Broken Flower

  I'm dying, I thought. It made me dizzy and nauseated, and the cramps were still strong. I quickly took off my pajama bottoms and reached for a towel. For a few moments, I just stood there with it between my legs. My heart was pounding, but I didn't know what to do. If I went into the hallway like this, someone could see me, and even if I got to my parents' bedroom unnoticed, the commotion could wake up Daddy. Mother had been adamant about my not telling even him. What if Grandmother Emma was awakened? What was I to do?

  I decided to curl up on the bathroom floor. At least if I dripped blood, it could easily be washed off the tiles. I thought, and hoped and prayed I hadn't dripped any on the rug when I came in here. It was cold on the floor and hard, but I was so sick and felt so tired, my eyes closed.

  The morning light spilling through the window in my bathroom didn't wake me, but the shaking in my body did. I opened my eyes and saw my mother squatting beside me. She was in her robe and slippers. Her mouth was contorted as if she were the one in pain' and not me.

  "Jordan," she said. "Oh, Jordan. When did this happen?'

  "Last night," I said, sitting up and grinding the sleep out of my eyes. I looked down at the towel, shocked myself at how dark and wide the stain was.

  "I saw your bed," she told me. "We have a lot to do. We don't want anyone else to know about this. I can't believe this is happening. I'm running you a bath," she added, and started to do so. "Just sit there."

  I heard her gathering up the blanket from my bed and then pulling off the sheet. She gasped so loudly. I had to rise and look out the door.

  "What's wrong, Mama?" I asked.

  "It went right through to the mattress. I'm going to have to turn it over so Nancy doesn't see it."

  She struggled with it, but she didn't want me to help her. I was so involved in watching her work-- turn the mattress, put on a new sheet, bundle up the old, and check the rug--that I didn't notice the water in the tub. It started to run over the top.

  "Mama, the tub!"

  "Oh, damn," she cried, and rushed in. She turned off the faucet, but water continued to spill over. "We've got to get this all up. If it seeped through and leaked down to the ceiling, your grandmother would have us executed."

  She started to soak up the water with towels and I squatted beside her and helped, shaking and terrified at all the trouble I had caused.

  "I'm sorry, Mama," I said, the tears chasing each other down my cheeks. Everyone was going to hate me, especially Daddy because Grandmother Emma would somehow blame him, too.

  "It's all right. Don't cry. Well be all right," she said. She repeated it under her breath like a prayer. "We'll be all right. Keep calm.'

  It took nearly six towels, but we were able to get the floor dry. "Get into the tub," she told me.

  I slipped into the water. My stomach grumbled so hard. I thought it would cause the tub to overflow. Mama looked at me with so much pity in her eyes. I was positive I was going to die. Would I be buried in the March section of the cemetery or far away from everyone, even Mama's parents, because I had been such an embarrassment?

  "Just relax, honey," she said. "I'll be back soon."

  I was afraid to move. Once, when I had cut my wrist on one of my toys. Ian told me I came close to cutting an artery and, "When you cut an artery," he said, "blood could shoot out so fast, you'd deflate like a balloon with a hole in it. Your body is about seventy-five percent liquid, which includes your blood."

  Thanks to him I had one of my worst nightmares soon after that.

  Mama returned with two large garbage bags. Through the bathroom doorway. I saw her force the blanket and the stained bed sheet into them along with my pajama bottoms and the towel I had used. She tied the bags and went out again. When she returned, she had something else. It looked like a white cigar. For a long moment, she stood there gazing at me in the tub. Then she raised her eyes to the ceiling and bit down on her lower lip.

  "I can't believe this is happening," she said. "I can't." I started to cry again.

  "No, no," she said, kneeling at the tub. She brushed my hair back with her hand. "It's all right. It's not your fault, Jordan. We'll be fine." She retreated, closed the toilet seat, and sat on it.

  "I'm going to have to show you how to use this," she said, holding up the white cigar. "It will seem messy and unpleasant to you, but it's very important because it will prevent what just happened from happening again. We're going to have to keep track of the day this started and the days afterward, too. We'll mark your calendar by your desk in a secret code that only you and I will know, okay?"

  I nodded.

  "Am I going to the hospital?" I asked.

  'No. no. What happened to you happens to all girls, only usually much later. It's just starting early, very early," she added.

  "Why does it happen?"

  "Remember when I used that word

  'menstruation'?"

  "Yes." I also remembered how angry she became and how it had brought tears to her eves.

  "Well, that's what this bleeding is called when a woman has it. Woman," she repeated, and looked up at the ceiling while she took another deep breath. "She's only just becoming seven years old," she added, still looking up as if she were having a conversation with God. She took another deep breath and stared at me. I waited. What else would she tell me? I was holding my own breath in anticipation.

  Then she shook her head. "You don't even know how babies are made and here I am starting this conversation." She sighed deeply and shook her head once again. "For now, Jordan, just get out and dry off. I'll show you how to use this. I'll help you every month."

  "Every month?"

  "Yes. That's why we have to mark the calendar, honey. We'll just make a small dot with a red pen so we both know what it means, okay?"

  'But won't I die if all this blood comes out of me every single month ?"

  "No," she said. "It's supposed to come out of you, only, as I said, not this early in your life. And we don't know. It might not happen again for a while. This," she said, holding up the white cigar, "will keep it from flowing out of you and I'll tell you what to look for in anticipation."

  "What's that mean?"

  "You'll know when it's going to happen. But as I said, it might not. This is so unusual. Let's hope," she said, and helped me out of the tub.

  Then she showed me how to insert what she called a tampon. She told me I had to know because I had to change it for a fresh one every four to eight hours. The whole time she cried, especially when she made me do it myself. She hugged me to her and I cried without knowing exactly why I should. As lone as I did it correctly, she told me. I wouldn't even know it was there.. Having anything alien in my body, though, made me feel funny. How would you forget it was there?

  Afterward, she gathered up the wet towels and then she took the garbage bags out of my bedroom and quietly snuck down the hallway to the stairway to put them in the garbage bins. She got me a new blanket from the hallway closet, too.

  I dressed and brushed my hair. My stomach felt a little better, but I was still tired and a little dizzy. She returned and sat on the toilet seat again, taking my hands into hers.

  "You can't let anyone know about this either, of course. It's part of our great secret. Because what's happening to you is so unusual. I will speak with Dr. Dell'Acqua about it immediately. We might have to go see her, but I still don't want anyone else to know about it just yet, Jordan. You have a few days left to the school year. Be sure you don't tell any of your friends. Promise?'

  "I promise, Mama," I said, even though she didn't need me to promise. Since she had emphasized how important it was for me to keep it a secret. I was fearful of anyone knowing about it, too. But I couldn't help but wonder if any of my school girlfriends had already had the same thing happen to them and if they had promised their mothers they would keep it a secret, too. All of us were walking around with our hearts locked.

  "You'll take some to school with you in your purse, but don't let anyone see them, and
you'll ask to go to the bathroom and change it. Okay?"

  I nodded and she took deep breaths as if she couldn't get her breath. For a moment. it frightened me, but she stopped and quickly smiled. She kissed me.

  "Let's just go down, have our breakfast, and pretend none of this happened_ - she said.

  Pretend it didn't happen? Could I do that? What if I got stomach cramps in the middle of breakfast and groaned too loud or the tampon fell out? All sorts of horrors occurred to me.

  "You'll be all right," Mama said once more.

  We both heard Daddy walking in the hallway. Sometimes, he wore a pair of very expensive western boots and they clipped and clopped louder than shoes.

  "Your father's up and dressed. I'd better get dressed myself," Mama said, and hurried out to do so. She took the folded wet towels with her.

  After what had happened to me and what we had done. I was actually afraid to go down to breakfast without her. I was terrified that

  Grandmother Emma would take one look at me, point her finger, and say, "You had a menstruation! Get out of my house!"

  Of course, she didn't. She barely gave me a passing glance at the table. She was too involved with Daddy and information she had about his

  supermarket. One of the employees had broken a bottle of mayonnaise and apparently not done anything about it quickly enough. A customer, an elderly lady, had slipped and fallen and broken her hip. Grandmother Emma 's attorney, Mr. Ganz, had called to tell her he had received the summons for a lawsuit the woman was starting against March's Market.

  "You can't imagine how embarrassed I was telling Chester Ganz I knew nothing about it. I could hear how dumbfounded he was in his silence. He knows how I run my business affairs."

  Although Grandfather March had given the supermarket to Daddy, it was still part of a

  corporation that Grandmother Emma controlled. I didn't understand what all that meant, except I saw it meant Grandmother Emma could still tell Daddy what to do.

  "Why didn't you tell me about all this. Christopher?" she asked him. She leaned over the table toward him, clutching the papers in her hand.

  Daddy continued to butter his toasted bagel with such concentration, it looked like he would not answer. Ian looked more interested than Daddy did and tried to read what was written on the papers Grandmother held. She snapped them out of his view with a flick of her wrist.

  "Well?" she demanded.

  Daddy paused and looked like he was trying to remember the reason himself. Grandmother Emma held herself so stiffly, she looked like she had been turned into a statue in anticipation of Daddy's reply.

  He shrugged. "To tell you the truth, Mother. I forgot all about it," Daddy said.

  "You forgot?" She looked at the rest of us to see if we were just as amazed. Mama looked down. Ian was full of curiosity and I was afraid to look back at Grandmother too long. Sometimes, she gave me the feeling she could read faces the way other people read books.

  She slapped the papers on the table. "You forgot we were being sued for negligence? You're not ashamed to sit there and say such a thing?"

  Daddy bit into his bagel and then shrugged again. "I forgot," he said as casually as he had a moment ago.

  Grandmother Emma turned to my mother and glared at her as if Daddy's forgetting was also my mother's fault. Mama put her fork down and fixed her eyes on her in preparation to do battle. My heart thumped so hard, it felt like it was going to pop through my ribs. Something terrible was about to happen.

  Daddy caught the exchange of looks. "What's the difference anyway?" he asked. "The insurance company will take care of it."

  "The difference, Christopher, is that in this family, we don't keep important things from each other.

  "Especially," she added, her eyes moving toward me. "from me!"

  I looked quickly at Mama, who shifted her eyes just as quickly away.

  Grandmother Emma saw that. I knew she did. Her eyes were soaking in suspicion like little sponges as she glanced from Mama to me and back to Mama again.

  And I was never as afraid of what would happen next in this house as I was at that moment.

  3

  Too Early. Too Quickly

  .

  The moment I returned from school that day,

  my mother told me Dr. Dell'Acqua wanted to see me as soon as possible. That same afternoon in school I had a close call in the bathroom because Missy Littleton almost saw what my mother had given me. I didn't close the stall door fast enough. As it was, my girlfriends were curious about why I was so quiet all day and not interested in anything they said or did. I kept to myself as much as I could out of fear someone would finally notice the new things about me. I had never been as self-conscious about my body.

  "I made your appointment for tomorrow. I'll pick you up at school."'

  One look at my face would tell her or anyone, for that matter, that I was petrified.

  "Don't worry. No one will know why I'm coming for you. It doesn't mean you're sick and dying," she added quickly. "There are things we should do, however, to be sure everything is all right and will be all right."'

  I said nothing. I hadn't been to Dr. Dell'Acqua very much aside from our shots and an occasional sore throat or earache. Dr. Rene Dell'Acqua was the same doctor Grandmother Emma had. In fact, Grandmother had convinced Mama we should use her as our doctor, because she was "more sensitive to female problems," whatever that meant. Dr. Dell'Acqua was a tall, slim, dark-haired woman with soft dark brown eyes and a smile that put me at ease quickly whenever I did go to see her for anything. Because of Mama's tone of voice and obvious concern. I was more nervous about going to see the doctor this time, even more nervous than when I knew I was going to get a shot.

  "It's time for us to tell Daddy about this, too," Mama told me.

  With the school year ending. Daddy was talking about taking us all up to the family cabin on Lake Wallenpaupack in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, where we had a motorboat, too. It had been our week's summer vacation even before we had moved in with Grandmother Emma. She continually talked about selling the property since we rarely used it. My grandfather Blake had used it often because he was a fisherman and enjoyed bringing his business associates to the lake for what she said he called FFWWs, Freedom From Wives Weekends. From what I understood, Grandmother Emma didn't care. She wasn't fond of the cabin and rarely went up there. She told Ian and me it stank from cigar smoke.

  "The stench is in the walls of the cabin and even leaving the windows open all winter won't get rid of it. Besides, how anyone can enjoy being at the mercy of mosquitoes and other bugs is a mystery I'll never solve."

  Ian enjoyed going there for exactly that reason. He liked to explore nature and didn't get all that many opportunities for it at home. He, like Daddy, wasn't interested in fishing, except to capture a fish for a study. He'd rather examine the inlets and bushes, walking about with his magnifying glass and bringing specimens back for his microscope. He pressed them into a book and kept a library of creatures.

  The cabin was a cozy three-bedroom, but it meant we would be more intimate and the chances of Ian and Daddy finally discovering what was happening to me were far greater. For that reason as well, it was time to share our secret with Daddy.

  "I don't want to take you to Dr. Dell'Acqua without your father being aware of it anyway," Mama said, and decided to tell him about me right after dinner.

  Although my father was very different from his mother, he was like her when it came to spending time with his children and being involved in their everyday lives. I understood from what I could gamer from tidbits of my father's history that Grandmother Emma was always too busy with her charity events and social life to devote herself to motherly duties. Once, I heard Daddy tell Mama that he was sure he was an accident. At the time I had no idea what that meant. All I could think of were car crashes or falling off bikes.

  For the most part, Daddy left our maintenance and needs up to Mama. Ian and I could count on the fingers of
one hand how many times he had

  accompanied her to our school to listen to our teachers talk about us. He was always too busy for this or too busy for that. Even Grandmother Emma complained about how he neglected us.

  "I don't see how you could possibly be busier than your father was. Christopher, and yet he had so much more time for you than you have for your children. You shouldn't leave so much to your wife," she added, which was her main reason for

  complaining. She wouldn't miss an opportunity to say, "Don't forget. As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

  He always promised to do more and take more interest, yet when it came to disciplining us or following up on a complaint Grandmother Emma expressed about our behavior. Daddy would pass on the duty to Mama as if she had hatched us all on her own.

  "Look after your kids and keep them from being so messy," he might say, which were words right out of Grandmother Emma's mouth.

  "Your son was disrespectful to my mother again," he would tell her.

  "My son? My daughter? My children, Christopher? Where were you when all this

  happened?" she would shoot back at him.

  "Obviously out of my mind," he might say.

  Once I heard my mother mutter to herself right after one of these arguments, "Some people are just too selfish to have children or even get married to anyone or anything but their own shadow."

  She often talked to herself or if she spoke to me, she didn't expect me to understand or remember, but I usually did, and there was never any question Ian understood. I would go to him to explain and he always did.

  That night after dinner. Mama came to my room to wait for Daddy. He was groaning and moaning that he had things to do and might even have to return to the supermarket office.

  "I need you, Christopher. Just come to Jordan's room," Mama insisted.

  Daddy came walking quickly into my room. He paused just inside the doorway, looked at the two of us sitting on the chairs by my student desk, and put his hands on his hips. 'Okay. Caroline, what's going on now?" he asked. Whenever he was displeased, he called Mama "Caroline" rather than "Carol," which was what Grandmother Emma always called her.