This chapter is a repost since many people corrected me on what Ephram's mother's name was. Thanks to all of you who corrected me.
Chapter Six - Ephram's POV
A daughter. I had a daughter. Madison and I had had a daughter. Needless to say I was in shock over the revelation. When she stood there, in my door, I couldn't not believe her. She looked so much like me. From her hair to her eyes, from the shape of her mouth to the stubborn jut of her chin. She was me. But for all her looks, she had Madison deep inside of her. I could see it in the way her eyes sparked, that fiery spirit that had first caused me to fall in love with Madison. I…we had had a daughter.
Moments after I so graciously showed her the door, I sat at my piano. The tears were in my eyes before I even had time to feel any emotion. A war raged within me, my emotions battling with each other to be the dominate one that I felt. Anger, confusion, joy, but most of all, sadness.
I looked up above the mantle that hung over the fireplace, searching for the comforting face that usually smiled down at me. The wall there was bare, white and bleak. And I remembered. The photograph was gone, burned to a crisp. The gilded edge of the frame still sat in the fire, slightly charred, but ultimately whole. The tears started anew. I had destroyed the one thing that meant more to me than even my piano.
Amy had left me not even two years ago, but the pain I felt at her going still reigned over my heart. I hadn't quite fully healed, and I didn't think that I ever would. We'd had a daughter, me and Amy, and we loved her to death. She was our pride and joy. So much like her mother in both looks and spirit. I remember how she used to dance around the apartment in her little pink tutu laughing and singing at the top of her lungs. The memory still makes me smile. She loved life so much and would never stop talking. She even used to talk with the pigeons that had made a home on her windowsill. I remember she named them too, Coo and Featherhead and George. She was only five when she died.
Amy had been feeling domestic that morning and had made eggs and French toast and sausage. I remember she said that Julia, our daughter, needed a good hearty breakfast on her first day of kindergarten. I wrapped my arms around my wife's waist and kissed her neck, Laura came in the kitchen and made a giggled. She always giggled when Amy and I were kissing, which we did a lot. "Have fun", those were the last words I said to our daughter. I told her I loved her and to have fun on her first day. She had smiled at me with that cute little gapped tooth grin and said that she would, then she hugged me and kissed me on the cheek and followed Amy out the door.
I was working on a new piece when the phone rang. Amy was in Julia's room straitening up the mess she'd made while trying to get dressed by herself, you know, trying to be a "big girl". I answered on the second ring, and I remember the woman on the other end saying that there had been an accident, but everything after that is a blur.
We rushed down to the hospital where they sent Julia, it wasn't but ten block from our apartment, the same hospital that my father, Andy Brown, had once been a surgeon at. Those ten blocks seemed like a million as Amy and I raced through the crowds that littered the New York streets. We were in too much of a hurry to wait for a cab, not to mention it would have taken longer to drive through the traffic than to walk, or run, which was what we did. People looked at us as if we were crazy lunatics, but we didn't care. Our only thoughts were on our little girl, the joy of our hearts.
She was so fragile looking, laying there on that cold slab of metal, with nothing but a thin, starched white sheet to cover her. Her face was badly bruised and her small body bent and broken. The doctors said she didn't suffer when the car hit her. I gave a weak, tear strained, mirthless chuckle at the irony. My mother, her namesake, had died at the hands of a vehicle collision, now the same fate had taken my daughter. Life was cruel.
After Julia's death I threw myself into my work, never leaving the piano for days at a time. I buried myself in music, trying to dull the pain that rested inside of my soul. My way of dealing with the grief put a strain on my marriage and, before I knew it, Amy was asking for a divorce. She said that she had suffered enough losing her daughter that she wouldn't watch her husband fade away as well. I didn't even fight, didn't even try to keep my marriage together. I just let her have what she wanted, I let her take whatever she wanted from me without so much as a fuss. She didn't want much, not really, just everything that had once been Julia's and enough money to start a new life back with her family in Everwood, Colorado.
So now I had nothing of my daughter's, and I had burned the last remnant that I had ever been married in the first place. I pounded my fists against the ivory keys, the sound clashing loudly in the apartment. I wiped a hand over my face, wiping away the tears that continued to fall.
I had thought that I had no more family, but I had been wrong. My mind went back to two hours ago. She said her name was Samantha. She was a beautiful girl, and I knew that she was probably really nice. But I was mean, overruled by my anger towards Madison for never telling me, and the acute pain that still ruled me, I had been nothing less than a monster to her. Screaming and yelling at her, kicking her out and calling her a bitch. I shook my head. It had finally happened, the thing that I feared would always be, the lose of two of the people I loved most in the world had turned me into a beast, a person unworthy of having any human contact.
Without knowing what I was doing, I suddenly found myself holding the phone in my hand. I had to talk to Madison, I had to ask why she'd never told me about our daughter. But I didn't know her phone number, I didn't know where she was, I didn't anything about her life now. So, I Googled her. I logged onto the internet and I looked her up. She lived in Denver. She and Samantha had been so close to me. All those visits I made to my family over the years I could have gone and seen them both, I could have been there for our daughter. Had I known she was pregnant before she left I would have convinced Madison to stay in Everwood, I would have convinced her that I would take care of her and our baby. But she had left, and she hadn't told me.
I picked the phone up once more, this time actually dialing. The voice on the other end was chipper and all too cheerful. I booked a ticket to Denver. In three days I would be going to see Madison and learn the truth.
Many of you were wondering why Ephram had been such a jerk to Samantha, well I decided to write this chapter and answer your questions. I hope you all enjoyed it, even though it was kinda short, and will review.
