Due Date

With who I loved, with who I wanted to build a family with? And starting with a pregnancy and a baby, it was anything but ordinary.

That Norman Rockwell painting didn’t have the sister heavy with child and being romantically kissed by the two brothers while their two friends looked on to have their turn.

On top of everything else? Now I worried about ruining my mother’s dream. Taking away what she’s wanted for so long, all so I could be selfish.

I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted my mother to have that picturesque family she wanted.

Even if secretly I had already ruined that.

“Mom, that’s wonderful and all,” I said, breaking up her fantasy before she got into how we would all have to wear matching outfits. “But I want to talk about going to another school.”

I hadn’t even told Kelly that. I didn’t want to break her heart, because I knew she didn’t have the means to follow me if I switched this late.

“Oh... what’s the problem then? Is something wrong, Grace? You’re not settling into our new home like you thought you would?”

“Uh... I guess you could say that.”

“Oh, dear. What’s the matter? Too weird to be living with your former high school principal and the boys who you’d known as friends?”

“No, Mom, not that.”

“Are you sure? Is it the boys? Have they been harassing you?”

“Uh... as in...?”

“Giving you trouble? It’s them, isn’t it? Ryan warned me that his sons were potentially troublemakers.”

“Mom, it’s not that. Really.”

“He loves those boys, but they’re relentless hot heads sometimes. Maybe they see teasing you as a sort of affection, or maybe they aren’t taking this well. Oh, we’ll figure something out. I’ll have a talk with Ryan.”

For what felt like the eighteenth time in the past fifteen minutes, my head hit my palm.

One little detail and my mother crafted a whole alternative narrative.

She was the head of the high school math department, but damn if I didn’t think she should have been a writer sometimes.

“Mom, really, don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal. I just want a change in my life. I’ve been in Franklin forever. Isn’t it about time I saw more of the world?”

She stayed silent for a time and I heard birds singing in the background, she must have been in the garden. “Sure. I guess I can see that. I just don’t know if I’m ready for my baby chick to fly from the nest.”

Mothers would always struggle, I supposed. She wasn’t even ready to know that her chick was about to have chicks of her own. Damn, I dreaded telling her. Pregnant at eighteen ruined that whole Norman Rockwell painting family she had envisioned for herself.

“You should come home for dinner tonight. The boys won’t be here.”

Swell, she was still convinced they were the problem. It bothered me that she wasn’t wrong. It was just the utterly opposite extreme to reality.

“Thanks, Mom. I’ll be sure to be there.”

I loved her to death, and I wanted to make sure that she knew whatever happened was most definitely not her fault.

She deserved that peace of mind—more than anyone else.

We ended our call, and I was left staring up at the ceiling and unable to concentrate on anything else. I got up and decided to at least look clean, prim, and proper for dinner.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

RYAN BAKER

That has to be the lamest party I've ever been to, and I've been to enough to have some solid reference points.

The Arlington High lacrosse team wanted to say goodbye to their seniors, such as myself, so they threw a separate party from the rest of the school. More of a mid-summer bash, really, long after the graduation parties.

Except the coaches sponsored it, so that meant many teenage boys shuffling around and not a sniff of alcohol. And absolutely no chance of mingling with the girls’ team in hopes of something interesting happening.

Not that I was particularly interested in all of that.

I had my sights set on one girl, and no reason to settle for anything less.

Especially given what we all suspected, there was a strong chance I was soon to be either a father or an uncle.

The time away from her just made me grow more and more fonder of her, making me savor what I had. Funny how that worked.

Heading back to my home, my father me as I opened the door, and he looked far from happy.

“Ryan Reginald Baker III, where do you get off behaving the way you do?!” he shouted. When I was much shorter, he might have grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, but the well-practiced tone was enough to make me quake like a small naughty school boy.

Dad stood about six inches shorter than me, and he was nowhere as near built. But he had an imposing presence.