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  “And come on, my butt is healing! I’m just about fully operational at this juncture.”

  “Listen, I just want you to be blissfully unaware, okay?” Maggie said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because you have a dead mom and your dad’s gone and your brother drinks too much.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Darius passed out with nachos last night.”

  “And your mom, Taco,” Maggie said. “Your mom.”

  This surprised me a little bit. Nobody—and I mean nobody—ever mentioned my mom. I thought everyone had forgotten about her other than me, Dad, and my drunk brother.

  “My mom and dad would’ve killed you by now, you know?” Maggie said. “If they didn’t feel sorry for you, you’d be in jail.”

  Leaves were falling all around us. Orange and yellow and red. The sun was out. It was so beautiful there in Maggie’s neighborhood. Today is the best day ever. I didn’t want to dwell on the past or on who wanted to kill me or put me in jail. I wanted to talk about the future. Our future!

  “Not to change the subject,” I said, “but did you know you’re pregnant?”

  Maggie stopped cold in her tracks. She glared up at me. “What the hell, Taco?”

  “I…I’m just saying,” I said.

  “Yeah, no shit, I know,” Maggie snapped.

  “Were you trying to get pregnant?” I asked.

  “Jesus. No!”

  That surprised me a little, dingus. “Okay. Do your parents—”

  “I know, but nobody else does. I drove all the way to Dubuque for that test. How do you know?”

  “Darius told me.”

  “What? Darius?”

  “Yeah! I listed your symptoms because I thought you were possessed by a ghost, but he said you were pregnant. I did some independent research, which concurred with his assessment.”

  Maggie’s face fell. “I have to do something,” she said. “I’d better do something.”

  “Well, I was thinking,” I said.

  Maggie’s eyes opened wide like she was totally ready for any wisdom or solution I might have to offer her. “You were?”

  “Yes. And I have a plan.”

  Maggie exhaled hard. “Okay, good. Because I can’t handle this by myself.”

  I grabbed her hands in my hands. “Listen. We’ve got this. We’ll get married. You can move into the suite, and we’ll raise our baby. This is great, right? Married! I want to make a family with you for sure.”

  Maggie yanked her hands away from me. “Shit, Taco!”

  “What?”

  “Just shut up! You shut up!” Maggie’s head looked like it might totally explode.

  “Shut up?” I asked. “Why?”

  “Because! I don’t want to be…I want to be on the dance team in college!” she shouted.

  “That’s cool. That’s great,” I said.

  “Shit, man!” And then she took off running. I’ve already mentioned how amazingly fast she is, and with my unholy coccyx, there was no point in giving chase, so I just stood there and watched her tear down the street with that perfect running form that comes so naturally to her.

  This probably shouldn’t be a great memory. She was trying to get away from me after all. But wow. She looked so determined and powerful, you know? Plus Maggie Corrigan is killer hot. So sweet-assed hot when she starts taking off like a gazelle like that.

  The memory hurts too.

  I do totally love her. It hurts when you’re a junkie.

  Chapter 5

  I didn’t want Maggie to feel so bad. Sure, for a sixteen-year-old, getting pregnant isn’t exactly living the dream when you don’t want to be pregnant.

  Or maybe it is, being filled with life?

  Life is a gift, my mom said. Today is the best day ever, right? Today is what we’ve got, so what are you going to do about it? I decided I’d start learning what it was going to take to be a good dad and husband because Maggie was pregnant even if she wanted to be on a college dance team.

  I brewed myself a fine hot Lipton tea, which is what my mom did when she had to concentrate on something for long hours. I sat down at the computer and began to research.

  First things first. I had to figure out when our baby would enter the world.

  I did some searching, some thinking. I wrote out some notes. I put a pencil behind my ear. I felt like a real adult.

  I’ll tell you one thing, dingus, trying to figure out a due date is no easy task. You don’t just say, “Okay, September sexy plus nine months equals May, so…baby’s coming in May.” The pregnancy people on the Internet use some kind of higher-powered algebra to get this thing calculated. It goes something like this:

  Approximate date of inception minus two weeks equals date of lady’s last little friend plus forty weeks equals the blessed due date.

  Or to put it in the mathematical shorthand, I scribbled out on my notepad:

  DOI – 2W = DOLLLF + 40W = DD.

  The math itself isn’t so hard (other than the fact that as the guy in the relationship, I wasn’t exactly sure of the lady’s last little friend, so I wasn’t totally sure I was getting it right). Why do I say it’s higher-powered algebra then? Because check this out: From accessing my memory, I believed me and the Mags conceived our little baby right around the seventh of September, although it could’ve been a couple days before or a couple days after. We were doing it like monkeys around that time. I drew a monkey swinging from the vines on the calendar. Maggie was unstoppable for those few days, which I figured must be evidence that her body was craving my seed in a biological sense (ovulating), even though we were doing it for recreational purposes.

  Using the seventh, I applied this formula and came up with this: Sept. 7 – 2W = Aug. 24 + 40W = May 30.

  The due date! May 30 is when I would be a dad and start a new Taco family.

  Then I squinted at the calculation. Something seemed nonsensical. Or maybe magical! See, according to this calculation from the expert pregnancy people on the Internet, Maggie had been pregnant since August 24. I stood up from my chair. On August 24, we were both snow-white virgins. How could she already have been pregnant? Holy, holy, holy!

  The world is filled with magic. I went over to the couch, and I fell on my face because it was so crazy. Our love made Maggie pregnant when we were both still virgins. That’s a miracle. That’s destiny. Our child would be destiny’s child.

  I pictured our baby traveling to poor countries and sharing cash and vaccines and comic books with all the needy children.

  I was pretty dang psyched. After I took in the immensity of it all—I did a little praying and talking to my mom via meditation—I leaped back to the computer and wrote this all in an email and sent it to Maggie.

  She didn’t respond right away. When she did respond, she didn’t get all psyched about the miracle of the virgin pregnancy, but instead she suggested I calm down a little.

  She wrote:

  Yeah, that’s weird, but it’s only a calculation meant to figure out the due date, so I don’t think there’s really anything miraculous about it. Listen. Please don’t be excited, Taco. I don’t know what to do about anything, okay? I’m not ready to be a mom, so you know…

  Well, balls! I knew what to do. Life is a miracle! Like I am and Maggie is and my mom was. It was our job to take care of it.

  At school all the following week, I handed Maggie folded-up sketches I made of different master suite configurations that would allow for a king-size bed, a crib, and a giant-screen TV. One sketch had all the junk removed, and there was straw on the floor and a manger. And I drew me and Maggie as Joseph and Mary. I drew some donkeys, camels, goats, and wise men too. She thought it was a joke, which made her laugh a little, which was nice. I missed that.

  Later I redrew the master suite and added a changing table to the diagram. I als
o drew a sketch of the giant, wise lion (spirit animal) I wanted to paint on the suite’s wall. These drawings didn’t make Maggie smile. In fact, I saw her throw out my sketch of the lion like two minutes after I gave it to her. When she walked away, I ran over to the garbage and saved it. I had worked for an hour on that sucker!

  For the following two weeks, Maggie barely wanted to talk. She didn’t come over to visit or call the house, and even though I wanted to, I didn’t go to her house. I didn’t want to make her more upset.

  Oh no, I didn’t blame my girl. She wasn’t feeling very well. I could see it in her face. Her stomach was upset. I only wished I was there in the morning to hold her hair back when she barfed.

  At the end of that second week, Maggie actually missed the final football game of the season, a play-off game. We lost, which meant football cheerleading was done too. One of the other cheerleaders, Carrie Cramer, told me Maggie had the stomach flu.

  I didn’t say, Oh no! Wicked morning sickness lasting all day long, but I sure thought it.

  It would’ve been easier if I had a cell phone so I could text. As soon as Carrie told me about Maggie, I wanted to tell Maggie how much I loved her and how it would all be okay. But I had to wait until I got home to use the computer. Then I had to wait even longer because Darius was playing Minecraft (even though our Internet lagged and he got killed all the time by richer fellows with computers that actually worked fast, and that shit drove him to swear and break pencils and things).

  After Darius finally got too frustrated to play anymore and went to bed, I sent her a message.

  Maggie, I’ve read up on this, and your illness will probably not last too much longer. We will be in the second trimester soon. Most ladies don’t have a ton of vomiting during the second trimester. So hang tough, lady pal!

  Maggie wrote back on Saturday morning.

  Taco, I have been online, and supposedly the thing inside me looks like a shrimp from someone’s shrimp cocktail. I’m not ready for it to turn into a baby. I have to tell my parents I’m pregnant. I think maybe I want an abortion. Probably need one. I’m sorry.

  Abortion. Abortion. Abortion.

  Oh no, dingus. Abortion had never occurred to me, which is crazy because my mom was politically active about that. She was on the pro-choice team because of what she saw as a nurse. And my mom was a good person, but this didn’t feel good.

  I fell into my bed and cried, which I never really did before Maggie got pregnant. I didn’t cry when Mom died. Not when Dad moved up north. Not when Darius got arrested. Instead of crying, I’d lie as still as a dead man in my bed, in the yard, or on the floor of the basement when it was too hot. But I never cried—not until I thought about the miracle baby being dead. I tried to lie still, but instead I wailed and soaked my sheets (just like Maggie had not too long before).

  In some ways it was like all the hard things—Mom, Dad, and Darius—got wrapped up in my crying about the baby. I pictured my little miracle baby and Mom. I pictured Mom getting married to Dad. I pictured the birth of Darius and how happy Mom and Dad must’ve been, not knowing that he would have anger issues from a past life. I pictured Mom hugging me as a baby.

  I cried so hard for so long, I threw up. Like I was the one with morning sickness. I sort of had morning sickness in a way. I was filled up with so much sadness. I felt really sad for Maggie too. She had to tell her parents that she was pregnant, which would be so tough. They had to know I was the father, a boy named Taco. So sad for everyone involved.

  But today is the best day I’ve ever had, so…

  In the afternoon I crawled out of bed and crawled to the computer and wrote:

  Maggie, I support you. When you speak to your parents, please refer to me by my given name, William, and not by Taco, which is just a nickname I got because I ate so many tacos while I was in second grade.

  Thank you,

  William Keller

  Maggie didn’t write me back the rest of the day. I tried to read The Dark Tower, but I couldn’t. I tried to do calc, but I couldn’t. I tried to look at the Internet, but I couldn’t. I tried to watch TV, but I couldn’t. In the end, I looked at my parents’ wedding album for like six hours. I stared at every single picture. Everybody was dead. Two grandparents, one mom. All their smiles, gone.

  I drew a couple pictures of the baby and me kicking a soccer ball in the backyard. I couldn’t make the backyard look right. It looked totally stupid. Like a little kid drew it.

  I kept repeating to myself, This is the best day ever.

  I didn’t feel so great though. Not at all.

  Chapter 6

  The landline rang (well, it sort of bleats like a dying sheep) in the middle of the night. Dingus, when your mom is dead, your dad is several hundred miles away in an enormous pit mine, and your brother is Darius, calls in the middle of the night are unsettling. I jumped out of bed and ran down the hall (healing buttocks–okay running). Then I tripped on Darius, who was passed out in front of the bathroom. (This harmed my buttocks a little, but I was relieved he wasn’t the source of the call.) I got to the phone in the kitchen before the thing went to voice mail.

  “Are you dead, Dad?”

  “Shh. It’s me,” said a voice.

  “Shh, who?” I asked.

  “Maggie,” said the voice. “Can I come over? It’s kind of important.”

  I looked at the clock on the oven, which said 8:22 p.m. I looked out the window through the back door. It was pitch-black like the devil in his dark black suit. “I think my clock is wrong. What time is it?”

  “It’s just after one. I don’t have to come over, I guess, but I’d like to see you,” Maggie whispered. “Mary will drive me, so they won’t say I stole the car.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The evil, soul-crushing adults who live in my house.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can I come?”

  “My door always swings on welcome hinges for you, Maggie.”

  “Please just cut the bullshit, Taco. I’m on my way.”

  In the five minutes between Maggie’s shock-the-monkey call and Mary dropping her at the front door, I managed to drag Darius’s unconscious body down the stairs and into his basement bedroom. Once on the way down, I kind of dropped him. He woke up super quick, smiled (upside down), pointed at me, and said, “Kayla Kronstadt is getting married.”

  “To who?” I asked.

  “A man. But not me, because I’m a dumb-ass fish boy who wastes his life,” he said. Then he sobbed or laughed and closed his eyes again.

  Whatever it was that Darius poured in his mouth bled out of his pores. He was a stale stink factory. The booze smell was so big that it overwhelmed his natural fish odor. Very gross. But still, I felt terrible for him and his lost high school girlfriend. He had thought he’d marry her one day.

  “I’m so sorry, Darius,” I whispered. “I’m really sorry about Kayla.”

  Two minutes later, me with my bear claw slippers on because my feet had gotten frozen like ice cubes down in Darius’s basement, I answered a quiet knocking on the door. I got there in time to see that fantastic Subaru wagon pull away from the curb.

  I didn’t see what shape Maggie was in until we got into the living room and I turned on the lamp. My girl looked like she’d swallowed a pail of nails. Her blue eyes were big. Her face was drained and splotchy with tears. She sat quietly on the couch and stared across the room, through the wall, out into the terrifying emptiness of space.

  “You okay, Maggie?” I asked. I sat on Dad’s old burgundy recliner, but I didn’t recline it. I sat way forward.

  “My parents didn’t take the news very well.”

  “They’re not happy about the baby?”

  She turned to me. “Yeah, no shit, Taco. They’re not happy, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Her eyes drifted back to the wall
. “Mom was so pissed. I mean, she was furious. She wouldn’t stop yelling. And you know what? I was glad she was mad. She was right,” Maggie said.

  “No, she’s not right,” I said.

  Her voice got so quiet. “She is. I’m stupid and irresponsible. Mom was so…I wish she’d killed me. I want to be dead.”

  “No! No, you don’t!” I stood fast, crossed to the couch, and kneeled in front of her. I grabbed her hands. “No! Please don’t say that stuff, Maggie. Okay?”

  “Mom called me a slut,” Maggie whispered. “A stupid slut. If…if anyone ever uses that word in front of her, she freaks. She says it’s ignorant and violent to use that word, but she called me one anyway.”

  I tried to get her to look at me, but she wouldn’t.

  “Then I called her a hypocrite and a bitch, and Dad had to, like, bear hug her because she wanted to hit me.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’ll get better. You’ll feel shipshape in the morning.” I wasn’t sure what I was saying. That’s what my mom would tell me if I got sick in the middle of the night. You’ll feel shipshape in the morning. What the hell does that even mean? “Really. It’s going to be okay, okay?”

  “It’s not, because I want to be dead.”

  “No!” I shouted. “You do not want to be dead! Because you’re amazing. You’re smart and good. You’re radiant!”

  When I said radiant, she turned from the wall and looked at me. “You’re so full of shit.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. That’s why I’m here. Dad pulled Mom away from me, and I ran upstairs. I thought I should be dead, but then I thought about you. I thought, All that stuff Taco says about me—all that stuff he says—he believes it.”

  “Yes, I do. I’m not full of shit. I think you’re the best, most beautiful person in the world,” I said.

  “Mary doesn’t like you, but she says you really love me.”

  “I do. One hundred percent.”

  Maggie held my hands tightly. “I only feel happy when I’m with you. Even when you make me mad, I’m happy when I’m with you.”