BLOOD
In her thirteenth summer, she spent two weeks with her cousin at her grandparents’ house. Fishing. Reading. Camping in the front yard and waking up to find cows brushing against the tent. She watched her cousin, two years older, use Vaseline to remove thick layers of black mascara. They shelled butterbeans and shucked corn. She learned to remove lint from the dryer and started her period. She didn’t recognize what had happened until her cousin saw her panties.
“Mary Anne, what have you got on your panties?” Julie was slathering Vaseline on her eyelashes thick with mascara at the sink.
Mary Anne slapped her legs together over the commode seat.
“What?” She was embarrassed. Her panties had been dirty all week, but she couldn’t figure out why. She’d been hiding them in laundry basket and hoping Grandmother wouldn’t notice.
“Let me see.” Julie looked at her reflection in the mirror. “Show me. You don’t have to be embarrassed.”
All could be was embarrassed, but she split her legs and showed her cousin her panties anyway.
“, you started your period! Didn’t you know that? What did you think, that you were messing your pants?” Julie slung open the door to the bathroom. “Grandmother, come here! Mary Anne’s started her period.
She wiped herself, glancing at the tissue to see bright red streaks. She’d never looked before. Her embarrassment strangled her.
Julie grinned at her while she a clean pair of panties and an elastic strap with buckles. Their grandmother leaned around the door. “Your granddaddy came home with a box of sanitary napkins a long time ago. I asked him what he bought that for since I didn’t need them anymore. I guess we know now why he bought them. God knew you’d be here when you started.” Grandmother was beaming, too. “The first time is always scary--”
“You can say that again,” Julie said.
“Hush, Julie. You can tell her your story later. The first time is scary, but this means you’re a woman now. Help her with that belt, Julie. She can’t figure it out. Didn’t your mama get you ready for this?” Mary Anne shook her head no.
“She gave me a booklet to read last year. She said it was the one they gave her in high school.”
“That sounds like Azalee. I guess she thought a booklet would take care of it. You get cleaned up, then come out to the kitchen. I think we need some fresh peaches to celebrate.”
Years later Mary Anne would remember that beautiful afternoon when her grandmother and cousin celebrated her reaching womanhood. They stopped work for awhile and sat around the table peeling warm peaches from the backyard tree, the juice dripping down their chins and the peach fuzz stinging their arms. An aunt from down the road stopped by and was drawn into the circle around the formica-topped table. Her grandfather was given the news when he passed through. He gave her a wink and a nod, but he didn’t stay inside for peaches. This was a woman’s celebration, one that a man couldn’t take part in. Her cousin Bill wandered in and wanted a peach. Grandmother tossed him one, but told him to get, that this was Mary Anne's time. She told him why. He grinned and said that explained why she’d been so grouchy. And through it all, she was quiet, less embarrassed, and not ashamed. She was proud. Proud that she’d joined this group of women who treated her like an equal. Proud that those men treated her respectfully. She was a woman. She was thirteen, and she was a woman. She held that thought and felt its holiness. Streaks of blood on a tissue changed her life. Her body held a promise.
On the day when her parents arrived, she stood with her cousin and her grandmother. Julie elbowed her and said go on. She left the porch and ran down to the road just like they’d planned. She ran down to her mother getting out of the car and whispered,
“Istartedmyperiod”
Her slim, beautiful mother stepped from the air-conditioned car, smoothed the wrinkles from her dress and patted her hair. Mary Anne moved closer to wrap her arms around Azalee, but her mother stretched out an arm to stop her.
“It’s hot. Don’t touch me.” Her mother pushed her out of the way. She smiled in the direction of the house from under a raised palm, then waved to the folks on the front porch.
She tried again.
“istartedmyperiod.” She said it a little louder even though her father might hear her.
Azalee turned to look at her. Her face lost its smile.
“You’ll have to keep up with it. It’s not my responsibility.” She spun to start up the walk to the porch.
She froze.
She froze right there in the dust and the noon-day heat with her eyes wet and her throat so suddenly dry that she couldn’t swallow. Froze, cold in the white-hot, summer sun, stung by biting insects that she didn’t try to swat away. Frozen by the pain that couldn’t have been greater if her mother had struck her. That trickle of blood she thought made her important was nothing more than an embarrassing mess which stained her clothes and made her ache. Her mother made her feel ashamed.
The greetings and laughter on the front porch continued, but still she stood in the grit and sand, afraid to move, afraid to walk toward them. The shock and embarrassment chilled her. She waited until they went inside, then turned toward the pasture and began to run until she reached the barn where the warm, cow smell lingered even though the cows were in the field. The flies buzzed around her, lighting on her skin to taste the salt and sweat She wondered if the flies could taste a change on her skin. After a time the heat and the flies drove her out of the quiet aloneness of the barn. She had to go up to the house. She couldn’t stay with the cows forever. She guessed someone would notice eventually, and she could feel the stickiness between her legs creep down onto her skin.
She kept her eyes down walking through the pasture careful not to step in a cow patty. Huge, circles of cow shit cobbled the ground. Stepping in one barefooted wasn’t as bad as stepping in one with shoes. Feet washed off easier than shoe leather but she was wearing shoes.
“Why’d you run?” asked her girl cousin when she climbed the steps to the porch.
“Just cause.” She didn’t raise her eyes.
“Didn’t you tell her?” Julie sat in the porch swing pushing herself back and forth with the big toes of her bare feet.
“ I told her.” She waited for the swing to catch her legs behind the knees.
“What’d she say?”
“She said that it’s not her problem, and I’d have to keep up with it.”
The swing stopped. Julie turned to look at her cousin, her raccoon eyes squinting, looking for a reason that her aunt would be so cruel.
“That’s it? You heard her right?
Mary Anne squinted the tears from her eyes. Julie reached for her hand and squeezed. The swing began to move.
“I’ll show you how. You’ll be fine.” Julie looked across the fields toward the grazing cows . “When you get home, find a calendar and mark the dates, then you’ll know when to expect it. You can take home these pads that Grandmother has, then get your mom to get some more. You’ll be fine.” She squeezed her cousin's hand again.
Mary Anne didn’t feel fine. She felt hot and sick. She felt ashamed. She wanted peach fuzz and laughter.
They sat there in the porch swing, Julie’s foot balanced on the rocking chair in front of them, bobbling the swing back and forth, and watched the cows head back to the barn.