Paging Dr. Daddy Delko
Eric didn't care what anyone thought about him calling in sick the following day. Chloe definitely had a cold. She was coughing and squeezing. Occasionally her temperature would rise slightly but it was nothing to worry about. They didn't want Ethan to get sick too so Chloe didn't have too much contact with him. But she got to have daddy all to herself and eat ice cream so she wouldn't "get warm" so she was happy. Chloe didn't know why her daddy was kissing her forehead so often but that didn't bother her. Sometimes her dad was doing so to check the child for a fever and the others were just because he wanted to.
Before the kids were up that morning Calleigh had told her husband about seeing Alissa the previous day. She hadn't heard anything the woman had said but she had seen the look that Alissa had given Chloe.
There's something wrong with that woman, Calleigh had thought. Still she would never plague Eric with questions on why he got involved with her. Just because Alissa had a miserable, lonely life, her mother giving a false name and then abandoning her at the hospital causing her to be raised in multiple foster homes with no permanency or attachments didn't mean her child had to have the same life. The biggest reason being this "involvement" had produced a child that Calleigh couldn't see her life without and the second being there had been no real "relationship." Eric barely knew Alissa, it was just about sex. Calleigh couldn't deny she hadn't been in a 'relationship' or two like that herself in the past. Sex was a basic human desire whether or not a person was in a relationship with another.
Everyone knew if things had been different, if Calleigh and Eric hadn't felt the way they had about each other and got the nerve to say it out-loud when Eric bought Chloe home that Chloe still would have had a wonderful life full of love even without a mother. No one who knew Eric ever doubted the young man would be an incredible father. When he heard about the baby girl, even before she was proven to be his, he was ready to put both his social and love life on hold to raise his child, even if he still pined for Calleigh Duquesne in his waking hours and she filled his dreams at night.
As far as Chloe's future went, just because Chloe had half of Alissa's genes didn't mean she was doomed to be like her. Being in a nurturing family counted for something, no matter what some experts said. The only thing that scared both parents about Calleigh not being Chloe's biological mother was the notion of that half of Chloe's medical family history being a total mystery. All they could do there was hope that the girl would not became ill and require medical help from genetic maternal relatives.
Chlorinda Delko had been 'disappointed' in Eric, hearing he had been with a woman he barely knew and now that woman was pregnant, possibly by him. But that 'disappointment' didn't bother him. It was just generation gap issue to Eric. His mother was proud, however, that he wanted to raise the child. He had balked at the very suggestion that he didn't feel he could raise the baby that his parents or one of his sister could raise her, rather than have her adopted outside the family. If he was the father, he was going to be the parent, not any one of them. He also told his mother that he thought there was "absolutely nothing wrong with a child being raised outside their biological family." Further more, he thought this 'keeping the child in the family' solely on the basis of biology was "selfish." If Eric thought it was best for his daughter to be placed for adoption, whatever his reason, then he would make it happen, despite their objections. In other words he was telling them all, if the test came positive, he was either choosing to be full-time dad or relinquishing his rights.
Though raising the baby was his choice, he had wanted to let them all know that he didn't see voluntarily placing a child for adoption to be what his mother called an "unspeakable" action.
This was the first time Eric had stood up so much to his parents. This had been too important for him not to.