ROAR by Allison Wyss

The first time I heard the train roar by our trailer, I was in the kitchen washing dishes with Goldie, the parakeet. The noise drowned out the talk radio my brother had cranked to top volume in the other room. The dishes rattled. Goldie’s cage swung and knocked the bird off his perch. He flapped his wings against the cage and still the train howled. The trailer began to sway. And Clay, the brother I mentioned earlier, took a single bound into the center of the kitchen (which was also one end and the other at the same time). “What’s with the bird?” And then I gripped the edge of the sink and leaned back. I stared at the grease stain on the ceiling and pretended it was a crystal chandelier about to fall into a million pieces over us. I thought I heard children’s screams blended with the train’s voice and decided I was halfway to crazy.
It turns out that was just the custom in the trailer park, though. All of the kids outside would stop their games of cowboys or kickball and yell as loud as they could every time the train barreled through.
I was not pregnant then, not pregnant at all it turned out. But I didn’t know that, and was, in fact, thoroughly convinced that I was. My unborn child had already triggered the fight that had cost me my boyfriend and led me there to live in a doublewide with my brother. Any kid with that much influence must be real, you know?
Jeremy didn’t leave me because I was pregnant. He just insisted that he couldn’t be a father. He was all mystical about it. He said if he had a son or a daughter, even a microscopic speck of a son or a daughter, he would know. He would feel it somehow. And that led him to the conclusion that I must be cheating on him. Of course I wasn’t.
Jeremy wasn’t angry about the affair he decided I’d had. He just wanted to talk about it and how we both felt and what it meant about our relationship. He wondered, would my other lover feel comfortable getting coffee or maybe smoking with us sometime? That way we could really get at this from every angle.
I wasn’t in the mood. And of course, being all hormonally amped up with my pregnancy, I told him just how I felt about him and his damn sensitivity. Then I left.
When I showed up at Clay’s with my two mismatched suitcases and the swinging birdcage, the first thing he said was, “Who cheated?”

As if it were ever that simple. He had sort of stumbled upon the main problem, though, hadn’t he?
“No one cheated.” It didn’t look like Clay was going to help me with my suitcases, but when I swung one out to him, he caught it gracefully. Clay is tall and very skinny and it looked like the suitcase would throw him off balance, but once he had a hold of it, he stood up straight as if it weighed nothing. “Clay, it’s really complicated and you wouldn’t understand at all and I don’t really want to talk about it.” It’s hard to talk to Clay sometimes without confessing everything. He has a manipulative way about him that he must have learned in the seminary.
Clay leaned away from the birdcage. “You can stay here as long as you like.”
He didn’t even own the trailer. Our parents had left it to him.
I said that as if they died, didn’t I? Well, they didn’t. They moved to Florida. First just for the winter, which is why they bought the trailer. But it didn’t take long for them to abandon it to live in Florida year-round. So they didn’t even leave it for Clay. They just left it for empty and he moved in. They gave us both keys, but nobody expected either of us to live there.
This was all happening the fall after I graduated from college. So I had my teaching license but no job. I was a high school math teacher, but then I guess I wasn’t yet.
I held up well in that first encounter with Clay, don’t you think? I didn’t say a word about being knocked up. Don’t be too impressed. I didn’t make it through the first hour.
Clay got out this strong incense, like the kind they use in church on special occasions. He probably got it at the priest store. Have I mentioned yet that Clay almost became a priest?
Then Clay kicked himself into the recliner and said, “Jen, that bird really stinks.”
“She does not.”
“Maybe it’s you, then.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“So, really, why are you here?”
So you can see why I couldn’t help blurting it all out with that incense going up and him using his holy voice and all. “I’m pregnant and we got in a fight about it and now I don’t know what to do.”
“Holy shit.” Clay clicked out of his priest voice. “What are you going to do?”
The Roar ought to have occurred at regular times seeing as it went along with the trains. The trains were not regular, however, and so neither was the Roar. We never knew when one would blast through and the children would scream. When I jumped, just a bit, I felt a solidness in my gut that I imagined to be the baby.
Jeremy’s apartment was on the third floor of an old house that was cut up into chunks. His was the cheapest and also the hottest in the summertime. He claimed it was the safest, as well. But he also claimed the whole neighborhood was safe.
I was always creeped out by this weird door that went to the attic. The door was locked and I never saw behind it. But what was to stop it from opening from the other side?
I was also scared of these guys from the neighborhood that came by when we first moved in. They claimed they’d left something inside before we got there. I wasn’t home at the time, but Jeremy just let them in to look around. I freaked out later when I heard the story. Even if they were telling the truth, it was no good. The something was probably a gun. Jeremy figured it was just weed. I was scared. Jeremy was not scared at all. He was very neighborly all the time.
Clay made a confession to me, too, that first evening I spent in the trailer: “So, Mom and Dad don’t know I’m living here.”
I was wadded into the papasan chair and he was propped on the recliner. We each held a remote control, but neither of us made the first move, because I don’t think either of us knew whose was for the TV and whose was for the DVD player or stereo or whatever.
“Why are you here?” I asked him.
“Don’t tell them, okay?” Clay kicked one shoe off his foot and it balanced on his toe before dropping to the carpet. Then he shoved off the other one.
“Fine, you don’t tell them that I’m here either. Or that I’m – you know.”
“I know.”
Clay and I have always been pretty close in some ways, but it’s not like we shared secrets. So this was kind of a big deal.
I decided by the end of September that I needed some income, so I put up flyers, looking to get work as a math tutor. That’s how I met Scott.
I drew straight lines with a pencil and wrote “Math Teacher For Hire” across the top in bright colors. I put my name and number and that I had a degree and a license. I didn’t name a fee, because I thought I would negotiate. I drew little math symbols around the margins. Then I covered all of Rosedale Mobile Community with them.
The very next day Gloria Brough called for me to tutor her son Scott. It turned out that Scott was a very smart kid and didn’t need much tutoring, except maybe in the fashion department, but I didn’t want to touch that. The kid wore a bow tie and carried a briefcase. We got along well, however, and his mom paid what I asked for, so he became a regular client. My only one, in fact.
It’s weird, I know, that I didn’t just take a pregnancy test, because that’s what people do, right? I couldn’t bring myself to buy one.
My car only started about every third day, but since I didn’t have anywhere to go, that wasn’t much of a problem. I’d go out to the driveway most days whenever I woke up and turn the key a few times. If it started, I’d take off. There wasn’t any place within walking distance except around the little trailer park. No stores or anything.
Usually, when the car started, I’d drive first to Walgreens. I’d walk slowly down the pregnancy test aisle with the basket on my arm, looking right and left, but never making eye contact with other customers or with the test itself. Once or twice I managed to stop in front of the tests and stare directly at them. I even read the front of the boxes. But I never got so far as to touch one. I would walk on and buy something else. Toilet paper, or aspirin, or tampons. Even when I knew Sara Bergoff, from high school, wouldn’t be working, I couldn’t do it.
Twice, I drove to other pharmacies, in neighboring towns, but I didn’t have any luck in those either.
One of the best things about having a cell phone, even the old kind before smart phones, is that your parents won’t necessarily find out that you’ve moved out of your apartment and are staying without permission in their mobile home. I talked to my mom two or three times a week like always. The only issue was remembering not to let her hear Clay’s voice in the background unless I could make up a reason that we would be hanging out together, which was not as easy as it sounds.
She asked about Jeremy sometimes, but I’d just say “He’s fine,” and then we’d talk about something else.
“So you haven’t found a teaching job yet?” she’d often ask.
“No, Mom. They don’t really hire mid-year.”
“So you’ll have to wait until next fall.”
“Uh-huh.”
Repeating things we both knew was her way of showing sympathy. It was really annoying.
Sometimes I helped Scott with his homework after school, but other times he didn’t have any or didn’t need any help. He was in third grade so it was all easy, but I got bored sometimes and tried to teach him.
“Here, let me teach you some algebra.” Scott wasn’t done with his real homework, but it was pretty pointless stuff, I could tell.
“Algebra? I’m not supposed to know algebra until like eighth grade.” He was standing at the counter in the kitchen where he always did his homework.
“You’re smart.”
“Thanks.” Scott kind of twisted his mouth up like he was suspicious. “Okay.”
I wrote 4 + x = 7 in his notebook. “So, how much is x?”
“Hey, that’s my Social Studies!”
“Huh?” I erased the equation and rewrote it in Scott’s math notebook after he dug it out of his backpack. “So, how much is x?”
“What?”
“What number is x pretending to be?” I underlined the x twice, then tapped at it.
Scott put his head over the notebook on the kitchen counter and kicked a foot, pretty softly, at the cabinet underneath. “3?” He looked up. “Duh.”
I wrote x = 3 in the notebook. “So, x equals 3. That’s it. That’s algebra.”
“x equals 3? That’s algebra?”
“Yep.” I was feeling pretty proud of myself. Math teacher me.
“I just have to remember that x equals 3?”
“No – ”
“– You just said.”
“X doesn’t always. . . It’s different every time.”
“Huh?”
“You have to figure out x. It’s different every time.”
“I don’t get it.”
I flipped my pencil on the table and watched it bounce up. “Never mind.”
So maybe Scott wasn’t as smart as I thought, or maybe third graders aren’t ready for x and y. You’d think I’d know, what with my degree and all, but it’s hard to keep it straight – age and mental development and stuff.
Another thing you might be interested in is that Goldie is not a parakeet. She’s a canary. But I’ve always thought parakeets sounded interesting and thought it might be fun to fool you. Maybe it would add something exotic to the story.
Jeremy’s older sister came by later that week. She brought a car seat and a stroller. Both were new and nice. Jeremy must not have told her about the kid’s suspected parentage.
“This is too much.” I said. “I mean, thank you, but you’ve spent too much.”
“Eh, whatever.” She waded through the living room that Clay had stacked with books and stood in Scott’s spot at the counter. “Where should I put them?”
I reached to take a box, but she wouldn’t release it because I was pregnant, and nobody lets pregnant ladies do anything strenuous.
The car seat fit in the closet, but there wasn’t any place to put the stroller except the middle of the living room. “It’s fine for now,” I told the sister. “We’ll figure something out.”
I grabbed a beer and pretended to chug. Then I handed it to her. She didn’t react at all.
We sat outside on the lawn chairs and watched the kids play. She had the pleasure of witnessing a Roar. She didn’t scream along, but she closed her eyes when they started and put her head back. I decided I liked her, which was horrible timing. I brought Goldie out there too. She didn’t make any noise, but flapped at her cage when they all started screaming. She settled down quickly after the train passed.
Eventually I noticed Jeremy’s sister wasn’t drinking her beer and I wondered if I was supposed to know that she didn’t drink, but I couldn’t remember Jeremy ever telling me that and I thought I could remember her with a Martini at some party or other.
She must have seen me eyeing the can.
“Yeah, I’m not drinking, either.” She laughed, but it came out like a snort and then we both giggled for real at the snort.
“I’m not sure yet, but I might be pregnant, too.”
I just stared.
“Weird, huh? I haven’t taken a test yet, so I could be wrong.” She still held the beer can and fiddled with the opened tab. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
Jeremy was only 20 then, but his sister was much older. Maybe 35? I was 22.
“So the kids’ll be cousins?”
“Yeah, maybe they’ll be best friends, too.” This was sappier than I’d expected from her.
Also, I’ve always hated coincidences, which is what I thought this was. They either mean everything or nothing.
I know this was the beginning of the 21st century already, but we didn’t have internet in the trailer. Clay never bothered to set it up because he had it at work. You’d think I could at least steal some, but no luck there either. This was before anybody had smartphones.
So I couldn’t even look up the symptoms and side effects of my condition unless I trekked to the library or something, which I never felt like doing. I didn’t want to go that far and I didn’t want strangers reading over my shoulder either. It didn’t matter much – except my imaginary prego-symptoms might have been more accurate.
When I heard the Roar, I would imagine a tiny stirring inside me – like the baby howling along. It was frightening and uplifting at the same time.
Clay must have been going through some sort of spiritual crisis. Forty days in the desert or whatever. He’d sit perfectly silent and alone and drink beer after beer. He’d tuck an armload of them into the cracks of the recliner so he wouldn’t have to go to the kitchen and he’d drink them all even if they got warm. Then he’d stack the cans in tall towers around the edges of the recliner.
“Clay, is it a sin to get drunk?” I asked him once.
“Only if you’re pregnant.”
“Asshole.”
When I talked to my mom on the phone, one of the ways to keep her from asking annoying questions was to ask her annoying questions.
“So how’s Florida?”
“It’s been really nice lately. Thanks for asking.”
“So what do you do there all day?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Yeah, stuff. I walk on the beach and I get coffee in town. There’s a cute little bookstore that I go to if it’s raining or else I go shopping.”
“What does Dad do?” I asked.
“Oh, you know. He reads the paper. He watches baseball on TV. Sometimes he comes on walks with me.”
“He does?”
“Yes, quite a lot, actually.”
“I can’t picture that.”
“Well, he does.”
“Oh.”
“We go out to eat, too.”
“I can picture that.”
I should have worried about insurance with my impending baby, but I wasn’t really thinking about that either. I was still on my parents’ insurance, I thought. I didn’t want to ask because it might worry them or get them suspicious.
This neighborhood is supposedly mobile. It’s a trailer park. All of these houses can roll down the highway. There should be asphalt with a parking lot grid painted out and cars lined up parallel to each other. Except some of us would get the zoom spot and be facing outward. Others of us would have our butt-ends to the world.
Instead, we form winding drives and circular little cul-de-sacs. In the center, there’s a swing set – a nice wooden one with monkey bars, tire swing, and slide. There’s an open area, perfect for kickball, behind the trailer park on the outside. So we’re mobile in a committed, not-going-anywhere kind of way.
Ever since Clay was in the seminary, he’s always needed to live with lots of people. I don’t claim to know how his mind works, but I do notice things. When he quit the priest-school, he started regular college and lived first in a dorm and then in a frat. After college, he rented a house with his brothers. People came and went – men, women, dogs even. He got screwed on the rent a lot. I don’t know why he didn’t move into the absolutely free trailer sooner. I had Jeremy previously, but Clay just had a bunch of weirdos. Maybe he was ministering to them or something.
I could tell he was lonely, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do about it.
By October, I’d stop in my tracks whenever I felt a train approach. I’d arch my back and lift my chin to the sky or the ceiling. I’d try to be subtle about it when I was with company, but my body would still respond.
Maybe the stars told Jeremy he wasn’t a father. Or the crystals. Maybe he expected a shimmer in his aura that didn’t come or a visit from his spirit animal. I liked the mystical side of Jeremy but never understood it.
“Why do you eat so much ice cream?” Scott asked me one day as he was snapping the buckles on his briefcase. Also, I’d left the freezer door open so I could eat the ice cream with my head wedged inside.
I pulled my head out of the freezer. “I like it,” I said.
“You’re going to get fat,” he said.
“I know.”
“You don’t mind?”
“I’m about to get really fat anyway,” I told him. “I’m supposed to get fat.”
Scott lifted his eyebrows and gave his bow tie a slight tug.
“I’m pregnant,” I told him, leaning forward and raising the volume of my voice. Then I remembered Scott was just a little kid and my face started to get hot. I didn’t know what to say next so I stuck my head back in the freezer and licked my spoon.
Scott didn’t react. He went home and I thought about how I was a horrible person.
The next day, Scott carried his briefcase in the same as usual, all business. He took out a stack of papers, a textbook, and a mechanical pencil.
I was at the freezer again with an overloaded spoon of ice cream.
Scott snapped his briefcase shut and then snapped each of the buckles. He looked up, snapped into eye contact and asked, “Are you married?”
“No.”
“But you’re having a baby?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
Scott was insanely good at these intense conversations about exactly one thing. You knew he was thinking about what you said.
“Is that okay?” Scott asked.
His conversational style was unnerving enough that I couldn’t lie to him. I could sometimes steer the discussion elsewhere, but when he was in a particular mood, I couldn’t even do that.
“Jesus, don’t act all innocent. Look at the neighborhood, for God’s sake!” I told him.
I hope no one expects this story to mean anything or come to some important conclusion. I’m just telling about the things that happened during the time that I thought I was pregnant but really wasn’t.
Jeremy came by one day. He brought a mobile to hang over the crib. He’d made it himself. That kid breaks my heart. Why’d I leave him again?
“Jen. How are you?” His voice was all breathy, as usual, and there was this stick of hair that kept falling into his face and he kept putting back behind his ear. Plus he was holding this glittery contraption, stars falling down and tangling, and his arm reaching far out from his body so none of the constellations would smoosh up against him.
I had a big wet snot ball hovering behind my nose and mouth, then all hot behind my eyes so I didn’t say anything. I shook my head and hiccupped. I didn’t want him back, but I didn’t want him gone either, really.
After he left, I had a real moody fit for the next couple days. I cried all the time and only ate what I could spoon into my mouth directly from the box or carton or jug. Clay thought I was nuts. I didn’t tell him I’d seen Jeremy. I told him it must be hormones.
“Jen, you need to see a doctor,” Clay said.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll make an appointment.” I had no intention of doing it.
I was living in a kind of limbo then. As long as nothing was confirmed, it wasn’t quite real. I was playing house and it was fun and miserable at the same time.
I don’t really like it when Goldie sings. I think it’s annoying and she does it all the time. But I still take care of her. Ever since that time, every place I move, I carry her in her dirty little cage. Even now, years later.
I got in the habit of standing with my belly thrust forward and one hand on the small of my back. It seemed like the classic pregnant stance.
“I hate to say I’m disappointed in you.” My mom said this to me on the phone.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re disappointed in me.”
“Well, I’m not really.”
“You just said it.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“Of course you are,” I said. What was her job if it wasn’t to worry about me?
“You haven’t even looked for a job.”
“I looked a little bit.”
“A little bit didn’t find one, did it?”
“No.”
“Jen, why haven’t you looked harder?”
“Well, for one thing, it’s November.”
“They need teachers in November.”
“Not new ones.”
“You never know.”
“Yes, Mom, I do know. The Caterville school district hires in August. So does Clifton. So does Geneva – .”
“ – Someone might quit.”
“Bernsburg, Fort Wayne. All of the schools around here. Even the private schools.”
“Or someone could get fired.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Or get sick or have a baby.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You could be a substitute.”
“I don’t want to sub.”
“Then you’d already know people for next year.”
“Mom, subbing is the worst job on earth.”
“And then they’d know you, Jen, and know what a good job you’d do.”
“They say it’s more like babysitting than teaching.”
“They’d hire you right away,” my mom said.
“I didn’t go to college to be a babysitter.”
Sometime in November I began joining the Roar – just a low hum – under my breath.
Scott was over every day by then. I’d force myself to be cheerful for the time it took him to do his homework. He worked, standing at the kitchen counter. He’d leave his bow tie on, but unfasten his shirt’s top button, so it sort of bunched his collar into a ruff. I would try to make sure the counter wasn’t sticky before he started.
It was hard not to believe Jeremy, when he said he wasn’t a father. I hadn’t had sex with anyone else, but it did seem like something he would know. He wasn’t the type to lie.
My not wanting to talk about myself got my mom talking about herself more than I ever remember her doing. It was uncomfortable.
“You know, coming down here has been really great for your dad and me.”
“That’s great.”
“We don’t fight anymore.”
“Yeah right.”
“No, really. We get along great.”
“Well that’s great.” I didn’t quite believe her, but whatever. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“It’s the atmosphere. It’s very romantic.”
“Romantic?” That was not the word I expected.
“Yes, it’s very romantic. Brings back the spark, you know. The old feelings.”
“Mom, I don’t think . . .”
“Your dad and I are spending a lot of time together again. When it rains in the afternoon, you know.”
“Mom, I’d rather not hear this.”
She sighed. “No, I guess not.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I just forget sometimes – it’s so nice talking to you lately. But of course there are things you don’t want to hear.”
“Yeah, I don’t. I’m sorry.”
Mostly Clay ignored me, but every once in a while he’d take an interest.
“When are you going to tell Mom about your predicament?” he asked. He used his priest voice and raised his eyebrows up and down and up again.
“I’m not quite ready to re-explain the Immaculate Conception, you know?” I was trying to be funny, I guess. It’s not like my parents thought I was all pure or anything.
“God, it’s so annoying when people fuck that up. Everybody does it.” Clay was still talking like Father Holiness even though he was swearing.
“What?”
“The Immaculate Conception did involve sex. It was the conception of Mary – not Jesus. You’re such a dumbass.”
“What are you talking about?”
“No original sin. Mary was conceived and born without original sin and that’s why it was immaculate.”
“You know what I mean. You don’t have to go preacher on me.”
“You know, you’ve got an extra little piece of sin inside you now.”
I thought I could feel the extra piece of sin, but only if I bent my knees slightly, furrowed my eyebrows, and really concentrated.
Clay would have made a horrible priest. You can’t go around telling pregnant women they have extra bits of sin inside them – even the unwed ones. Even the ones who aren’t really pregnant.
I liked Scott mostly because he was kind of pathetic in the way he acted grown‑up and pretentious. He could never quite time the playground Roar. He wouldn’t start until the others were nearly wound down and the train was almost past and then his shriek let loose. He would stop as soon as he heard himself and turn bright red. He’d stick his hands in his pockets then or tug at his elastic bow tie and mumble about how strange all those kids were.
Jeremy used to meditate all the time when I lived with him. At first I had a deep respect for it and would be quiet or even try to join him in trance world. But one day I noticed he had a boner, while supposedly gone from the physical world. Maybe that’s normal, but it made me suspicious.
Goldie eventually died, so it’s actually a different bird I lug around now.
Clay never seemed startled by the Roar. He’d keep up whatever he was doing – folding socks, or watching football, or reading the Bible. Sometimes his smile would twist deeper into his cheeks, but that was about it.
I couldn’t get him to admit it was anything weird or even a recurring phenomenon.
“Yeah, sometimes the kids scream,” he’d tell me with his “infinite patience” voice from priest camp.
“All together,” I’d insist. “When the train comes.”
“Yeah, sometimes the train is loud like that too.”
He infuriated me then. Well, really, he infuriated me always.
I hummed along, quietly, to every Roar until December or so, when, if I happened to be alone in the trailer, I’d let myself get a little louder. I experimented with different pitches and I’d open my mouth to howl at a conversational volume.

       “Hey, Scott?” Scott was already seated on the bottom end of the teeter-totter. Both hands on the handle bar. “How come you never want to come out here before it gets dark?” The sky was still burning orange over the trees far off, but most of the trailers’ “porch” lights were on and we were the only ones on the playground.
Scott shrugged and I climbed on about halfway to the fulcrum. The teeter-totter didn’t move so I inched backward.
“We should come out earlier,” I said. “It gets chilly with the sun down.”
“That’s good,” Scott called out and he pushed off pretty hard. I reached behind me for the handle just in time.
“Do you know about infinity?” he asked, loudly.
“What about it?”
“You know that it goes on forever?”
“If you come out during the day, you could play with other kids and I could sit on the bench.”
“Infinity plus one is still infinity.”
“Yep.” I didn’t know what infinity had to do with anything, but I thought Scott might be avoiding other kids, and I was mean enough to try to find out why. “Do you know the kids who play out here?”
“Of course I do.” He rolled his eyes. “And infinity minus one is infinity too. That’s even weirder.”
“If you did this with another kid it would balance better.”
“I thought I have to do my homework.”
“You could do it after.”
“Whatever.” I was up.
“Fine. Whatever.” I was down.
I was a little ill.
Then I was up again and Scott hopped off and I dropped – hard to the ground. “You little bastard!” I clutched my gut and rolled off the teeter-totter. I couldn’t feel anything too weird there, but I wasn’t sure what I was feeling for.
Scott came to where I was kneeling on the ground. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Jen, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I mean, I did mean to, but I forgot about the baby . . . and I didn’t think you’d hit so hard.”
I took a deep breath and stood up slowly. I felt a little stunned, slightly nauseous, but otherwise okay. Scott was not quite crying, but probably about to.
“I’m okay. But we have to go inside now.”
I started towards my trailer and Scott galloped beside me.
“I’m really sorry.” He was out of breath. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I was half ignoring him, but he didn’t stop talking. “You called me a bastard.”
“Sorry.” I was probing my abdomen, trying to decide whether or not it hurt. “Don’t tell anyone I said that, okay?”
“Okay. But will you tell me what it means?”
He caught my attention then. “Do you know what the other bad words mean?” I asked.
“Only shit. Will you tell me the rest of them, too?”
I could see why Scott was embarrassed to hang out with the kids on the playground.
“I’ll tell you what everything means. Let’s go inside.”
“Wait a minute. What about infinity minus infinity?” Scott trotted along beside me. “Would that be infinity, too?”
Another thing about Jeremy’s meditations. I watched, so I know with one hundred percent certainty that he never moved a muscle. But somehow his hair would get messed up as he sat there.
I started eating the weird food that pregnant women are supposed to crave. Pickles with chocolate and other combinations. Maybe that was what caused my morning sickness.
Goldie was originally Jeremy’s canary but he gave him to me when I moved out. Just packed him into my car with my clothes and my CDs. He said it felt right and I didn’t argue because I sort of got along with Goldie. Besides, Jeremy was so fucking nice about the whole thing. And I couldn’t leave the bird with someone so nice.
“So, Clay, when you left the seminary, why did you?”
“Why’d I what?” Clay was propped on his recliner as usual, listening to the radio. When he listened to the radio he tended to look at it, too, instead of at me when I was talking to him.
“Why’d you leave?” I got into the habit of looking at the radio when I talked to him, too.
“I just didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“Did you have a crisis of faith?”
“No.”
“Did you question the church?”
“Not really.” He was still looking at the radio. It made more sense when it was the TV.
“Did you freak out about not ever getting married or doing normal stuff?”
“Nah.”
“Was it sex?”
“No, Jen, it wasn’t sex.”
“Well? Did you get kicked out or something?”
“I wasn’t sure. I don’t know. I might even go back someday.” He turned to look at me for a second or two this time, but he didn’t stay focused.
I was focused on him now, however. “Wow. Are you thinking about going back?”
“Kind of. But probably not for a while.”
“Can you still?” I asked.
“Can I go back?”
“Yeah, can you still go back?”
“Of course I can. I said I wasn’t kicked out.”
I used to try to meditate with Jeremy, but every time something would start to itch, and I’d have to scratch it. Also I’ve never been good at keeping my eyes closed.
Being pregnant was a great excuse to cry all the time. It was an even better excuse than the fact that my boyfriend thought I cheated on him and didn’t even mind, so I had to leave him and move in with my weird holy brother who was squatting in the mobile home our parents bought and then abandoned. All of that was sad, but funny, too, and it made me too exhausted to cry when I thought about it.
When the train came, I really wanted to howl like the kids – the baby wanted to Roar, I told myself. But I fought hard not to let myself go that crazy.
“You aren’t getting any fatter,” Scott told me one day, utterly out of the blue.
“Well, thanks,” I said.
“I mean your face is, but not your belly.”
“Great.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be having a baby?” He looked right at me as he talked, like he almost always did.
“Yeah.” I was kind of watching kids play out the window.
“Aren’t you supposed to be getting fat?”
“I guess. Maybe not yet.”
“Maybe? You guess? Aren’t you supposed to know?”
“Hmm?”
“You never know any of the stuff you’re supposed to know. You’re a grown‑up, but you don’t know anything. You know what bad words mean and that’s it. You hardly even know more math than me.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I told my mom you called me a bastard.”
“Scott!”
“She said you’d know all about it, she guessed, but she wasn’t really mad.”
“Why’d you tell her that?”
“She was going on to Mrs. Nelson about how great you are to me.”
“Well, that’s a lie.” I meant about Scott’s mom saying I was great. I didn’t think any of Scott’s story was true after he said that.
“She can’t believe you watch me for so cheap.”
“Ugh.”
“Why do you?”
“Huh?”
“Why do you watch me for less than minimum wage?”
“I don’t.”
“Do you even know what minimum wage is?”
He had me there. “Well, I figure it’s about . . .”
“Do you have ulterior motives?”
“Sure, I’m gonna kill you and sell your body parts to science. I’ll be rich.”
“Nope. You’d miss me too much if I was dead or just didn’t come over.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
For Christmas, Clay and I agreed on the lie I should tell our parents the next time I talked to my mom on the phone.
“You know, your dad and I are coming home on the twenty-second this year.”
“Yes, Mom, I know.”
“Could you stop by the trailer and turn the heat on in the morning? I get so cold now that I’m used to Florida.”
“Got it.”
“Good.” She paused. “Will Jeremy come with us for the holiday or with his family?”
“He’s going to be with his family.”
“But you’ll come.”
“Yeah, actually, I think I’m going to stay there.”
“Stay where?”
“With you in the trailer.”
“With us? That will be great.”
“Clay, too.”
“And Clay?”
“Yeah, I saw him the other day and we talked about spending the whole week there – like old times, you know?”
“Great. It will be crowded.”
“We’ll be fine. Just like old times.”
This is going to sound so stupid, but there was this actor on a Spanish soap opera that I used to have dreams about – just dreams – when I was living with Jeremy. I don’t speak Spanish, so I know nothing about his character, but he had a long black ponytail and was very sexy.
On my rational days, I knew the imaginary fetus was Jeremy’s, but on others, it seemed like one of these steamy dreams had taken hold. Sometimes I’d sit on the couch in the afternoons and watch this guy. I wondered if my baby would have a ponytail like his.
Christmas shopping was awful that year and I was panicky the whole time. I drove to the mall every third day when my car started. I’d walk into stores and wait for inspiration to hit me, but nothing ever did. If a salesperson approached I walked the other way. I had that about-to‑cry feeling whenever I was in a store but never actually cried.
On the last day I bought a random bunch of trinkets. I didn’t know what would go to who. I figured I’d wrap them and then maybe forgetting what was inside would make the decision easier.
I wondered if my Baptism was negated because this little piece of original sin had crept back inside me.
“Will the baby drag me to Limbo if I die?” I asked Clay.
He rolled his eyes. “Where do you come up with this shit, Jen? Nobody talks about Limbo anymore.”
But I thought it sounded better than Hell.
Clay drove to the airport to pick up our parents while I stayed home to get the place ready. I hadn’t got around to cleaning the bathroom or the kitchen the night before. I hadn’t wrapped the presents yet or put up the tree. Everything was a mess.
First I put the gifts in boxes, then I sprayed down the shower, then I unloaded the dishwasher. I let the words “I’m pregnant I’m pregnant I’m pregnant” run through my mind. I was practicing for when my mom got home.
I was in the kitchen, wiping down the countertop, when I heard a train coming, far off. Plates rattled in the open dishwasher and cabinets. Goldie flapped and I grabbed the edge of the sink. The words in my head blended with the voices outside and I let the Roar swallow me. I threw back my head and I wailed.
That Roar lasted a long time. When I stopped screaming, my throat was raw and I was exhausted.
When my family got home, I was still in my sweat pants and I’m sure they could tell I’d been crying.
Clay always had incense burning in that place. It wasn’t like the little sticks and cones that Jeremy burned. It was heavier and smokier and holier. So the trailer always smelled like church. Clay insisted it smelled like bird.
“Mom, I don’t know, but I think I – I’ve been thinking for the past couple months, really, that I might be. Pregnant.”
She took hold of my hand. “Have you seen a doctor?”
“No.”
“But you took a test?”
“No – but I haven’t ragged in that long either.”
“Don’t be crude. Jen, you have to go to the doctor.”
“Don’t tell Dad.”
“Jesus Christ, Jen. He’s going to find out sooner or later.”
“Please don’t tell him yet.”
“What’s Jeremy have to say about it?”
“We broke up,” I said.
“You broke up? For good?”
“I think so.”
“But – I can’t believe I’m asking you this. I’m sorry.” She held her arms up and looked away from me. “But it’s his, right? Jeremy’s? The baby?”
“You think I’m like that?”
“You said you broke up.”
“Because he thinks it’s not.”
“Oh, my girl.” Then she hugged me. “You have to go to the doctor.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I’ll make the appointment, okay?”
Then, I don’t know, I might have cried some, but I felt better.
Goldie’s not really gold, you know. She’s more camel-colored. Or brighter than that, I guess, but not the color I expect a canary to be.
It was the biggest relief in the world, when I climbed onto the examination table, to let my mom speak for me.
“She thinks she’s pregnant, but she hasn’t had a test. She hasn’t had a period since August.”
I just laid back and let them figure it out for me.
And of course, it turned out that I wasn’t pregnant.
Maybe I lost the baby when I joined the Roar. Sometimes, I think it could have escaped then. It could have flown out when I let everything else go. Or else I never had it.
That was all so long ago. I still don’t know what it means. Goldie, who was a finch after all, Jeremy and his sister, Clay on his recliner, Scott crashing the teeter-totter, my mom’s voice on the phone . . . they were all real. But now that they’re gone, just like that imaginary baby, could they have been? I only have one piece of that time, it’s the Roar, that still wells up in me furiously, out of nowhere, with no warning, and it doesn’t mean shit.

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Allison Wyss’s stories have appeared in Juked, The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review, The Southeast Review, [PANK] Magazine, and Booth.