Here he comes to save the day
Sixteen year old Jean hadn’t thought too much about her future when she spread her legs for Damian. She liked Mighty Mouse comic books, she liked vanilla ice cream and black olives, not together, and she liked to kiss boys, until one thing lead to another and first base was in the rear view mirror.
“I’m pregnant.” She said to him right after her first period class in the hall outside his locker as if by telling him this news, she could give away the dilemma, snapping a forward hand-off to him she knew nothing about.
“Shut up. You are not.” He said. Jean thought about the last time she had swimmer’s ear. His words were received with the same force of that newly unclogged ear canal and she felt like running, but instead she went to second period as she had the day before; before she knew that she had a life growing inside of her, effortlessly crawling into a previously visited parallel universe, the place where Mighty Mouse always comes to save the day.
After disclosure day, Jean and Damian avoided each other in the hall and Jean did not wonder if he was relying on Mighty Mouse too, because as far as she was concerned, there was no problem. Sometimes teenage girls don’t get the monthly news, and sometimes teenage girls gain weight and that is when large tee shirts and eating rice cakes can make a difference.
On the night she went into labor, her mother was in a deep sleep downstairs. At first Jean wondered if the red hot candies she ate were the cause of her stomach cramps. “It must be. It will pass,” and when it didn’t, unable to lean on Mighty Mouse any longer, she watched as he flew far far away from her, searching somewhere else for solvable problems.
It was then that Jean realized she had to wake up her mother and tell her she no longer had to worry about her daughter’s weight gain, asking her mother if she would mind calling the doctor.
“Now?” Said her mother. “It’s the middle of the night. What could be so wrong that can’t wait for tomorrow?”
Jean wasn’t in the habit of cursing, especially in front of her mother, but desperate times do sometimes result in unsensible talk. Her words were a cocktail of inexpedient truth.
“God damn it mother. I’m having a baby!”
And that was the night Jean became a mother to a healthy baby girl she named Rose June. Although life was not easy for Jean, she saw to it that Rose June always had everything she needed in life, including, at the appropriate time, the dusty brown box in the attic that had been long tucked away marked, Mighty Mouse comics.