The Weight of the World Read online

Devon nodded. She walked to her bathroom and came out with a little white stick. It was a pregnancy test. “Weird thing is, Dr. Davis knew before I did. She told me this morning.”

  “This why you didn’t come to lunch with me?”

  She nodded. Devon had steeled herself, driven to the next town, bought a pregnancy test, and confirmed the other woman’s diagnosis.

  Frank sighed. He was in no way equipped to process this kind of news. He had sat through health class and heard the startling statistics on the rise of teen pregnancy in America. He had heard in that 750,000 teenagers in the country got pregnant every year. But he was one of those teenagers; it was in his natural inclination to never believe that it would happen to his girlfriend.

  Frank was saved from having to think of some profound response by a noise down the hall. The automatic garage door was opening a whole hour early. Devon shoved the positive test in a drawer and ran around the room grabbing his clothes. Frank stumbled around the bed as he tried to put his pants on. Devon flung open her bedroom window, which looked out over the back yard, and threw his construction boots onto the lawn. He could put his shoes on when he wasn’t anywhere in the house.

  “Why is he early?” Devon asked no one in particular. Frank placed a firm peck on her cheek before jumping out the window and landing ten feet below, outside the basement window.

  “Devon!” Mr. Valentine shouted up the stairs. “Come down here. I want you to meet someone.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Valentine had come home together. They had skipped out on work and rearranged a campaign meeting after lunch to take care of other matters. They had brought takeout on the way and the meal was almost finished as the family sat and talked.

  Mr. Valentine always sat at the head of the dinner table with his back to the kitchen door. Mrs. Valentine sat to his left and Devon sat to his right. The seat across the table was reserved for guests. The man who sat there now could not have been older than twenty-five. He had buzzed hair and sky blue eyes.

  “You remember Mr. Campbell next door. Well,” her mother began, “he passed away this week. This is his grandson, Adam. Adam will be living next door.”

  “I’m here to sort through his estate,” Adam said.

  “Adam Campbell?” Devon asked.

  He shook his head. “Montagna. Adam Montagna.”

  “Adam is going to need help learning his way around town. Maybe tomorrow you could show him some landmarks? Show him where to find the supermarket and the bank?”

  “Oh that could be fun,” Devon said with a smirk. Adam was tall and broad-shouldered. He was very good-looking. The other girls on the cheerleading squad would just about die of envy.

  Devon’s phone buzzed in her tight pocket. She slipped it out and looked down. Frank. Devon ignored the call. Now was not the time to discuss their news. Her mother stood up to start clearing away dishes. Devon stood up to help, which drew a look of surprise from her father. Devon never volunteered her help unless she wanted something. She compiled the empty cardboard containers and carried them to the kitchen to throw away.

  “Devon?” her mother asked when she came back to start clearing away the actual dishes. Devon had barely touched her own dinner. Fried rice had been pushed around the edges of the plate, but it was still clear that she had hardly eaten. And she was quiet. “Is everything okay?” Devon’s suddenly dark demeanor was foreign in their home. She just wasn’t like those other moody teenagers.

  “I’m fine,” she said. Devon stopped and looked at Adam. Now was a hell of a time to have a house guest. “We can talk about it later.”

  Adam nodded and stood up. Mrs. Valentine pointed him towards the bathroom so he could wash up. Devon stayed standing. She felt stronger if she was on her feet.

  When Adam returned, he seemed to have noted the tension. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at his shoes. “Well, thank you for dinner,” he said, “but I think I need to head home. I’ve been traveling since sun-up.”

  Devon’s parents exchanged pleasantries as they walked Adam to the door. When he was out on the front walk and the door was shut, her mother came back into the room and sat down. “What’s wrong,” she asked, “is it drugs?”

  “Ew, no. Do I look like a junkie?”

  “I saw a lovely young girl on TV the other day who was doing meth. Are you... how do you take crystal meth?”

  “No, Mom, I don’t have a meth habit, and I’m not running a meth lab. I’m pregnant.”

  Mrs. Valentine knocked over her wine glass. A pool of red crawled across the table and wicked through the white table runner.

  Mr. Valentine just stared, his forehead twitching.

  “Say something,” Devon said to her father after too much time had passed in silence.

  “How?”

  “From sex, how else?”

  His eyes looked ready to pop out. Devon tried to back track. Now was not the time to be fresh. “From my boyfriend, Frank.”

  “Frank?” Mrs. Valentine asked. “This wouldn’t have happened if you were dating that Morrisey boy.

  Devon didn’t feel like telling her mother that Nick Morrisey would have been worse. Instead, she looked down at the table to avoid laughing at the irony of that comment. “Frank Guerrero. The football team’s center.”

  “The Mexican,” Mr. Valentine said.

  “He’s Cuban.”

  “Same thing.”

  Devon winced. She looked back up at her father. “I’m six weeks along, and I’m not getting an abortion, so there you have it. Ground me till I’m eighteen if you want.”

  Mr. an Mrs. Valentine looked at each other. There was no way that they were ready for this. Did they punish her or hug her? Did they blame themselves or the other parent? Mrs. Valentine had started to cry, and Mr. Valentine looked ready to pop.

  A motorcycle’s rumble faded into earshot. Devon heard it go quiet at the end of the cul de sac. Frank. She started clearing the rest of the dishes. “I’ll let you two talk. You know, agree on my punishment.”

  Devon dumped the dishes in the sink and ran up the stairs. She closed her bedroom door and ran to the window, throwing it open. Frank climbed through. She was glad he came back. Devon threw her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his neck. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d simply hugged him.

  “We needed to talk about it,” he said. He held the blonde in his arms, breathing the scent of her hair. Devon was not frail by any means, but in his extra-strong embrace she felt soft and delicate.

  “I told them,” she whispered.

  Both of them heard footsteps at the same time. They barely had time to step apart before Mr. Valentine came through the door with a shotgun. The shock had worn off and he was angry. “You!” he pointed the gun at Frank’s chest. “Climbing in my window, breaking in to my house. Get your dirty paws off my daughter.”

  Frank’s heart hammered in his chest. He could feel the pulse of every finger and toe. The back of his neck felt cold as muscles contracted and released with the rush of adrenaline. He just stared back at Mr. Valentine and his Ithica model 37, pump-action shotgun, not backing down an inch.

  “You’re not going to see this boy again, do you hear me, Devon?”

  “Dad! Put the gun down.”

  “If I catch you with her again--”

  “We’re having a baby,” Frank said. His deep voice was rich and terrifying. “And I’ll be damned if you’ll keep me away from my son.”

  Frank wasn’t sure why he said son. It just seemed more personal and sincere than the generic “my kid.” The six-foot-six war god stepped closer to Mr. Valentine, towering over him. Mr. Valentine was scared but he wasn’t about to shoot him. Not yet, anyway. He swung the butt of the rifle quickly. He knew what he was doing; he had been in the military before he was married.

  The back of the gun seemed to come at Frank in slow motion. He had ample time to anticipate the attack, block it, and wrench the gun from Mr. Valentine’s hands before the world snapped back into
normal speed. To the Valentine family, Frank appeared to react with lightning quick reflexes. He bent the barrel of the gun and shoved it back into Mr. Valentine’s arms, causing him to stagger.

  Frank was out the window without a word to Devon. She was crying now. Damn those hormones! Mrs. Valentine wanted to go comfort her daughter, but the rage in her husband’s eyes caused her to stay back and stay quiet. Devon had clearly brought this upon herself by being promiscuous with that beast.

  “I meant what I said,” Mr. Valentine muttered, looking up from his mangled gun. “You’re to only leave the house with my express permission. If I see you with that boy again, you’ll be visiting Aunt Nancy for the next eight months.

  He turned and left the room. Mrs. Valentine looked back at Devon, her eyes wide and wet with suppressed tears. “I’ll get you some vitamins tomorrow.”

  She closed the bedroom door, leaving Devon alone to sob into her comforter.

  Devon woke up five hours later. The summer sun had set some time ago, leaving her bedroom dark. A number of mosquitoes had flown in through her still-open window. She swatted one on her arm. The bloated insect left a splotch of scarlet blood. Devon couldn’t be sure that all of it was hers.

  She got up from the bed and found a tissue to clean the bug bite with. She closed her window. It was after eleven. The house was silent.

  She’d had that dream again, the same one from her nap this afternoon with Frank. How easy it was to fall in love.

  Devon, still in her jeans and t-shirt, changed into a pair of tiny red pajama shorts and a tank top. She flipped open her cell phone and clicked down her contacts list. She thought of calling Dr. Davis. Hell, she’d talk to June Herald right now. Anyone.

  A text message set her phone vibrating. It was Frank. “Are you okay?” she read. Not really, but she typed “yes” and sent the message. She closed her phone and went downstairs for a glass of water.

  She filled a tall glass from the dispenser in the door of the refrigerator and then slipped out the back sliding door. The summer air was thick and humid, but the concrete patio was cool under her bare feet.

  A pair of indigo eyes flashed reflected moonlight. Devon gasped and staggered back into a patio chair. “Shit, Adam,” she cursed. “You scared me.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled in the dark. He was sitting on a chair, in the dark, in the yard next door, holding a tall glass of water. Devon turned on her father's grill light so she could see him.

  Adam sat with a can of ginger ale and a jar of peanuts. He was dressed in a pair of blue basketball shorts and a white undershirt.

  “You don’t have to sit in the dark,” she said.

  “The bulb back here is burned out. It's more peaceful this way. I like the moonlight.”

  Devon dragged her patio chair to the edge of the fence. It was a low wood structure, meant more as a property divider than a privacy fence. When she sat down next to it, the top of the fence was the perfect height to rest her drink on.

  “Are you alright? I heard a lot of shouting after I left.”

  “You must think we’re crazy,” Devon replied.

  “Everyone has fights.” He took a long sip of ginger ale, eyeing Devon curiously with those dark blue eyes. They had seemed lighter at the dinner table. She assumed that the low light accounted for the change. They seemed more mysterious now. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Devon shrugged. “I’m pregnant.” Her parents knew and in a few weeks she would be shopping for elastic waistbands. There was no use hiding it. “And Dad tried to beat up Frank-- my boyfriend-- and Frank broke his gun.”

  Adam stopped eating peanuts mid-bite. He stared, shocked that she would be so casual in her recollection of events. “A gun?”

  “Daddy wasn’t going to shoot him, just scare him.”

  “Oh, sure.” He busied himself with his can of soda.

  Devon tapped her french-manicured nails on the fence. Adam slowly put the can down and ran his finger around the rim. “I think every Dad would want to pull a gun on the guy who impregnates his daughter. I’m just surprised he actually did it. I pegged him for being more... controlled.”

  “You’ve only known him for half a day,” Devon said. “He’s protective. I’m an only child.”

  Adam nodded. “Your Mom?”

  “She’d rather Nick Morrisey had knocked me up.”

  “Who?”

  “This guy from school. He’s pretty much the biggest slut I know. But to anyone over forty he's an angel.”

  Adam snorted.

  “It’s amazing. Frank works a part-time job and cooks and cleans for his mom. Yeah, he gets into fights, but he’d never hurt me. Nick sleeps with anything female and has absolutely no responsibility, yet Moms love him.”

  “Some guys have that gift.”

  “I don’t really have a problem with him, it’s just ironic. And kind of racist. Daddy just prefers Nick because he isn’t Cuban.”

  “Are you keeping it?”

  “The baby? Of course.” Devon took a gulp of water. “I just have to figure out how. But I am.”

  “That's good,” he said. He picked out a peanut (honey-roasted) from his jar and rolled it in his fingertips. After a long pause, he spoke. “I was almost aborted. My grandfather, my mother's father, wanted me to be.”

  “Mr. Campbell?”

  He nodded. “My father wasn't the greatest guy and my grandfather thought that if she cleaned up her mistake, she could go to college and take over the family business after that. My mother left home-- left this house-- and had me anyway and Grandpa went on pretending he didn't have a daughter. Say what you will about a woman's right to choose, I'm just glad she chose me.”

  Adam screwed the lid back on his jar of peanuts. He looked back at her as he crossed to his back door.

  Devon stood up. “It’s good to talk to someone about anything. Even if you are a stranger. Thank you.”

  “I’m always willing to talk. I mean, literally. I have nothing better to do than talk,” Adam said. “I don't know anyone in this town.”

  “I can fix that. I know lots of people.”

  Adam smiled. “Alright. Well, you let me know when you want to show me around.” He tossed a peanut up in the air and caught it in his mouth.

  Devon dragged her chair back to the patio. There were too many bugs outside for her liking. She tipped her head back and glanced up at the stars. It was a clear night. The starry sky was made less-brilliant by the lights of the city around them. Even so, sitting in the quiet, in the relative dark, and looking up at the sky as the crickets chirped, Devon felt small. Alone.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She just couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that she was going to be a mother. This whole day didn’t seem real.

  When Devon opened her eyes, Adam was staring over the fence at her. He looked away quickly.

  Devon smiled. Still got it, she thought. I’m going to be the sexiest mom alive.

  “Goodnight, Adam,” she said, turning to head back into the house.

  “Goodnight.”

  “The will of Zeus was accomplished.”

  -Homer

  iii.

  After she was pushed out of her mother's womb,

  the goddess turned to help deliver her twin,

  and in that time she saw her mother suffer

  the curse of woman.

  Terrified by the sight of bloody child-birth,

  She vowed to never observe the touch of man.

  So when Lord Zeus placed the girl upon his knee,

  that was her one wish.

  She only desired to run on her own

  with flora, fauna and nymph, but never man.

  Her father thought that this was a foolish wish

  but granted it, still.

  So when Actaeon stumbled upon a cave

  and saw her naked back as Artemis bathed,

  he could not avert his eyes with enough speed

  to save his own life.

  As he fled
through the woods, changed into a beast,

  his own hunting hounds tore apart his haunches.

  And so she helped Zeus grant her personal wish,

  keeping her own boon.

  “Friends are as companions on a journey, who ought to aid each other to persevere in the road to a happier life.”

  -Pythagoras

  III.

  The sky had only cleared after dinner, but the late summer sunset had given it extra time to dry the earth below. Now the sun was showing its last glow along the horizon, and the people of Olympia Heights were venturing out to enjoy the reprieve from the rain.

  The fair came into town for the first two weeks of the summer in Olympia Heights and then left for cooler-climates and beach-front towns. After the weekend it would move on, but on Friday night it was buzzing with young families and rogue teenagers.

  Astin and Diana Hill moved through the crowd with cotton candy in hand. Diana was carrying a large stuffed unicorn that she had won from one of those target shooting games that were supposed to be impossible to win. She stopped as they crossed a group from the track team, hanging out on a picnic table. Diana asked Astin to hold on before running over to her team mates.

  The varsity track team consisted of five people, aside from Diana and Lewis Mercer. Jimmy and Joey Cooper were brothers, two years apart. They were both six feet tall and extremely skinny. Alexis Ruiz was a tiny freshman with a lot of energy. She had black hair, large eyes, and over-sized ears that stuck out. Her boyfriend, also on the team, was Scott Snyder. Scott had curly ginger hair and freckles that fused together in place of a tan. The last member of the team was Ryan Bear. Ryan’s mother was Kenyan, and he had inherited her sharp cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes.

  Alexis and Scott were too busy making out to greet Diana. The Cooper brothers stopped whatever they were talking about to high-five Astin and praise him for a show he had played last week at the youth center.