~

"Here Mommy! Read me this one!" a four-year-old, brown haired boy said as he handed his mother a book. His mother opened it and smiled.

"You know, I bet not every four-year-old boy asks him mother to read him Shakespeare," she told him. He looked at her confused, his large gray eyes staring at her.

"What else is there?" he asked her. She laughed slightly.

"Never mind dear. Okay, here we go. 'Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny…'"

"Mommy?" the boy asked. She turned to him. He outstretched his arm and placed his hand on her slightly round stomach.

"Even after my sister is born, I'll still get to chose what you read, right?" he asked her. She smiled and rubbed the back of his head gently.

"Oh course Ephram, I'll always read you whatever you want…" she reassured him.

~

Ephram woke with a start. He sat up in bed and looked around his shadow laden room. His raised his hand to his face and ran the tips of his fingers down his cheek to discover tears he didn't know he had shed. He looked over at his clock and sighed. It was three o'clock in the morning. He looked around his room, his eyes now adjusted to the low light. He shook his head and turned his face down, closing his eyes.

"One year…" he said to himself.

Even after everyone was awake, the Brown's house still seemed quiet. In fact, it was quiet. There were the normal greetings between the three, poor attempts to pretend the day was like every other day. But it wasn't, and each of the three knew that so well, it hurt.

They knew if they spent the day at home like they wanted, things would only be worse. They needed to get out and doing things. They needed to distract themselves. They needed to at least act like the day had no more importance than simply getting to the next one. So Ephram and Delia had gone to school, and Andy went to his office to help other people.

Delia was so quiet at school Murasaki became worried. But she knew whatever it was that was bothering her friend, if Delia wanted her to know she would. Until the problem was identified, Murasaki sat diligently at her side, and just as worried. When Miss Violet called on Delia for an answer, Murasaki would give her one and fend her off if she tried to hassle Delia for it.

For Ephram his friends did much the same. Desi was very worried about him, but only spoke her worries to Jig who reassured her of Ephram's well being. Jig, seeing his expression on her own face so many times, never needed to wonder what that day was. In fact, that date only made her dread the day that would be the same for her.

At lunch Desi had to go over the newest edition of the newspaper. Actually, it was a rather difficult paper, caused Desi many headaches. The girl who was supposed to play the lead in the senior play was pregnant. It plagued Desi whether or not she should report it. It was news, it belonged in the newspaper, but it was also the girl's life. The result was that her pregnancy was written down as simply "medical conditions that this writer doesn't have the power to disclose." The student body could make their own connections.

So since Desi was occupied elsewhere Ephram and Jig sat silently together at lunch, each remembering the past twelve and four months respectively. There was food in front of them but it went uneaten. Oddly, Jig started laughing slightly to herself. Ephram looked at her, completely confused by the sudden change in atmosphere.

"What?" he asked her. She shook her head.

"Nothing, nothing. Well, actually… something just occurred to me. You're the best friend I've ever had…" she told him. Ephram was now more confused.

"That's funny?" he asked her. She shook her head.

"Not really, it's just… I know what today is for you, Ephram…" she confessed. He nodded, already assuming that. Jig went on.

"Well, it's kind of funny, because, if your mom hadn't died, and, actually, if my mom hadn't died, I would never have met you…" she said. Ephram fell silent and looked away from her to his plate of uneaten food. Jig frowned.

"It's kind of funny, Ephram, because I owe the happiest times of my life to the deaths of the people we loved most in the world…" she explained. Ephram nodded. The fact of the matter was, he did too. He was happier in Everwood than he had ever been in his life now, and it was because his mother had died. Ephram smiled and eventually chuckled slightly.

"That's a horrible thing to say…" he said, still laughing. Jig nodded, laughing a little herself.

"Isn't it?" she said and the two continued laughing, slumped against each other.

"My mother died today! So why am I laughing?" Ephram asked her. Jig shook her head.

"I don't know! Come on, let's get out of here…" Jig said as the two stood up and, unnoticed, walked out of the school.

Andy sat alone in Everwood's bar surrounded by neon lights and the dank smell of thirty years of downed liquor and Everwood's version of bar fights. It was about one in the afternoon but he needed a drink. He needed to get into an atmosphere where he could sit consumed by his thought and no one would bother him. That's what the bar was for.

"To the sessions of sweet silent thought…" Andy said and took a sip from his glass. He sighed slightly as a person walked over to him and sat down next to him. But, instead of talking to him like he thought, the person placed her head on the counter and covered it with her arms. Andy took another sip from his glass.

"Bad day?" he asked the brown haired woman.

"Bad anniversary…" she answered. Andy lifted his glass.

"I'll drink to that," he said and did. The woman released her head and turned to look up at him.

"The doctor…" she said. He looked down at her.

"The librarian…" he replied. She sat up and ordered a drink from the bartender.

"So why are you blue?" she asked him. He sighed and looked at the swirl in his drink as he moved it.

"My wife died one year ago today," he said. She bit her lip.

"Well that sucks…" she said and he chuckled slightly at her bluntness. He nodded.

"Yea. So what's your anniversary?" he asked her, since they were being so open.

"Marriage…" she said with a frown as she took a long drink from the glass she was given. Andy raised an eyebrow.

"You're married?" he asked her. She scoffed.

"Divorced…" she said.

"Ugly?" he asked her. She took another long sip from her glass.

"Vile," she corrected him. He nodded.

"So what happened?" he asked her. She sighed and turned to him.

"Why the interest? I thought your sister was the shrink..." she told him. He chuckled.

"If you can call her that. Well if you must know, I could use someone else's woes…" he explained. She nodded.

"Well, we went to high school together, he was Carl Feeny's best friend. He asked me to marry him, I was young, so I did. Six years later the sight of him gave me a bad taste in my mouth, and vice versa, so we got divorced on accountant of mutual hatred…" she explained.

"I'd be happy with that actually…" he said. She sighed and took another sip from her drink.

"Hatred doesn't come from no where, doc," she told him. He looked at her curiously.

"And yours come from…?" he asked her. She finished her drink in one sip.

"A loss so horrible it makes you temporarily blind…" she said. Andy fell silent.

"That sounds bad…" he said and she chuckled slightly. The bartender placed another drink in front of her. She picked it up and turned to him.

"To those we've lost, on any day," she said and the two drank to it.

~

"Ephram, Ephram, come here. Do you see that? That's a three toed sloth…" a brown haired woman said bending down to the small boy standing at her feet. The boy's bright eyes glowed even in the darkness of the zoo hallway as they watched the slow moving creature make its way up the tree limb.

"Why does it move so slowly, Mommy?" the boy asked her. Julia Brown smiled.

"Well Ephram, you see, the sloth is one of nature's most careful creatures. It takes its time and makes sure every single step is worth taking. It never wastes a single moment," she explained. Ephram smiled and turned to his mom again.

"Kind of the opposite of me, huh?" he asked her. Julia started laughing and hugged the boy's head.

"Yea, honey, kind of like that," she told him. He smiled and ran down to the next cell.

"Mommy! Mommy! What's this one?" he asked her excited. The tall woman walked over and looked through the bars. She laughed slightly.

"This one's empty…" she told him.

"Oh," he said and burst out into giggles. She picked him up into her arms, momentarily enveloped in the warm smell of his youth. She carried him over to the brown haired man holding a small baby in his arms.

"How is she?" Julia asked him. He smiled, bouncing the baby girl in his arms.

"She's asleep," Andy replied. Ephram leaned away from his mother's shoulder to get a better look at his little sister.

"Dewia moves slowly too, doesn't she?" Ephram asked. Julia smiled and nodded.

"Yes she does Ephram."

"That'll change…" Andy said and he and Julia laughed slightly.

~