Reaching Forward

11

Strumming his fingers on the arm of the sofa in the doctor's lounge, Derek stared at his cell phone screen with his mother's name scrawled across it, ready to be dialed. Sighing, he pressed the send button and put the phone to his ear. One ring, two, three, he was praying that his mother wouldn't pick up and it was about to seem that way when after the fourth ring her voice answered, "Hello?"

"Mom." He said hoarsely. Almost not sure if it was him, she questioned, "Derek?"

Clearing his throat he replied, "Yeah, it's me."

"Well, well, well, I know I said that you should call me more often but I didn't expect it so soon." She said rather cheerfully. Cringing, he knew that her chipper mood would soon change. Being the woman that she was and even though her relationship with her son had become distant, she knew that he wasn't calling her just to chat, "So, Derek, what do you have to tell me?"

He hated the way she knew when something was going on. Deciding that it would probably be better to drop the bomb rather than dancing around the subject, he took a deep breath and let the cat out of the bag, "Mom, I have something to tell you and I want you to let me finish before you say anything. Ok?"

She was thoroughly confused, "What is this about?'

He motioned with his hand as if she was really there, "You have to promise, Mom, that you won't say anything until I'm finished."

Derek could here the annoyance and irritation in her voice as she responded, "Alright, I promise. What is it?"

"Meredith is...Meredith and I are having a baby." He waited for what seemed like an eternity for her to say something.

"Let me get this straight, Derek. First, you move off to Seattle without a word. Then, you don't even come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. And, you go and divorce Addison for this intern and now you're having a child with her. Did I get all of that straight?"

"Yes." He breathed into the phone.

"Well, it's noon here so that means it's 9 am there. I'm going to call the airline and get the soonest flight out there. I think I should meet this girl that's going to be the mother of my grandchild." She said eerily calm.

"Ok, just call me when you get your flight time." With his heart pounding, he waited for her to confirm.

"Alright, see you then Derek." With that, she hung up.

Flipping his own phone shut, he leaned his head back and breathed out a long sigh. This was going to be a long day.

Walking down the hallway, he spotted Meredith at one of the nurses' stations filling out charts. He approached the station and leaned against the counter waiting for her to acknowledge his presence. It didn't take long for her to realize that someone was standing in front of her, "Derek, I thought you had a surgery at 10?" She glanced up at the clock on the wall in front of her.

"I do but I talked to my mother." He was still apprehensive about his mother finding out earlier and how she would get along with Meredith.

She let out a deep breath and looked back down at the chart she was working on, "And?"

Derek folded his hands together and said, "She's getting the first flight out from New York."

Looking back up from her chart in surprise, Meredith questioned, "Already? I figured we'd at least have a couple of days." She was suddenly regretting saying that she was prepared to meet his mother.

"Well, that's my mother for you."

So, if she wasn't already dreading this, she was now. Meredith had been at least expecting some preparation time and now his mother was probably taking off.