“Your body will never be the same. The moment you start to show, it’s ruined. That’s what happened when I got pregnant with you.” The echo of her mom’s voice rang in her head, drowning out what the nurse was saying as she prepped her for the ultrasound.
Rion hated how negative her mother was about her pregnancy. Getting pregnant so young might not have been her mother’s plan for her, but she had gotten pregnant with Rion around the same age, and the least she could do was being understanding about it. Was it too much to ask that she keep her negative comments and opinions to herself? These things happened, especially to the women in their family. It was almost a family tradition to have a child out of wedlock before you graduated high school. As far as Rion was concerned, she was just keeping up the family tradition.
This wasn’t her first ultrasound, but it was the big one. Today she would know if she was carrying a boy or a girl. Rion hoped with everything in her that it was the latter. The idea of getting to dress up a little girl in pink dresses and bows was a lot of what was getting her through this pregnancy. The loneliness of Isaac's absence plagued her at each doctor’s visit. Every time she passed the baby section at Wal-Mart, her fingers tracing the detailed stitching on the tiny clothes, she missed him. It was hard to come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t here with her when he should be. In the beginning, she would have never guessed that he would be the kind of guy to leave his child without a father.
The doctor walked in the door with a cheerful greeting to Rion. Dr. Avery had always been nice to her even when his nurses weren’t always the kindest. She knew the things people said about her. She saw the way people looked at her belly when she walked down the street. Sometimes she wanted to scream at them to mind their own damn business, but she never did. Instead she looked away, ignoring their toughing stares.
“Are you all by yourself today, young lady?” Dr. Avery asked politely as he flipped through her medical chart on the computer.
“Yep, just me and baby.” Rion sounded happy and upbeat, but inside it pained her a little when the doctor pointed out that she was alone. Not a day went by when she didn’t think about how alone she would be even when the baby was born. Knowing that she would be without the support of Isaac or her mother, Rion tried not to think too far into the future. She knew she’d find a way to make it work, but she wasn’t sure how yet.
“Are we ready to see if the baby is a little boy or girl?”
Rion smiled and nodded, glad to get her mind off her unwanted independence.
“Which way are we leaning?”
“Oh, I’m hoping for a little girl.”
Dr. Avery smiled, “Of course you are. Let’s take a look here…” He moved the ultrasound wand around to find the baby. Usually the baby’s head could be found poking into Rion’s left rib. Today was no different.
On the black and white screen, an outline of a face could be seen. The image was grainy at best, but Rion didn’t even mind. On the screen before her was the most beautiful face she had ever seen. Dr. Avery did the regular checks, showing her how the baby was growing. Together they counted ten fingers, ten toes, and two eyes.
“It’s always good when they only have two eyes.” He jested with a wink. “Now let’s see if we can make out the gender.”
Rion wanted to cross her fingers or hold her breath, but that seemed childish. She was about to be a mother and should probably leave that kind of stuff to her little sister, Emmy. In the back of her mind she told herself that it really didn’t matter whether it was a boy or girl, as long as the baby was healthy and happy. She had pledged to do everything she could to make sure her baby was well taken care of.
“Looks like we have a little boy.”
Dr. Avery smiled at her and Rion tried to smile back, but her lips felt weak. Watery tears leaked from the sides of her eyes. It doesn’t matter, she told herself, as long as the baby is healthy. It doesn’t matter as long as the baby is healthy. The words repeated over and over in her mind, but they didn’t stop the tears.
“There, there, it will be okay. Little boys are fun.” Dr. Avery looked uncomfortable, but he tried to reassure her before he left the room. Rion cleaned herself up and got dressed. She sat back on the table and waited for the nurse to come back in. A few minutes passed and the nurse came back in, reminding her to take her prenatal vitamins and gave her pictures from the ultrasound.
“Don’t forget to make your next appointment before you leave,” the nurse reminded Rion before she left the room.
The sun shown down on Rion as she walked home. The trailer park where she lived wasn’t too far from Main Street where her appointment had been. A small, dull pain lingered in her lower back, but she shuffled her feet forward. The black and white pictures from the ultrasound were in her hand. She hadn’t looked at them again after she took them from the nurse. Rion had been so sure that she was going to have a girl that she almost believed the doctor was wrong.
All she’d ever known her whole life were girls. Her dad was never around and she didn’t have any brothers or even male cousins that she was close to. Now she was having a little boy and had no idea what to do. Worse yet, her little boy wouldn’t even have a dad around to help show him how to be a man.
The thought of Isaac walking out on the two of them made her mad. While she still missed him, she was angry at his disregard for the life they had created together. Before she knew what she was doing, Rion turned away from the trailer park and headed to Isaac’s house. He would be angry and worried that someone would see her at his house, but she didn’t care. What he wanted didn’t matter to her as much anymore.
After two sharp knocks, Isaac answered the door. His eyes glanced over her face first and then traveled to her abdomen. His eyes widened in disbelief. It made sense that he wouldn’t believe her. He didn’t want it to be true, but it was, and here she was to show him.
“Rion, you shouldn’t be here.”
“Whether I should or shouldn’t be here isn’t really up for debate right now. I am here and I need to talk to you.”
“You can’t come in.” His feet shifted. For once, he was nervous. Rion didn’t mind the tables being turned.
“I don’t need to come in. I can do this right here.”
“What do you want?”
“I’m having a boy.” She held up the ultrasound picture of the baby’s face for him to see. “I just thought you should know. I also thought you should know that I don’t know anything about boys. I wanted a girl. I know girls. I can do dresses and bows and tea parties. But I don’t know nothing about boys. This baby needs you, Isaac. I don’t need you and we don’t need to be together, but this little boy that is growing inside of me is going to need a father. He’s going to need you.”
Isaac looked her up and down again. His eyes traveled to her face. Rion wanted to fall into his arms and cry, but she choked her feelings back. She didn’t want him to see how lost she was.
After a long pause, Isaac looked at the ground and simply said, “I can’t.”
“No,” Rion said, willing herself to hold everything in until she was done talking. “It’s not that you can’t. It’s that you won’t.” She turned on her heel and left the father of her unborn child standing at the door.
Tears flooded down her cheeks the rest of the walk home. She had held them in until she heard Isaac go back into his house, but once the door shut it was like a dam had burst. Each step felt like it was taking all of her strength from her. At least the pain in her feet and back took her mind off of how empty she felt. Before, being on her own with a baby seemed hard, but possible, but now it seemed completely impossible.
When she got home and closed the screen door behind her, Rion’s mom was in the kitchen. The whole subject of the baby was causing a rift between them. Rion hadn’t even asked her mom to go with her to any of the doctor’s appointments because she didn’t want to fight more than they already were. But with tear stained cheeks, she looked across the living room of their tra
iler to the kitchen where her mom stood.
“Mama,” she said, her voice sounding like it belonged to someone else.
Rion’s mother, Jules looked up at her oldest daughter and saw the tracks of her tears. She stopped chopping the vegetables for dinner and whisked over to her baby girl. Her hands went to Rion’s face, sliding her thumbs across her pink cheeks to wipe away what was left of the sadness that marked her daughter’s face.
“Baby girl, what is the matter?” Jules’s voice was thick with her southern accent. It was always there but it became heavier when she was emotional.
“I’m having a baby boy.”
“Well isn’t that a good thing? He’s healthy isn’t he?”
Rion nodded and began to cry again. “I don’t think I can do this. I just can’t be a mom. I don’t know nothing about boys.” All the doubts and fears she had were bubbling up inside her throat and spilling out of her lips.
Jules put a hand on each side of her daughter’s face and made her look up at her. “You listen to me darlin’. Babies are all the same, they have the same needs when they’re first born. The other stuff, you can learn.”
Rion shook her head, unable to believe that she was strong enough to do this.
“This is your chance, Rion. You get to raise a little boy to be a great man. Better than your father or his father. You get to raise a sweet little baby boy into a man that we can be proud of. You can do this.”
Rion looked up at her mother, her eyes rimmed red from all the crying. Determination filled her mother’s features. For years Rion had watched her mom raise her and Emmy by herself. She was the strongest woman she’d ever known. She had stayed up all night with Emmy while she was sick and then work a double shift at the diner. There were days when she knew her mom went without just so they could have enough. She was a mother and a father to them both and if she could do it alone, Rion could do it too.
“Do you really believe that?”
“I do, baby girl, and you’re not doing it alone. You’ve got me. I’m not going to kick you out of the house like my mama did. We’ll get through this together.”
Jules wrapped her arms around her oldest daughter and pulled her close. She ran her fingers through her hair and held them there for a minute. It would be hard, on all of them. Things would be tight, but for the first time Rion really believed that she could be a great mother.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Two Months Before the Outbreak
Nolan was leaned up against the railing of the porch smoking a cigarette when he saw the white cop car pull in the small rock driveway. The lights were off which meant this wasn’t an emergency call. Nolan knew it could only mean that Deputy Do Right was carting Frank home in all his glory. Nolan was never surprised when the Dyersville police force showed up at his house at anytime of day. If they didn’t come at least once a week something just didn’t seem right to Nolan.
“Hey Nolan,” Tripp said, greeting him with Frank leaned up against him. Frank’s arm was pulled around Tripp’s shoulders, his other hand around Frank’s waist. It wasn’t an easy balancing act, Nolan knew from experience. “Where do you want him?”
“The couch is fine.” Nolan opened the screen door for the duo and watched as Tripp tried to maneuver awkwardly into the house. Seeing that it was going to be hard to lower Frank to the couch, Nolan lended a hand. His old man turned over slowly on the couch. One foot dug into the other until his boot fell off, then he repeated the process with the other one. The boot fell to the floor with a slam, making a noise that would have woken anyone up except the drunk fool who made it. It was hard not to be mad, watching his drunk deadbeat dad get comfortable on the couch, but Nolan hadn’t known his old man to be any other way. Maybe he had been different before his mom died, but Nolan didn’t remember. He did his best to block out any memories from before she passed away.
Tripp motioned for Nolan to come outside with him. On the porch, he lit another cigarette, causing the officer of the law to shake his head at the brazen teen.
“I know you’re not old enough to smoke.”
“I know you’re not gonna do anything about it.” Nolan chuckled when he replied. Busting teenagers for smoking wasn’t high on Deputy Do Right’s to do list. He knew that there were a lot of kids in Dyersville who were just trying to get by. Some of them smoke and some of them drank, but if they were safe about it, Tripp was usually pretty understand.
“Well, maybe just this once.” Tripp laughed along with Nolan. The two of them had a decent rapport. Along with the other officers, Tripp knew that Frank was a shit dad. They did their best to make sure that Nolan was okay despite of his lack of parentage. Tripp was one of the good ones, Nolan knew that from the experience. He didn’t have many people in the world, but if he was ever in a bind and really needed help, Nolan knew that he could call Tripp. He may kid with him and call him Deputy Do Right, but that name was actually well deserved.
“You know, my old man use to hit the bottle pretty hard too.”
Everyone in town knew about Tripp’s dad same as they knew about Frank. The two of them could probably have gone toe to toe in a drinking challenge if Tripp’s old man was still alive. The difference between the two was that Tripp’s dad, Marvin, was tough as nails. He’d been alive for some of the toughest times in the country for farmers. Marvin was a veteran, a father, and a little bit of a ladies man. Tripp’s mom had married his dad when she was thirty-five and Marvin was sixty. Frank was generally just a lazy, depressed person, but Marvin was a bird of a different feather. He could be having a goodnatured conversation with someone and then flip as fast as a coin, eviscerated the person he was talking to with nothing but his tongue. Townsfolk kindly referred to him as a mean old bastard. He’d only been alive to see Tripp reach junior high, but he had left his youngest son with some vivid memories.
“I know it ain’t easy, having a dad like that.” Tripp started to say, knowing that he could completely understand how hard Nolan had it. “I remember when my old man tied one on so bad, he forgot which kid I was and what year it was, and he tried to skin me alive for something my brother Tommy had done ten years before.”
Tripp was the youngest of four boys. They were all half siblings, all sons of Marvin’s with different moms. Timothy, Trent, Tommy, and Tripp. He had never asked if all their names started with the same letter for a reason. As the youngest by fifteen years, Tripp had never been close to his older brothers. None of them lived with Marvin and once they became teenagers they stopped coming around for visits unless their mothers made them. Tripp’s mom, Diana, had been a kind soul and he had no idea how she managed to put up with his old man until he passed. She always meant well, but she knew better than to step between Marvin and one of his boys, no matter how senile the old bastard was.
“He bout whipped me black and blue with a belt that night. He would have, if I hadn’t been able to out run him.”
Nolan couldn’t help but laugh. It had probably scared Tripp nearly to death that night, but it was funny some years later. He’d never had that problem since he was an only child, but there were times Frank had mistaken him for other people. He’d thought Nolan was everyone from his girlfriend’s husband to the bookie he owed money to in Chicago from the early eighties.
“I’ve heard you’re old man was a real mean one. People still talk about him.”
“Yeah, well it’s a small town, there isn’t much to talk about.”
The duo stood in silence for a moment. Tripp tried to find the right words to convey what he wanted Nolan to know. While smoking his cigarette, Nolan tried not to let his emotions get the best of him. He resented Frank, but from what he knew about Tripp’s old man, he had it good. Frank was never too hard to handle when he was drunk. He hardly ever got violent and if he did it was against a possession, not a person.
“Don’t let it get to you,” Tripp said, finding some of the sentiment he wanted to share. “I know it’s not easy and it probably won’t be until you’re out on your
own. But it isn’t long now. Just focus on school and work, that cute girlfriend of yours. You’ll make it through.”
“Yeah, Frank isn’t all bad.” Nolan looked over his shoulder into the living room window. His old man was still sprawled out on the couch, his face pushed up against a pillow. “I appreciate you guys always looking out for him. I know you could lock him up a lot more than you do.”
“Yeah, well, they could’ve done the same to ol’ Marvin.”
Nolan shifted, unsure if he wanted to say what was on his mind. “I know that you guys could turn me into the state. I could have ended up in a foster home. I’m glad that you never have.”
“Well someone has to be here to look after Frank.” Tripp smiled weakly. “I should get back to duty.” He turned to walk down the steps, but stopped and looked back at Nolan. “I’m always here if you need anything. Even if you just need to talk.”
“Thanks, Tripp.”
Nolan stood and watched the cop car pull away to make the rounds around town. He didn’t think he could ever tell Tripp how much it meant that he looked out for him and Frank, but he hoped that some how, Deputy Do Right knew it just the same.
CHAPTER EIGHT
One Month Before the Outbreak
The General was standing outside with a basketball in his hands when Drew pulled up to the curb in front of their house. Her hand rested on the ignition a few seconds longer than it should have. This wasn’t what she wanted to do after school. All Drew wanted was to go up into her room and call Kimber, ignoring her homework and other responsibilities, and most of all, her dad . She contemplated putting the car back in drive and not getting out at all. This day had been long enough without ending it with a good long lecture from the General.
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