“No sir, but,-,”
“Let me tell you a story, Mr. Hamilton,” said Mr. Tally. “When I was sixteen, I met what I thought was the love of my life. I loved that girl so much. Make a long story short she got pregnant.”
“Did you marry her?”
“I wanted to,” said Mr. Tally. “She said no. We were too young. After a while, I realized that she was right, but that came later. First, we had to tell our parents and go through the fire. Her father wanted to kill me. My parents wanted to kill me. She was a preacher’s kid and abortion was out of the question.”
“So, what happened?”
“Well, she had the baby,” said Mr. Tally. “I grew up overnight. I worked at McDonald’s and bought diapers and finished high school. Karen decided that she didn’t want to keep dating after she got pregnant. It was like she hated me, like it was all my fault. We didn’t get to go to prom or football games, stuff like that. She had the baby and I had to work. My parents would not let me quit school, so both of us went away to different colleges the next year. She took my daughter with her.”
“Then what happened?” asked Damon.
“I visited every weekend, until she let me know that I wasn’t welcome, because she’d met somebody else. He was in the service. She got married when we were nineteen and moved away and I only saw my daughter on the holidays for a few years. Finally, I got finished with school and moved here to be closer to my daughter. I went to court and got joint custody and she stayed with me three nights a week and at her mother’s four nights a week. Now, she’s twenty-two and finishing up college this year.”
“That makes sense,” said Damon.
“Yeah, but if I had given up my dream of education, I’d still be flipping burgers at McDonald’s, trying to pay back child support. I might never have gotten to know my daughter. The way we raised her wasn’t the ideal, but my daughter accepted it because she didn’t know anything different. It was hard but we made it through.”
“You’re telling me I shouldn’t quit school,” said Damon looking stubborn. “But then how would I take care of my baby?”
“No,” said Mr. Tally. “I’m telling you that you are seventeen and you’re not competent to make decisions about the rest of your life. You need to go home and talk to your parents about this and decide what you are going to do with the young lady and your baby, with them. This will not go away, even if you don’t go to college. I’m telling you that there two ways you can go in this life. The easy way, where you give up because everything is not going your way, or the right way. You got to decide which way you want to go there even if the right way is the hard way to go.”
“My parents are going to flip straight out,” said Damon. “They can’t really afford another mouth to feed.”
“They might surprise you,” said Mr. Tally. “But you have to give them the chance to help you.”
“Okay.”
“If you think it would make it easier or they are going to get violent or something, we can have the meeting in my office,” said Mr. Tally.
“Naw,” said Damon, shaking his head. “I have to do it at home. It’s just so unfair that my whole life is about to get wrecked.”
“Damon, let me ask you a question,” said Mr. Tally.
“Sir?” said Damon, meeting his eyes.
“What if this was your sister and some boy was trying to walk away from her?”
Damon felt rage sweep over him and had the grace to look ashamed.
“I’d want to kill him,” said Damon.
“This girl is somebody’s sister or daughter, right?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, feeling his shirt collar tighten and his dreams wither. Stuck. “I understand.”
Sasha
Sasha sat waiting with her cell phone. Her mother hadn’t spoken more than a few words to her since she had come home. They lived in a precarious cease fire that neither one of them wanted to break. Sasha was still a bit queasy, but feeling better, stronger, since she was home and had let Damon know about the baby. Now, she just had to wait.
Damon
“Dad,” said Damon, stepping into his father’s office. He figured he should just get it over with. The talk with Mr. Tally had given him a little courage to face the fire. That didn’t mean he wasn’t terrified, though. He stopped and took a deep breath.
He’d waited until his mother left to take Jada to a debutante meeting. It was ten days since he’d found out that he was going to be a father and a week until Christmas. He’d not said anything to Brielle, just told her that he was distracted by his applications, finals and work. He told her that he was anxious about getting into college and she’d believed him.
“It’ll be okay,” Brielle had said. “You are brilliant, you’ll get into anyplace you apply to and probably get some money, too.”
Damon had never felt worse about a lie in his life. He’d had two asthma attacks since, which had his mother looking at him all concerned, so he’d stayed in his room even more than usual, to avoid the confrontation that he knew that he’d have to face sooner rather than later, since Sasha was threatening to come over and tell his parents if he didn’t. He figured if his father wanted to beat him to death, he could do it and get it over with. Then he wouldn’t have to face his mother.
He cleared his throat.
“Dad?” his voice came out tentative and choked. Damon’s father looked up from his desk.
“Yes, Damon,” said Mr. Hamilton. He took his glasses off and cleaned them with a chamois cloth. He put his glasses back on. “I’m
