The Weight of Him by Ethel Rohan

Author:Ethel Rohan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Fifteen

In the days after the walkathon, Billy tried to make amends with Ivor, but the boy wasn’t having any of it. “Leave me alone.”

Tricia continued to shut Billy out, too, doing and saying only the bare minimum to keep up some semblance of normalcy in front of the children. Billy retreated more and more to the garage and his other world.

“What are you at out there?” Tricia asked, but he brushed her off. No one needed to know about the kingdom he was creating. They would ruin that on him, too.

This particular evening, he lifted tiny Michael and tiny Billy from the cottage and placed them on the ledge of the clay bridge, above its middle portals. The two set about fishing, their legs dangling over the rushing river.

Billy, an excellent fisherman despite his missing arm, catches something large and fierce on the end of his line. He struggles to reel in the catch, gripping the pole with both his good arm and his stump. Using all his might, he raises the fishing rod straight, facing the tip skyward. The fight the fish is putting up, it has to be a record-sized carp.

Michael also grabs hold of the pole, helping to keep the tension on the line and stopping the carp from spitting out the hook. Both toys pull and pull, and just as the carp tires and they think they have him, the line snaps, sending Billy backward onto the bridge and plunging Michael into the churning water below. Billy roars, feeling kicking sensations in his chest, and dives into the river. He reaches Michael and hooks his good arm and stump under the boy’s armpits. He drags his son to safety, the water ripping around them like dark cloth.

“It’s all over,” Billy says. “I’ve got you, Michael. I’ve got you.”

* * *

Billy revisited the cove, hoping hard he wouldn’t meet anyone he knew. Ever since the walkathon, he’d avoided people. He would have to face them eventually, and sooner rather than later—he wasn’t going to get where he needed to be with his weight, the march, or his documentary if he stayed in hiding—but he’d gladly delay exposure for a little while longer.

He reached an imaginary starting line on the beach, the sound of the ocean loud in his ears. He readied himself, his arms hitched and his feet pawing at the sand like a bull in the ring. With a roar, he started to jog. As of that morning, he’d lost those two pounds he’d gained plus seven more, and was now at three hundred and sixty-five pounds. Never again would he allow the hand of the scale to move in the wrong direction. He’d subsisted mostly on the performance shakes, juiced wheatgrass, fruit and vegetables, and a high-protein, low-carbohydrate, no-sugar diet. All his dieting wasn’t going to be enough, though. If he was going to shed half of himself as soon as possible, he would have to exercise every single day, and hard.

As he moved over

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