I have a child who is fifteen years younger than I am. I am only fifteen, and I can't comprehend the fact that I helped to bring a child into this world that is still very new to me.

It all started in a crazy place--the beach under the old fig tree, branching from Mrs. DeMellow's cliff. Its branches reached out over the four-foot cliff and provided a cool shade from the white hot beating sun, during the long island days. The song of the leaves at midnight is always a quiet lullaby to anyone who might rest underneath its protective branches.

Juan and I grew up playing in Mrs. DeMellow's Fig carving our memories in its branches; each branch holding a key to our friendship. This first branch is only half a branch, because when we were six or seven, Juan dropped five feet and broke the branch between his legs. I screamed out laughing falling out of the tree myself into the soaked sand and salt, while Juan just froze. I looked at him still laughing but soon became alarmed.

Slowly, Juan slid to his right. The look in his eyes were filled with fear, pain, and suffering. His mouth opened, he paused, eyes wide with terror, then his mouth closed slowly. Silence. Agony. Seconds later, his mouth struggled to open once again and a high pitched scream filled the air. The scream echoed from the cliffs, and I felt a sigh of relief course through my whole body. He was going to be okay.

Mrs. DeMellow's Fig tree was tied up with many such memories. Some were funny and some were sad, and one memory broke my heart and changed my life.

It was payday, and Juan and I had this night planned for a while. We had been saving our money up for two week and finally had enough money to buy a bottle of Vodka. We had been working at a car wash across the street from Mrs. DeMellow's house. It was a slow and tedious job that Juan and I had started ourselves. We just decided to make a sign that offered a car wash for $1.50. We had to buy our own soap and sponges' well, actually my mom gave us the seed money to buy our supplies, but we paid her back. We would just sit under Mrs. DeMellow's tree to escape the white heat and wait for someone to drive up next to the sign. Before the driver could get out, we would eagerly run up to the approaching vehicle and dump half a bucket of water over the car and start washing it.

After a week of car washing, we totaled our hard earned money and came up with $22. 50. It was just enough to buy the bottle of vodka and eight sodas.

I waited for Juan to pick me up from my house around 9:30 p.m. My house was full of children; I was the oldest and most outrageous. My two brothers were ten and twelve, while my two sisters were five and seven. Our house never went to sleep before 12:00 midnight during the summers, and even during the school year our house never settled for the night until about 11:00 o'clock. My mother was raising us alone. My father left her when I was born, and my siblings' dad was reported missing when his fishing boat was discovered off the shores of Mili Island. She was forty-three and her looks had wrinkled away with the stress of raising five kids.

I was getting dressed in my room when someone knocked on our plywood door. So of course, my whole family heard it and shouted for the stranger to come in. When the door cracked open, I peeped out of my room to see Juan taking off his shoes before entering. My little brothers admired Juan. They thought he was the coolest kid in the neighborhood. They admired his smooth personality and how he never backed down from anyone, even if they were older than he was.

"Oh, Juan! Come in. Did you see the game last night?  It was awesome!" my brothers screamed enthusiastically.

"No, sorry I didn't," Juan said in a sigh, "but I bet you could tell me every detail about it tomorrow, huh?"

I threw on Juan's basketball jersey that he had lent me a couple of weeks ago and shuffle out of my room with my hands knotted in my hair trying to roll it into a bun. As I was fastening it with a Marshallese comb, I saw Juan sitting on the cement floor with my brothers listening to the newly released E-Style CD. He glanced over at me and then popped up signaling to the boys that he was about to go. He gave both of them a secret handshake which they had been practicing for about three days now, and they had it down flat.

"See ya guys lata, yeah?" Juan asked.

"Yeah, see ya later!" they said with a serious look. They were trying to act all cool and unfeeling as they saw their role-model walk out the door with me.

We walked down the streets of Majuro for about three blocks, until we got across the road from a small family-owned store. Juan and I were in the shadows of a palm tree, and that's where we decided to conduct our conversation.

"Here, give me the money and I'll go buy the stuff," Juan insisted with his hands out toward me. I handed him the money all wadded up; the quarters wrapped in between the ones.

I remember how tiny my hands were compared to his. Juan was only a month older that I was, but he was a fast bloomer; most people would have thought he was at least three years older than I was.

He wadded the money in his pocket and strode across the street. He had a stride that was unique to only boys. It showed he had matured and was becoming of age. I guess you can call it confidence.

When he arrived at the store, he plopped his elbows on the counter and slid the bundle of cash in through the clerk's window. He started pointing to some items in through the window as she counted the money. I couldn't make out what they were saying because the sounds of the waves crashing on ocean side were thundering. The clerk then looked around the porch; I think she was checking if anyone else was around. She then quickly scurried around the small store and prepared his order.

When he finished with his purchases at the store, he turned his cap to the front, shielding his eyes and turned on his stride of confidence once again. I watched smiling to myself because I thought he was showing off, not as if there was anyone to show off to.

We backtracked the three blocks home and continued another two blocks to Mrs. DeMellow's fig tree. We crawled underneath its branches and sat down.

"Who do want to invite to drink with us?" Juan asked looking around. It was dark where we were and the branches hid us from prying eyes.

"I don't know. Who do you want?" I asked, hoping that he wouldn't pick anyone who would be an appalling drunk.

He lifted his cap up and brushed his long dark hair, "What about Jon and Victoria?" he asked in an uncertain tone.

"That's cool with me! They have been going out for awhile, and they always know how to make people laugh," I answered, "I'll wait here for you guys, but ask them if they could bring their boom box?"

"Okay, but what about batteries' do they have any?" he asked walking out from the protection of the shadows.

"Ask them. If not, never mind!" I hollered back. I leaned against the bark of the fig tree and stared up at its rustling leaves and thought of all the times that I would just come and reminisce about the world. Whenever I wasn't home, I would be here, sitting on the branches that stretched over the water, and watching how the lagoon waves rolled the sand back and forth on the small beach. I would observe the hermit crabs hiding in the roots of the fig tree that grew into the sand. DeMellow's Fig had a magical gift of just blowing my worries away with the sea breeze. It was a place of escape from the real world of stress and chaos. I use to think that if I would just lie on its branches long enough I could become part of the tree and escape my personal problems--problems that even Juan didn't know about, and he is my best friend.

Well, the night went as planned, but I ended up passed out under the fig tree before anyone else. Jon and Victoria told me the next day that they had left and Juan was suppose to take me to his house so that my mom wouldn't catch me drunk. The only problem was that I didn't even remember going to Juan's house that night.

When I woke up I had a bad hangover. My mouth was dry and my head was beating. I was caught off guard when I figured out that I was in Juan's room and he was lying next to me half-naked. I looked under the covers and my skirt was off and basketball jersey was next to the door. I didn't know what happened, but I didn't want to believe what my mind was telling me. I looked at Juan and he slept so calmly. I didn't want to wake him to find out what might have happened the night before.

I picked up my skirt and slipped the jersey on. My mind was drowning in a sea of explanations that I didn't want to believe. I didn't want to believe that I had slept with my best friend. I opened Juan's room, and his family wasn't awake yet, so I walked over to the kitchen and got a drink of water. I quietly walked over to the door and cracked it open to see if anyone was out, but it was too early and the street was empty.

I ran to Mrs. Demellow's Fig, the only safe place in the world that could comfort and make sense of the disdainful thoughts in my mind. I paced around the grounds as if the earth would speak to me. My vision started to haze as I felt droplets kissing my cheeks and rolling down. I wiped them away, not wanting to accept their sympathy. I climbed the fig's branches; my thoughts overflowing with memories of our childhood that they started to leak out.

Juan and I use to race up to the highest branch of Demellow's Fig when we were just kids. We would dare each other to jump into the lagoon compelling one another that we would soon follow. In the end I would end up jumping and he would follow, but not without climbing down midway.

"Now what will I do," I cried. I was in shock. Tears rolled down my face, asking why it had to happen. Why? I now looked aimlessly at the uncaring waves washing the morning seaweed upon the shore. It brought me back to when Juan and I used to wrestle along side them as kids. Kids forced to receive handfuls of sand into our shorts while getting our hair hampered and tangled with seaweed.

My mind gradually calmed down, and I finally decided that nothing had happened. We must have been just hot and took off our clothes, but nothing happened. He was my best friend; he wouldn't do something like that to me. At once a scene sliced through my memory like rain drops.

A dark shadow lay upon me, its profile akin to that of Juan. I tried to shove him off, but my arms were pinned down. His grip was too strong. As the moon's light shined through the window, I saw the dominating eyes of Juan. There was a look that I have never seen in them before. A look of pre-eminence; I couldn't move, I was in shock. Tears of shame leaked out as he forced himself upon me.

As the weeks went by and I discovered I was pregnant. Juan and I started to lose touch with each other. He never came to my house after that night. He didn't even visit the fig where we shared our childhood. Jonathan told him that I was with child, yet he still didn't visit. I think he knew it was his baby but was too afraid to admit it to himself. I would see him on the streets, but he would just smile and continue on his way, picking up the pace as if he was running away from me. It hurt and shamed me inside.

I never told anyone who the father was, not even my own mother who didn't really seem angry. I think she expected it of me, or maybe her lonely years had drowned her worries and concerns away. What am I supposed to do? I am only fifteen years old with a child. I love him, but I don't think I can provide him with the best life.

I am here now with my baby boy under the magical fig tree that had wiped my tears away through the hard times, rocked me to sleep in its branches when I was tired of the chaotic world, and as the days grew hot, this beautiful tree shaded me.

"My son, I bestow the name Alik on you. It means a man full of pride who takes responsibility. I pray that you live up to your name. This fig tree will comfort you and protect you from the cruel world whenever I am not here for you. Be strong, my son."

Monica Pedro - Email: lakatu3@hotmail.com