s fatherhood and turning Wyatt from a story into a person. Her first meeting with Wyatt—awkward, combative, then unexpectedly connective when he shows a photo of himself as a chubby child—loosens her anger and creates space for curiosity. The true inflection point arrives when Dawn returns from surgery, hair shorn and scar exposed: Meret walks her into a salon and shaves her own head, replacing shame with solidarity. By the end, she holds two truths at once—Brian as her father, Wyatt as her biological parent—learning that identity can widen without breaking.

Key Relationships

• Dawn Edelstein: With Dawn, Meret tests boundaries the way teenagers do, but her insecurity sharpens their clashes—especially around body image. The crash, the secret, and the scar force both of them into radical honesty. Their bond deepens not because conflict disappears, but because Meret chooses to meet Dawn’s vulnerability with her own.

• Brian Edelstein: Brian is mentor, co-nerd, and safe harbor. When biology says otherwise, Meret doesn’t revise history; she defends it. Calling him her “only father” is less a denial of facts than a definition of family: love plus time plus trust.

• Wyatt Armstrong: At first, he’s an intrusion—“just genetic material.” Then a porch swing, a joke, and a childhood photo build a bridge out of shared outsiderness. Meret doesn’t replace Brian; she adds Wyatt, allowing her identity to expand as she entertains visits to Egypt and a future in which both men matter.

Defining Moments

Meret’s milestones track how knowledge becomes acceptance—and how empathy becomes action.

• The DNA test arrives: Genomia reports 98% British and Irish ancestry, contradicting Brian’s Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.

  • Why it matters: It collapses the family’s unspoken story, forcing Meret to confront the gap between love and genetics.

• STEM camp humiliation: She dodges a pool party, then endures cruelty at the dance.

  • Why it matters: Shows how deeply her body image shapes her choices—and why she reaches for defenses like sarcasm and withdrawal.

• Porch swing with Wyatt: She begins with “You’re just genetic material,” but his honesty and a photo of his own childhood weight struggles disarm her.

  • Why it matters: Marks the shift from anger to tentative connection, proving shared experience can reroute resentment.

• The salon: After Dawn’s surgery, Meret shaves her head to match her mother.

  • Why it matters: It’s Meret’s most mature act—choosing solidarity over self-consciousness and transforming her shame into care.

Symbolism & Themes

Meret embodies The Past's Influence on the Present: she is the consequence of Dawn’s earlier love story arriving—quite literally—in the now. Her struggle to integrate two fathers mirrors Dawn’s attempt to reconcile two selves. Even her name, drawn from the goddess Meretseger (“She Who Loves Silence”), is ironic: Meret’s existence ends a long silence while inviting mercy and forgiveness. She becomes the family’s test case in how truth can fracture—and then re-knit—belonging.

Essential Quotes

“You’re just genetic material.”

Meret wields this line like a scalpel, reducing Wyatt to data so she can keep him outside her life. The choice of scientific language reveals both her intellect and her defensive posture; it’s easier to classify than to feel.

“It’s only hair, Mom,” she says softly, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “I know it doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside. But just in case, it’s nice to know you match someone, isn’t it?”

Here, Meret reframes appearance—so often her sorest spot—into an act of love. Matching her mother turns vulnerability into kinship, and shows how far she’s traveled from shame to solidarity.

“A plump roll at the waistband.”

This observed detail, filtered through Dawn’s gaze, encapsulates Meret’s hyper-awareness of her body. It’s a small image that carries a heavy psychological load, explaining her avoidance of spaces where she feels exposed.

“Junior XXL.”

The bald specificity of a shirt size functions like a brand; Meret translates it into social meaning. The fact that the moment is tied to a birthday underscores how celebration can curdle into self-consciousness.

“My only father.”

Even as facts shift, Meret stakes a claim on the relationship that raised her. The possessive “my” and the exclusivity of “only” define family as chosen and lived, not merely inherited.