(A/N: Hey everyone, I'm Lily and this story takes place at the end of the final of the 4th season. It's a lyrical, heartbreaking and heartwarming story for all the optimistic E/M fans all over the world. I hope you'll enjoy it. Please read and review!)
Ephram stepped in his dad's house and walked into the kitchen. His dad and Nina sat at the table and Amy leaned against the counter. First Ephram looked at Amy and noticed her puffy eyes, she was crying. She had laid her hand over her mouth when she caught sight of him. Afterward he glanced at his dad who had formed tears in his eyes and then at Nina who was crying too.
"I can't stay. This is so gorgeous and stirring yet still sad at heart," Amy said and tried to wipe away her tears but it didn't work.
"What happened?" Ephram asked confused and looked at his dad. "Aren't you well?" He looked very worried and Andy tried to say anything but he couldn't find the right words. He opened his mouth a couple of times but he couldn't speak.
"We…I mean your dad, he found this in your mailbox today," Nina rose to speak and wiped her tears away and pointed at an open book in Andy's hands.
"What's that?" Ephram asked clueless and walked over to Amy. "Are you ok?" he asked worried and grabbed her hands but she immediately pulled away.
"I can't, Ephram!" she whispered and cried more. She looked sadder than ever. He had never seen her like this, she was all in tears. "I should rather go." She grabbed her jacket from the chair and ran outside.
"Ok, what is this all about?" he walked over to Andy and Nina and stopped at the edge of the table. "What's that?" he asked and repeated himself.
"It's a book," Andy said simply and that was the only word he got out. He couldn't silence his guilty conscience. He equally was sad and delighted.
"Here!" Nina grabbed the book and handed it Ephram. It had a white book cover with two small black-and-white hands on it.
"My Little One – A Memoir of Love and Loss by Madison Kellner," he read the title. "Oh my god," he said with a scared voice.
"It's so gorgeous, Ephram!" Andy found his voice again. "Read it! It's amazing!"
Ephram sat down and opened the book and noticed a handwritten consecration: "In everlasting love, Maddie" Tears had begun to form in his eyes when he turned over to the next side. "Prologue – When I was twenty, my whole life changed. I know there are people who wonder about me when I say this. They look at me strangely as if trying to understand how I could be with him, how I could love him like I did and still do.
When his father diagnosed the pregnancy, three month after my 21st birthday, everything I had believed about myself and my life was called into questions. In the face of the fiercest, most unrelenting truth, I began to look for new answers and he, my son himself became my teacher. Honest, funny and fearless in the way he's living his life with his new parents. He and his birthfather, Ephram opened me to a deeper wisdom, to a more joyful, less fearful way of living.
After the adoption, I began to write about the journey I had taken. I struggled to remember every detail, afraid to forget even one. It seemed a hopeless, overwhelming task. I gave up, decided to wait, to let myself grieve and heal. Gradually, I began to see that the story was still unfolding; rather than ending with the adoption, it had only begun. Now, two years after the adoption there are certain memories – brief memories that may have taken place weeks or month apart – that stand out in bright relief against the background of my days, moments that continue to live in me because they are still teaching me.
This story is a collection of those memories; a photo album of the moments that became my son's gift to me. Maybe this story offer solace to those who suffer, nourishment to those who long for deeper faith, and inspirations to those who want the courage to live their own truth."