See Page 21 for story and outstanding illustrations!
A MAP OF REALITY
by MaryAnne Kolton
Bethann Dean was
huge, like the Goodyear blimp, only rounder.
And only in front. If you were
walking behind her, you wouldn’t even know she was pregnant. She stood on the driveway, in the dark, next
to the car, with her pink polka dot, overnight bag, looking … determined? Impatient?
Resigned? Hard to tell. Lloyd raced from room to room, making sure
all the lights were off, throwing some salmon kibble at the cat dish and
grabbing several energy bars.
“Lloyd, please!”
she hollered. She had yelled these same
two words, at exactly the same volume and with the identical tone of exigency,
on the afternoon the blimp had been created.
Lloyd’s parents were on a cruise.
The couple was on his bed, her legs wrapped tight around his lower
back. He didn’t have a condom and she
wasn’t on the pill. They had been dating
for three months. He had graduated from
high school three days before. Bethann
had one more year to go.
