Disclaimer: Purple elephants. Blue dogs. Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukah.
Oh, yeah. I don't own these people, except Lilly, hm...orange pilgrims.
Ephram was confused but opened the back door anyway. He looked around and saw no one.
"The other door," she said.
Ephram ran to the other door and there was Lilly with all her luggage around her and the note in her front pocket. Ephram stood in amazement for a while and then he lifted her off of her feet and spun her around. Ephram, without noticing, had started to cry, as well as Lilly. When he put her down he kissed her hard. He had feared he would never be able to do that again, and now he wanted to prove his lips wrong. When he pulled back they looked into each other's eyes. Ephram put his finger to his lips, so Andy and Delia wouldn't hear them, and carried her upstairs. He set her down on the bed and they started to talk.
"What happened that made you change your mind?" he asked after closing the door and sitting with her.
"I was in the bathroom and I was crying. You know how they play cheesy music in the bathroom?" she asked. Ephram nodded with a smile. "Well, they played our song. I started to cry more and then I decided to read your note. I was so angry with you I didn't want to believe it. So I made my way to my seat on the plane and when I found my seat, I couldn't sit down. Something inside me said I shouldn't sit down. I picked up your note and looked at it and I just felt like I couldn't be on the plane. Ephram, I am so sorry. I should have listened to you. You've never lied before and I should have trusted you. I am so sorry,"
Ephram pulled her to his chest and held her while she cried. "It's okay. You're here now and that is all that matters. I love you,"
Lilly pulled back and kissed him again. She slowly ran her fingers through his hair and he grabbed her waist. "I love you so much," she said into his ear.
Ephram smiled and kept his kiss going. Soon they heard footsteps and quickly pulled apart.
"Ephram, where are you?" asked Andy while reaching for his son's bedroom door handle. He received quite a shock to see Lilly sitting with Ephram. "You...you're here!"
Lilly smiled and got up to hug Andy. She was so glad to be at her real home. The one she felt comfortable and loved. It wasn't her real family, but it was the next best thing. No, it was better than normal family, because normal family has a contract saying they must embarrass you. Andy finally let her go and called for Delia, who immediately ran into the arms of Lilly and gave her a huge hug. Lilly started to cry again from all of the excitement.
"I thought you wouldn't come back," said Delia after she let Lilly go.
"I thought so to. If it's okay with your dad, I'm going stay for good," Lilly said looking up at Andy.
Andy smiled and nodded. Delia wrapped her arms around Lilly's legs and then kissed her goodnight. The full day of crying and school had taken its toll on her and now she was fatigued.
"You two should go on to bed now," said Andy about to leave, then he turned his head back to the room. "Separate beds."
Ephram kissed Lilly good night and she walked into her room. They both fell asleep instantly, each thinking about the other.
Ephram woke at around four that morning. He sighed and tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. He rolled out of bed and stumbled downstairs. It was still dark outside, but you catch a glimpse of the rising sun. Ephram went outside and brought in Lilly's abandoned luggage. He tried to bring it up the stairs as quietly as possible, so he wouldn't wake his sleeping family. When all of the luggage was in Lilly's room, Ephram tried to cook a nice breakfast. How hard could it be? He pulled out his mother's old cookbook and skimmed through it to find a breakfast. When Ephram finally found something they could do he book marked the page and kept looking through it. He could still faintly smell his mother and the old New York apartment with every turn of the page. When he reached the end of the book he opened the page back up to the breakfast he had found. He pulled out the ingredients he could find and decided the other things were just garnishes. He started to put everything together and when it was all mixed in, he ran to take a shower while it sat in the oven. The second he was out of the shower he smelled something awful, like a piece of crap being burned. He quickly ran down the stairs still wrapped in a towel. When he came to the kitchen, everyone was standing around the oven looking at it. Ephram tried to hide from them, but the noticed him too quickly.
"What the hell were trying to do, Ephram?" said Andy when he noticed his son.
"Um...you see, I was trying to make breakfast, but that doesn't smell like what Mom made. What do you think I did wrong?" he said suddenly remembering that there was very little standing between his family and...well, himself.
"Let me see," said Lilly looking through the cookbook. "We didn't have most of the ingredients for this,"
"Those weren't necessary, were they?" he said getting nervous.
"Unless you were thing of giving us some flour and water. Yeah we could have eaten it, but we might not keep it down long," Andy said starting to laugh.
"Can I go get dressed?" he said starting to get red in the cheeks.
"Oh," said Lilly just noticing he was practically naked. "Yeah, go ahead,"
Ephram ran up the stairs and dressed, laughing to himself about what had happened downstairs. Finally he came back down, everyone was eating cereal, and his nice gesture was in the trash. Ephram went to get breakfast himself and sat next to Lilly. Under the table he held her hand and she smiled while she tried to solve the puzzles on the cereal box. After breakfast, everyone finished getting ready and Ephram watched the news, since everything else that was on sucked to the highest degree. When it was time to leave for school, Ephram and Lilly took off in Ephram's car. When they stopped in Ephram's spot in the parking lot, neither of them wanted to move.
"Do we really have to go back there?" Lilly said looking over to Ephram.
"We don't have to, but hiding isn't going to make it any easier," Ephram said, squeezing Lilly's hand for support.
Lilly sighed and they got out of the car together. Ephram walked Lilly to her class and then he went to his own. As soon as Lilly stepped into the room, she felt all eyes on her. She didn't think that news could travel that fast, they really didn't tell anyone. Lilly saw Amy in the back corner with her arms crossed. Lilly walked over to Danielle.
"I thought you were going to leave," Paula said.
"I was, but something came up," Lilly said wanting to leave it at that.
"What?" all of them asked.
"I don't want to talk about it, okay?" Lilly said crossing her arms. She hated the gossip of a small town. It was the one thing she hated about Everwood.
The girls rolled there eyes and lost interest in Lilly, which she was thankful for. When class began they went through their stretching and started to dance. Lilly couldn't wait for the end of the day.
Ephram walked into the auditorium and tried to practice the song again. He hadn't been able to do to the recent events. He started to play and when he finished he couldn't help but smile. Lilly's birthday was less then a week away and he was about to give her gift early. Andy had asked the other day what he had gotten her but Ephram wouldn't tell. He didn't want to tell anyone, because he didn't want her to find out. Ephram practiced until his fingers hurt and then he practiced one more time. When the song was finished Lilly was standing by the door.
"That was beautiful, who wrote it?" she said running down to see Ephram.
"Um...not too sure. How much did you hear?" he asked as his spirits took a head on collision with the ground.
"Just the last few notes. It was still beautiful though. Can you play the rest for me?" she said smiling. She had enjoyed the little she had heard so much, and Ephram seemed to enjoy playing it.
"The bell is about to ring, so you won't be able to hear it all, and I have to turn the music into the band guy after lunch so...yeah," Ephram said trying to play it off cool, which he wasn't good at doing.
"Okay, I was just asking. So, are you sure everything is okay between you and me? Because it is better to get it out now then wait until it's too late," Lilly said starting to get nervous. She had been surprised that Ephram hadn't yelled at her when she came back. He hadn't done anything and she was condoning him for life.
"Oh, yeah there was this one thing that was bugging me. Will you wear my ring again?" Ephram said pulling it out from his pocket.
Lilly smiled and took it, "Of course I will, but are you sure there isn't anything? I just want to get things out and we can't wait until we're in a fight and you want to bring it up,"
Ephram thought for a while and then started to speak. "Yeah, I was thinking about this almost all day. How could you trust her and not me? You barely know her and you drank in every word she had to say, but you've known me longer and you wouldn't listen to a word I had to say,"
Lilly bit her lip and thought about it. "I have had bad relationships in the past. All with guys who say they love me, but really are just trying to get into my pants. When I wouldn't have sex with them, they left me by making up these awful excuses like I was a bitch to their friends and was fooling around with other guys. I tried to go back and make it work, but they pushed me away. I just gave up trying to make it work and I started to try and get over it as quickly as possible. I'm sorry Ephram, I really am. I just didn't think about how completely different you are from other guys."
Ephram didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or criticism. He took it as a compliment and held her closely. After a while he got a mischievous grin and he started to tickle her. Lilly completely crumbled and was bursting out in laughter. Ephram laughed, but didn't expect her to fight back. She reached up and started to tickle him, but he wasn't as ticklish as she was. Finally, the bell rang and neither of them wanted to leave. Ephram helped Lilly up and kissed her goodbye and they went to class.
At the end of the day, Ephram went home and Lilly went to practice. There first game was only a week away. Ephram climbed up the stairs to his room and lay back on the bed. He was so sick of the gossip and whispering of Everwood. He wanted New York, where no one would care if you were robbed in the middle of a busy street. Ephram picked up a magazine and flipped through. After a while he got bored and threw it to the side. He went downstairs and saw Madison standing outside his door.
"Hey," he said when he opened the door. She had looked as if she was hesitant to knock on the door.
"Hey, can we talk?" she said starting to look nervous.
Ephram let her in and got nervous. They sat down at the table.
Madison looked like she was extremely interested in the table for a while and then she finally looked up. "Ephram, it's about the baby,"
Ephram tensed his shoulders. "Is there something wrong?"
Madison nodded a little. "Well, first, the doctor said it was a girl,"
"That's great, now, what's wrong?" said Ephram. He was a little disappointed that it wasn't a boy; he has enough trouble with girls already. "I went to Denver and got one of those four dimensional ultra sounds, the ones where you can see the baby a lot better. They noticed something about the baby that might cause trouble. She has a cleft lip and palate,"
Ephram was confused, "I don't know what that is,"
"It's when the lip and the top of the mouth isn't fully formed. They'll have to do surgery and it'll be feed through a tube going through his nose. It'll be very tough," she said running through what the doctor had said, "She will need to be feed all the time, every three hours, all day including nights. When she is three months, she will have the lip surgery, if she weighs enough. And when she is six months, she will need the palate surgery. That is going to be the hard one. She won't want to eat because her palate will hurt and she won't be able to use the tube through her nose either. There might be late night trips to the emergency room, and the first year is just going to suck,"
Ephram tried to take in all of the news. "Are you still going to leave?"
Madison looked at her hands, "I was going to ask you if that would be alright. I know it's thoughtless, but I already had an apartment ready and a job set up. I will try and help as much as I can, but I don't think there is anyway for me to get out of it,"
Ephram nodded. He understood, but he just hopped that she would have stayed. It would have made everything easier.
"Ephram, I'm sorry. I just can't stay here. It would be too much," said Madison said seeing his face.
"No, it's okay. Just visit, okay? Please, not for me but for the baby. She would want to know her real mother. I would want her to know her real mother," said Ephram looking up from the table.
"Of course I will. I think it would be hard not to. I need to go, I have to clean, my roommate is having company," with that Madison got up and left.
Ephram sat where he was for a while. His baby wasn't completely healthy, she had a problem and would have to go through surgery. His fatherliness started to show through as he worried about his baby. He would rather go through surgery than have his innocent baby have to suffer. He took a deep breath and called his dad, who was having to work late that day.
"Hello?" said Edna.
"Hey, can I speak to my dad?" he said starting to tear up.
"Can he call you back? He is with a patient," she said pushing through files, guiltily laughing at a person who she hated with the flu.
"Yeah, could you tell him it's important?" he said wiping his tears.
"Are you okay kiddo?" she said noticing the worry in his voice.
"Yeah, I just got some bad news. Tell him to call as soon as possible," he said, not wanting to get into a conversation about this.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she said. She was worried about him.
"No, I just need to go. Goodbye Edna," with that Ephram hung up the phone and looked at the clock. He needed to go take Lilly to work in a while. He didn't want to leave knowing that his dad would call back, but he had to pick her up. So he ran to his car and drove as fast as he could to the school. When he got there she was just coming out of the school. She hopped in and saw that he was upset about something.
"What's wrong?" she said.
"I have bad news, but I can't tell you right now, I'm in a hurry. I will tell you when you get off though," he said speeding out of the parking lot. He wanted to tell Lilly, but he wanted to be able to collect his thoughts and explain things completely, and he couldn't do that in a hurry.
He dropped Lilly off and sped home. He was probably going to wreck, but he just really needed to be home. He pulled up to the house and opened the door. Immediately, as if waiting for him, the phone rang.
"Hello?" he said hoping it was Andy.
"Hey Ephram, what's wrong. Edna said it was important," Andy was very stressed. It had been a long day and his new partner Harold had a tendency to give him headaches.
"Dad, Madison stopped by and she had some news," said Ephram. He told Andy what Madison had told him and when he was done he waited for a response.
"Well, there is nothing we can do now, but when the baby comes it's going to be a hand full. Did she find out the sex of the baby?" said making note to get as much sleep as possible now, because in three months he wasn't going to remember what sleep was.
"It's a girl. Isn't there anything we can do from keeping her from using a tube or something. Why can't she use a bottle?"
"She has no roof of her mouth, it would be difficult and painful. She is going to be much more prone to ear infections because of the cleft palate, so we are going to learn to love medicine and lack of sleep. Don't worry Ephram, she will be okay. You are lucky, your dad is a doctor and you won't have midnight trips to the doctor as much. I'll teach you how to take out the tube and put it back in. It will be okay, it will just be very stressful," said Andy flipping through his book about infant defects.
"Thanks, I just really needed to see if there was anything we could do to prevent her from having to go through surgery so young. Can't they do laser things to make it heal while she is in the womb?" he said trying to think of something.
"There is nothing we can do now. Just get ready and be prepared," he said closing the book and sighing.
"Thanks Dad," he said and hung up.
Andy sat at his desk and rubbed his eyes. It was always something in his family. It never seemed to settle down and be normal. He could hear Edna and Harold arguing out in the hall and decided to let them yell. He was sick of breaking up their fights. He slowly started to pack up, since he had no other patients that day. He tried to sneak out of the office, but he was unsuccessful.
"Andy, tell my mother that she is not able to look through the patient's files. Where are you going? You still have one hour," said Harold noticing Andy.
"Harold please, I'm tired. We don't have any more patients. You are Superdoctor, you saved them all," he begged.
"Fine, just tell her to not read the confidential files," he said pointing at his mother.
"I have a right to know why I am ordering certain things, I don't tell anybody," Edna said indignantly.
"Edna, heads or tails?" said Andy pulling a coin out of his pocket.
"What?" they both said.
"If Edna gets heads, then she can read the files, if Harold gets tails, then she isn't aloud to anymore," said Andy flipping the coin.
"This is absurd! We should settle this properly, not by a flip of a coin," said Harold rolling his eyes.
"Shush, junior," Edna said leaning to see the coin.
It was heads; Edna smiled brightly at her son and then walked over to her desk. Harold rolled his eyes and stomped off to his office. Andy ran off to his car and started it up. He drove home as soon as he could, he was exhausted and he wanted a nap before his date with Nina that night. He opened the door to his house and saw Ephram sitting on the couch looking extremely depressed.
"Dad, it is just really sinking in. I can't believe I'm going to be a dad. When I found out about the baby being sick and in pain, I just couldn't take it. How can you feel so strongly for something you've never seen before? I would rather be blind or never be able to play piano again, then have my daughter in pain for a single second," Ephram said when he saw his dad.
"Welcome to the club. That is how I feel about you and Delia, even Lilly sometimes. I have had that feeling for seventeen years," Andy said wrapping his arm around Ephram's shoulder.
Ephram sighed; the next three months were going to go by extremely quickly.
Ephram pulled up to Lilly's work and she climbed in. She looked worried, and he decided he better tell her what was going on then. He told her everything Madison had said and what he had been told by Andy.
"The baby will be okay though, won't she?" she said after he had finished.
"Of course, she'll just need a scar removal surgery before kindergarten and then she'll be fine. Everything is going to be okay. I just needed to tell Dad about it first, to see if there really was anything to worry about. We will lose lots of sleep, but everything is going to be okay with the baby. She'll be healthy," he said.
Lilly sighed, this was going to be an interesting year. What was she kidding? This already was an interesting year.
What do you think? It took me forever to do this chapter. I won't be posting for a while though, I have to go somewhere. I gave you a nice long chapter to tide you over.
Ephram was confused but opened the back door anyway. He looked around and saw no one.
"The other door," she said.
Ephram ran to the other door and there was Lilly with all her luggage around her and the note in her front pocket. Ephram stood in amazement for a while and then he lifted her off of her feet and spun her around. Ephram, without noticing, had started to cry, as well as Lilly. When he put her down he kissed her hard. He had feared he would never be able to do that again, and now he wanted to prove his lips wrong. When he pulled back they looked into each other's eyes. Ephram put his finger to his lips, so Andy and Delia wouldn't hear them, and carried her upstairs. He set her down on the bed and they started to talk.
"What happened that made you change your mind?" he asked after closing the door and sitting with her.
"I was in the bathroom and I was crying. You know how they play cheesy music in the bathroom?" she asked. Ephram nodded with a smile. "Well, they played our song. I started to cry more and then I decided to read your note. I was so angry with you I didn't want to believe it. So I made my way to my seat on the plane and when I found my seat, I couldn't sit down. Something inside me said I shouldn't sit down. I picked up your note and looked at it and I just felt like I couldn't be on the plane. Ephram, I am so sorry. I should have listened to you. You've never lied before and I should have trusted you. I am so sorry,"
Ephram pulled her to his chest and held her while she cried. "It's okay. You're here now and that is all that matters. I love you,"
Lilly pulled back and kissed him again. She slowly ran her fingers through his hair and he grabbed her waist. "I love you so much," she said into his ear.
Ephram smiled and kept his kiss going. Soon they heard footsteps and quickly pulled apart.
"Ephram, where are you?" asked Andy while reaching for his son's bedroom door handle. He received quite a shock to see Lilly sitting with Ephram. "You...you're here!"
Lilly smiled and got up to hug Andy. She was so glad to be at her real home. The one she felt comfortable and loved. It wasn't her real family, but it was the next best thing. No, it was better than normal family, because normal family has a contract saying they must embarrass you. Andy finally let her go and called for Delia, who immediately ran into the arms of Lilly and gave her a huge hug. Lilly started to cry again from all of the excitement.
"I thought you wouldn't come back," said Delia after she let Lilly go.
"I thought so to. If it's okay with your dad, I'm going stay for good," Lilly said looking up at Andy.
Andy smiled and nodded. Delia wrapped her arms around Lilly's legs and then kissed her goodnight. The full day of crying and school had taken its toll on her and now she was fatigued.
"You two should go on to bed now," said Andy about to leave, then he turned his head back to the room. "Separate beds."
Ephram kissed Lilly good night and she walked into her room. They both fell asleep instantly, each thinking about the other.
Ephram woke at around four that morning. He sighed and tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. He rolled out of bed and stumbled downstairs. It was still dark outside, but you catch a glimpse of the rising sun. Ephram went outside and brought in Lilly's abandoned luggage. He tried to bring it up the stairs as quietly as possible, so he wouldn't wake his sleeping family. When all of the luggage was in Lilly's room, Ephram tried to cook a nice breakfast. How hard could it be? He pulled out his mother's old cookbook and skimmed through it to find a breakfast. When Ephram finally found something they could do he book marked the page and kept looking through it. He could still faintly smell his mother and the old New York apartment with every turn of the page. When he reached the end of the book he opened the page back up to the breakfast he had found. He pulled out the ingredients he could find and decided the other things were just garnishes. He started to put everything together and when it was all mixed in, he ran to take a shower while it sat in the oven. The second he was out of the shower he smelled something awful, like a piece of crap being burned. He quickly ran down the stairs still wrapped in a towel. When he came to the kitchen, everyone was standing around the oven looking at it. Ephram tried to hide from them, but the noticed him too quickly.
"What the hell were trying to do, Ephram?" said Andy when he noticed his son.
"Um...you see, I was trying to make breakfast, but that doesn't smell like what Mom made. What do you think I did wrong?" he said suddenly remembering that there was very little standing between his family and...well, himself.
"Let me see," said Lilly looking through the cookbook. "We didn't have most of the ingredients for this,"
"Those weren't necessary, were they?" he said getting nervous.
"Unless you were thing of giving us some flour and water. Yeah we could have eaten it, but we might not keep it down long," Andy said starting to laugh.
"Can I go get dressed?" he said starting to get red in the cheeks.
"Oh," said Lilly just noticing he was practically naked. "Yeah, go ahead,"
Ephram ran up the stairs and dressed, laughing to himself about what had happened downstairs. Finally he came back down, everyone was eating cereal, and his nice gesture was in the trash. Ephram went to get breakfast himself and sat next to Lilly. Under the table he held her hand and she smiled while she tried to solve the puzzles on the cereal box. After breakfast, everyone finished getting ready and Ephram watched the news, since everything else that was on sucked to the highest degree. When it was time to leave for school, Ephram and Lilly took off in Ephram's car. When they stopped in Ephram's spot in the parking lot, neither of them wanted to move.
"Do we really have to go back there?" Lilly said looking over to Ephram.
"We don't have to, but hiding isn't going to make it any easier," Ephram said, squeezing Lilly's hand for support.
Lilly sighed and they got out of the car together. Ephram walked Lilly to her class and then he went to his own. As soon as Lilly stepped into the room, she felt all eyes on her. She didn't think that news could travel that fast, they really didn't tell anyone. Lilly saw Amy in the back corner with her arms crossed. Lilly walked over to Danielle.
"I thought you were going to leave," Paula said.
"I was, but something came up," Lilly said wanting to leave it at that.
"What?" all of them asked.
"I don't want to talk about it, okay?" Lilly said crossing her arms. She hated the gossip of a small town. It was the one thing she hated about Everwood.
The girls rolled there eyes and lost interest in Lilly, which she was thankful for. When class began they went through their stretching and started to dance. Lilly couldn't wait for the end of the day.
Ephram walked into the auditorium and tried to practice the song again. He hadn't been able to do to the recent events. He started to play and when he finished he couldn't help but smile. Lilly's birthday was less then a week away and he was about to give her gift early. Andy had asked the other day what he had gotten her but Ephram wouldn't tell. He didn't want to tell anyone, because he didn't want her to find out. Ephram practiced until his fingers hurt and then he practiced one more time. When the song was finished Lilly was standing by the door.
"That was beautiful, who wrote it?" she said running down to see Ephram.
"Um...not too sure. How much did you hear?" he asked as his spirits took a head on collision with the ground.
"Just the last few notes. It was still beautiful though. Can you play the rest for me?" she said smiling. She had enjoyed the little she had heard so much, and Ephram seemed to enjoy playing it.
"The bell is about to ring, so you won't be able to hear it all, and I have to turn the music into the band guy after lunch so...yeah," Ephram said trying to play it off cool, which he wasn't good at doing.
"Okay, I was just asking. So, are you sure everything is okay between you and me? Because it is better to get it out now then wait until it's too late," Lilly said starting to get nervous. She had been surprised that Ephram hadn't yelled at her when she came back. He hadn't done anything and she was condoning him for life.
"Oh, yeah there was this one thing that was bugging me. Will you wear my ring again?" Ephram said pulling it out from his pocket.
Lilly smiled and took it, "Of course I will, but are you sure there isn't anything? I just want to get things out and we can't wait until we're in a fight and you want to bring it up,"
Ephram thought for a while and then started to speak. "Yeah, I was thinking about this almost all day. How could you trust her and not me? You barely know her and you drank in every word she had to say, but you've known me longer and you wouldn't listen to a word I had to say,"
Lilly bit her lip and thought about it. "I have had bad relationships in the past. All with guys who say they love me, but really are just trying to get into my pants. When I wouldn't have sex with them, they left me by making up these awful excuses like I was a bitch to their friends and was fooling around with other guys. I tried to go back and make it work, but they pushed me away. I just gave up trying to make it work and I started to try and get over it as quickly as possible. I'm sorry Ephram, I really am. I just didn't think about how completely different you are from other guys."
Ephram didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or criticism. He took it as a compliment and held her closely. After a while he got a mischievous grin and he started to tickle her. Lilly completely crumbled and was bursting out in laughter. Ephram laughed, but didn't expect her to fight back. She reached up and started to tickle him, but he wasn't as ticklish as she was. Finally, the bell rang and neither of them wanted to leave. Ephram helped Lilly up and kissed her goodbye and they went to class.
At the end of the day, Ephram went home and Lilly went to practice. There first game was only a week away. Ephram climbed up the stairs to his room and lay back on the bed. He was so sick of the gossip and whispering of Everwood. He wanted New York, where no one would care if you were robbed in the middle of a busy street. Ephram picked up a magazine and flipped through. After a while he got bored and threw it to the side. He went downstairs and saw Madison standing outside his door.
"Hey," he said when he opened the door. She had looked as if she was hesitant to knock on the door.
"Hey, can we talk?" she said starting to look nervous.
Ephram let her in and got nervous. They sat down at the table.
Madison looked like she was extremely interested in the table for a while and then she finally looked up. "Ephram, it's about the baby,"
Ephram tensed his shoulders. "Is there something wrong?"
Madison nodded a little. "Well, first, the doctor said it was a girl,"
"That's great, now, what's wrong?" said Ephram. He was a little disappointed that it wasn't a boy; he has enough trouble with girls already. "I went to Denver and got one of those four dimensional ultra sounds, the ones where you can see the baby a lot better. They noticed something about the baby that might cause trouble. She has a cleft lip and palate,"
Ephram was confused, "I don't know what that is,"
"It's when the lip and the top of the mouth isn't fully formed. They'll have to do surgery and it'll be feed through a tube going through his nose. It'll be very tough," she said running through what the doctor had said, "She will need to be feed all the time, every three hours, all day including nights. When she is three months, she will have the lip surgery, if she weighs enough. And when she is six months, she will need the palate surgery. That is going to be the hard one. She won't want to eat because her palate will hurt and she won't be able to use the tube through her nose either. There might be late night trips to the emergency room, and the first year is just going to suck,"
Ephram tried to take in all of the news. "Are you still going to leave?"
Madison looked at her hands, "I was going to ask you if that would be alright. I know it's thoughtless, but I already had an apartment ready and a job set up. I will try and help as much as I can, but I don't think there is anyway for me to get out of it,"
Ephram nodded. He understood, but he just hopped that she would have stayed. It would have made everything easier.
"Ephram, I'm sorry. I just can't stay here. It would be too much," said Madison said seeing his face.
"No, it's okay. Just visit, okay? Please, not for me but for the baby. She would want to know her real mother. I would want her to know her real mother," said Ephram looking up from the table.
"Of course I will. I think it would be hard not to. I need to go, I have to clean, my roommate is having company," with that Madison got up and left.
Ephram sat where he was for a while. His baby wasn't completely healthy, she had a problem and would have to go through surgery. His fatherliness started to show through as he worried about his baby. He would rather go through surgery than have his innocent baby have to suffer. He took a deep breath and called his dad, who was having to work late that day.
"Hello?" said Edna.
"Hey, can I speak to my dad?" he said starting to tear up.
"Can he call you back? He is with a patient," she said pushing through files, guiltily laughing at a person who she hated with the flu.
"Yeah, could you tell him it's important?" he said wiping his tears.
"Are you okay kiddo?" she said noticing the worry in his voice.
"Yeah, I just got some bad news. Tell him to call as soon as possible," he said, not wanting to get into a conversation about this.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she said. She was worried about him.
"No, I just need to go. Goodbye Edna," with that Ephram hung up the phone and looked at the clock. He needed to go take Lilly to work in a while. He didn't want to leave knowing that his dad would call back, but he had to pick her up. So he ran to his car and drove as fast as he could to the school. When he got there she was just coming out of the school. She hopped in and saw that he was upset about something.
"What's wrong?" she said.
"I have bad news, but I can't tell you right now, I'm in a hurry. I will tell you when you get off though," he said speeding out of the parking lot. He wanted to tell Lilly, but he wanted to be able to collect his thoughts and explain things completely, and he couldn't do that in a hurry.
He dropped Lilly off and sped home. He was probably going to wreck, but he just really needed to be home. He pulled up to the house and opened the door. Immediately, as if waiting for him, the phone rang.
"Hello?" he said hoping it was Andy.
"Hey Ephram, what's wrong. Edna said it was important," Andy was very stressed. It had been a long day and his new partner Harold had a tendency to give him headaches.
"Dad, Madison stopped by and she had some news," said Ephram. He told Andy what Madison had told him and when he was done he waited for a response.
"Well, there is nothing we can do now, but when the baby comes it's going to be a hand full. Did she find out the sex of the baby?" said making note to get as much sleep as possible now, because in three months he wasn't going to remember what sleep was.
"It's a girl. Isn't there anything we can do from keeping her from using a tube or something. Why can't she use a bottle?"
"She has no roof of her mouth, it would be difficult and painful. She is going to be much more prone to ear infections because of the cleft palate, so we are going to learn to love medicine and lack of sleep. Don't worry Ephram, she will be okay. You are lucky, your dad is a doctor and you won't have midnight trips to the doctor as much. I'll teach you how to take out the tube and put it back in. It will be okay, it will just be very stressful," said Andy flipping through his book about infant defects.
"Thanks, I just really needed to see if there was anything we could do to prevent her from having to go through surgery so young. Can't they do laser things to make it heal while she is in the womb?" he said trying to think of something.
"There is nothing we can do now. Just get ready and be prepared," he said closing the book and sighing.
"Thanks Dad," he said and hung up.
Andy sat at his desk and rubbed his eyes. It was always something in his family. It never seemed to settle down and be normal. He could hear Edna and Harold arguing out in the hall and decided to let them yell. He was sick of breaking up their fights. He slowly started to pack up, since he had no other patients that day. He tried to sneak out of the office, but he was unsuccessful.
"Andy, tell my mother that she is not able to look through the patient's files. Where are you going? You still have one hour," said Harold noticing Andy.
"Harold please, I'm tired. We don't have any more patients. You are Superdoctor, you saved them all," he begged.
"Fine, just tell her to not read the confidential files," he said pointing at his mother.
"I have a right to know why I am ordering certain things, I don't tell anybody," Edna said indignantly.
"Edna, heads or tails?" said Andy pulling a coin out of his pocket.
"What?" they both said.
"If Edna gets heads, then she can read the files, if Harold gets tails, then she isn't aloud to anymore," said Andy flipping the coin.
"This is absurd! We should settle this properly, not by a flip of a coin," said Harold rolling his eyes.
"Shush, junior," Edna said leaning to see the coin.
It was heads; Edna smiled brightly at her son and then walked over to her desk. Harold rolled his eyes and stomped off to his office. Andy ran off to his car and started it up. He drove home as soon as he could, he was exhausted and he wanted a nap before his date with Nina that night. He opened the door to his house and saw Ephram sitting on the couch looking extremely depressed.
"Dad, it is just really sinking in. I can't believe I'm going to be a dad. When I found out about the baby being sick and in pain, I just couldn't take it. How can you feel so strongly for something you've never seen before? I would rather be blind or never be able to play piano again, then have my daughter in pain for a single second," Ephram said when he saw his dad.
"Welcome to the club. That is how I feel about you and Delia, even Lilly sometimes. I have had that feeling for seventeen years," Andy said wrapping his arm around Ephram's shoulder.
Ephram sighed; the next three months were going to go by extremely quickly.
Ephram pulled up to Lilly's work and she climbed in. She looked worried, and he decided he better tell her what was going on then. He told her everything Madison had said and what he had been told by Andy.
"The baby will be okay though, won't she?" she said after he had finished.
"Of course, she'll just need a scar removal surgery before kindergarten and then she'll be fine. Everything is going to be okay. I just needed to tell Dad about it first, to see if there really was anything to worry about. We will lose lots of sleep, but everything is going to be okay with the baby. She'll be healthy," he said.
Lilly sighed, this was going to be an interesting year. What was she kidding? This already was an interesting year.
What do you think? It took me forever to do this chapter. I won't be posting for a while though, I have to go somewhere. I gave you a nice long chapter to tide you over.