The family stood on the from porch of Dr. Brown and Nina's house, waiting for someone to answer the door. The smell of Nina's cooking floated in the air outside the home, but it couldn't mask the scent of anger which clung to Willingham Brown.
Ephram glanced over at his son to notice that he was staring straight ahead, and not making eye contact with anyone, much the same way as he had been since they'd gotten back from the fateful trip to Denver the evening before. In the few seconds between entering the house, and locking himself in his room for the night, he'd barely been able to look at Amy, but most likely out of sadness rather than anger, Ephram knew.
About thirty seconds passed before Nina came to the door.
"Hi, everyone!" She said cheerfully, hugging each of them, seemingly unaware of Will's rigid state. "Delia's already here, we were just about to sit down."
After greeting Dr. Brown, they followed Nina into the kitchen where the table was set beautifully.
"Nina, you didn't have to do all this!" Amy exclaimed, but Nina was quick to counter her.
"What other reason have I got to break out the crystal? Besides, Sam's visiting his Dad in Vail this week, so there's no risk of breaking it."
As they laughed, Delia entered the room, a perfect vision of her mother at age twenty seven. She'd gone to Sarah Lawrence college, only to return to Colorado and join the Denver police force. Two years after graduation, she met and married a young Marine named David Hamilton. David was currently stationed somewhere in Japan, where he was a communications officer. Delia spent her time between visits to Everwood, and her home in Denver, where she raised theirten-month-old daughter, Juliana.
"What's everyone laughing at?" Placing the baby in a highchair, she looked at the table, as if something was out of place. "Did Dad try to demonstrate a frontal lobe dissection on the salad again?"
"...And I said to him, 'Well, if that's not a brain tumor, then someone really did stick a tomato in his ear!"
The table jeered at one of Andy's corny stories, and when they were quiet again, he turned the subject towards his grandchildren.
"Eva, are you looking foward to your Dad's next concert?"
"Uh-Huh." The small blonde nodded enthusiastically while trying to fold her napkin into a triangle, or so it looked. "Mommy said we'd go out for ice cream afterward."
"What about you, Will?" This was risky, the elder Brown knew. After all, his grandson hadn't looked at him since he'd arrived, and he'd hardly spoken to anyone.
When Will didn't respond, Ephram tried to help. The silence reminded him painfully of what he himself was like as a teenager.
"I reserved balcony seats for everyone this time, it should be a perfect view." Ephram said, hoping to break the ice.
"That's great!" Nina exclaimed, sensing the fight that was brewing. "I'll be we could even sneak the video camera in this time."
"That's a good idea, Nina." Delia commented. "David bought a one of those new digital ones before he left. It's really small, the ushers would probably never notice that we had it."
Amy joined in as well. "That's perfect, Delia. One of us can record the concert from the balcony."
"The only thing is, Dave's the only one who know how to work it. I'm not even sure how to turn it on."
An idea struck Andy. "Will's good at that type of stuff, he'd probably be able to figure it out. What do you say, Will?"
That was it, the sixteen-year-old's boiling point had been reached, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop the explosion.
"I'm not going to the damn concert!" He stood, intending to walk away, but Ephram grabbed his shoulder.
"Will, there's no reason to talk to your grandfather like that. He was only trying to-"
But he jerked away from his father's grasp, cutting him off. "He was only trying to what? Stop beating around the damn bush and pretending like nothing ever happened here. You're all a bunch of liars, and you know it!"
"Will, I know that you feel betrayed right now, and I'm sorry, but we can talk about this." Andy said, almost pleadingly.
"Go to hell, Grandpa! How can you think that after what you did to me, after you almost destroyed my whole life, that I would want to talk to you? I don't even want to look at you!"
He slammed his hands on the table, causing a glass of water to tip over and splash all over Juliana, while Eva began to cry at the unusually cruel sound of her older brother's voice.
Delia pulled the baby out of the highchair, trying to soothe her as she started to cry along with Eva.
Nina, feeling it would probably better to leave the three brown men and Amy alone, took Eva by the hand and, with a promise of chocolate chip cookies, followed Delia into the kitchen.
After Nina and Delia had left the room, Amy spoke cautiously.
"We never meant for it to turn out this way. Your Grandfather loves you, we all do."
"Is that what you do when you love someone, lie to them? Funny, that seems a little backwards to me." He replied coldly.
"Listen to your Mom, Will." Andy encouraged. "She's right."
"That woman isn't my Mother!" He roared, pointing to Amy. "She has no son." With that he stormed out the front door, not looking back.
"He's wrong, he is my son." Amy said after he'd gone, to no one impeticular. For, what only she and Ephram knew, was that there was a time when she thought a bit differently.
She sat on the bed staring blankly, possibly with more wisdom than someone only twenty-eight years of age should have. After a few moments, she stood and carefully lifted the metal box from the highest shelf of the closet she and Ephram shared.
The locked would open only by combination, which only she and Ephram knew the numbers to. She opened it slowly, as if it were pandora's box, filled with secrets and meant to be left alone. She sorted through the papers, some of which were over sixteen years old. The first one she came to was a bitheavier than normal printing paper, and as Amy's eyes swept over the beautiful typed script, she realized what it was:
Dr. and Mrs. Harold B. Abbott., Jr.
request the honor of your presence
at the wedding of their daughter
Amy Nicole
to
Ephram Andrew Brown
Son of Dr. Andrew Brown
Saturday the twenty-sixth of November
Two Thousand and Six
At Two O'clock
Everwood Roman Catholic Church
Please R.S.V.P. by October 21st. (827)-555-8965
The next paper she came to was one she didn't even know was there, having always thought that Ephram would have thrown it was years ago.
Certificate of Birth
Mother's Name: Kellner, Madison
Father's Name: Father Unknown
Date of Birth: February 12th 2005
Place of Birth: Denver, Colorado
Child's Name: Baby Boy, Kellner
Gender: Male
Amy knew that the paper attached to that was Will's revised birth certificate, which had been filled out by the judge when Ephram got custody.
"Amy?" She turned, hearing Ephram call her name. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I was just making sure I put everthing away." A bit shakily, she relocked the metal box and placed it back on the closet shelf.
"You don't look fine." He commented as she sat back down on the bed. "I'm sorry about this, Amy."
"It's not your fault, Ephram. It's not anyone's fault." A tear slowly fell from her eye, but she wiped it away before he could notice it.
"I know how you're feeling, Amy. I'm hurting, too." He wrapped his arms around her, feeling the sadness she was generating. "But you never know what could happen, doctors can't be right all the time."
"They're right, Ephram. You know they are." She was emotionless now, and there was nothing left for her to do.
The shock of their lives had come to Amy and Ephram that day. Amy had been diagnosed with Linder's syndrome, a condition effecting female hormone balance which would prevent her from ever having children again. It had been totally unexpected; Amy had gone to Dr. Brown hoping only to get a prescription for a migraine. It only became more painful when she found out that only one out of every 600 caucasian women would be diagnosed with Linder's syndrome before age forty-five.
"I always wanted a little boy." The dancer said suddenly, turning to face her husband. "Did I ever tell you how I kept hoping Eva would be a boy?"
He shook his head. "No, I don't think you did." Taking his hand, he pushed her bangs out of her face as she talked.
"I even had a name picked out." I few more tears slid down her face, but she kept speaking. "It was 'Julian Edward', after your Mom and my Grandmother."
He wasn't surprised at this, since they had discussed naming their daughter 'Julia', but in the end, Ephram couldn't do it for the simple reason that the name had too many memories tied to it. Even after eighteen years, it was still too painful for him.
"We'll never have him now, Ephram. I'll only have one child for the rest of my life." She began to sob now, and he could do nothing but hold her.
Even though he was thinking about it, he didn't mention Will, despite the fact the he was, legally, Amy's son. She was talking about an entirely different issue. He pondered it further as she cried; They could always adopt, plenty of kids needed good homes. When he said as much to Amy, however, she told him it would be impossible for her to adopt a child. How was she to choose one or two children from a whole world full of orphans?
They sat together in their room for another half an hour, Amy aimlessly looking through papers in the metal box once again, and Ephram trying to comfort her in whatever way he could. He realized then that both Eva and Will were due to be picked up from a day spent at the Abbott's house.
"I wish there was some way we could fix this." He said as he rose from his position on the bed.
She looked up from the papers, seemingly oblivious to any time having passed at all. "I have a son."
Looking a bit confused, he stood behind her while she explained the realization she'd come to: Will was her son, and he always had been. The entire time she had wanted a little boy that shared her genes, that belonged, biologically to both she and Ephram. She thought of Will as her son, but her feelings for him were different(yet just as strong) compared to those which she had for Eva, because she and Ephram didn't have him together. What she knew now was that, from the second she'd married Ephram, Will had been her son, and she loved him just as much as she did her daughter.
"I do have a little boy, and I don't need this paper to prove it as long as we're together."
He looked down at the paper she had referred to, which came from the metal box, and read the lines he'd seen a thousand times before.
Certificate of Adoption
Adoptive Father's name: None. Remaining with birth father.
Adoptive Mother's name: Amy N. Abbott-Brown
Adoptive child's name: Willingham Kellner Brown
Child's date of birth: February 12th, 2005
Place of birth: Denver, Colorado
Gender: Male
Date of Adoption: December 31st, 2006
Amy and Ephram had the perfect family, and Amy's sadness and pain about Linder's syndrome left her and never returned. If only, she thought, would do the same.