Birthday

Abstract

Birthday Kevin Wilson (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Photo by Denis Defreyne [End Page 32] Tanya, who had only a week ago discovered that she was pregnant, woke to the now unremarkable sensation that her stomach was twisted inside her body. She felt lightheaded, the room not spinning but wobbling around her. Was this morning sickness, she wondered, this intense feeling that you were going to throw up your soul? If she'd go to a doctor, maybe they could tell her what was happening, but she refused to go just yet, still not sure how to proceed with this baby, still hoping for a ghost pregnancy. All she had was the Internet, which told her to drink lots of fluids, as if she wouldn't immediately throw it back up, or to hold fresh mint to her nose, as if she could find fresh mint within a fifty-mile radius of her house. [End Page 33] Her father was in the kitchen, banging around for something to eat that would soak up the alcohol from the night before. She looked at her clock and saw that it was six in the morning; she pulled the covers over her head and wallowed in her misery. A few minutes later, her father walked into the room, eating a Pop-Tart, shaking her exposed foot to wake her. "Dad, please. I need sleep," she said. "When did you get home?" he asked. "Late." "I didn't even notice you come in," he replied. He had been passed out in his easy chair, the TV volume eight clicks too loud, when she crept into the house. Ever since her mother had died, her father slept on the couch, in the easy chair, or sometimes on the front porch when it was warm enough. The bedroom had turned into his closet, a place he entered only to change clothes. "Dad, I'm so tired. And I think I'm getting sick. I need to sleep a little more," Tanya said, fighting the urge to gag. "Well," he continued, "only thing I wanted to say is that maybe you didn't remember, it's Matt's birthday today." "I forgot," Tanya admitted, feeling sheepish that her father, as disconnected from reality as he was, had remembered. "Well, I can't get away from the market today, or anytime soon for that matter. It would cheer him up to see you." "I have to work today," Tanya said. The thought of driving three hours to Knoxville to see her mentally ill brother, who was now living in some kind of sketchy halfway house, filled her with intense anxiety. "Fair enough, honey," her father said. "Maybe give him a call when you get a chance, though he don't have a cell phone, so I left the number for the pay phone that they can use." "Okay, Dad," Tanya said, praying that he would leave. "You be home for dinner tonight?" he asked. "No," she said. "Me neither," he said. And that, finally, was it; her father out of her room, humming a jingle from a commercial, and Tanya still held the secret of her pregnancy within her. The father of this baby raced dirt bikes, was trying to turn pro. Even when she had been having sex with him, she knew it was a bad idea. She [End Page 34] knew what was waiting for him: a broken neck. And if he didn't bend himself into a pretzel, what would there be? But she hadn't cared. She hadn't even considered continuing the relationship. It had just been sex. She was going to community college after this summer, would get a decent job, and one day, deep into the future, she would tell her husband about this boy she'd dated who rode dirt bikes, who had a tattoo of the logo for an energy drink, who kept calling her Tonya. And now, fuck, he was the father of her unborn baby. She would never tell him, and she imagined, deep down, that he would not have believed he was actually the father, would have driven his dirt bike away from...