longing and tear-streaked suffering—made it the perfect antidote to today’s latest fanning of Brooke’s flames.
Leah was, as usual, reading. She’d finished The Moonstone before dinner and was now started on Tess of the D’Ubervilles. It was a paperback she’d borrowed from the shelf of dog-eared beach-reading at the cottage they’d rented earlier in the summer. The soft but knowing gaze of the young woman on the cover had been what caught her eye, and she’d tucked it into her tote and brought it home for future immersion. So why not now? Knowing was in short supply this day. Maybe the girl in this book could help.
Brooke was in the midst of a sighing pause—her sigh evident in her slumped shoulders and lax cheeks—after the furious flat-pencil shading of one of her hearts when she suddenly sat upright and got the strangest quizzical look on her face. Leah wondered if it was Momma or Father calling out from downstairs. But if so, why the puzzled expression? And why didn’t Brooke reflexively touch her ear to alert Leah to the sound?
Instead, without any gesture or even a glance at her sister, Brooke jumped off the bed and ran out of the room. That’s when Leah saw the spot of red on the bedspread where Brooke had been sitting. In later years, after she’d had her own anticlimactic experience of a first period—a smear of blood on the toilet paper after peeing followed by the dutiful installation of the bulky pad that Momma’d given her in anticipation of such an occurrence—Leah tried to recall her mix of thoughts in the moments before Brooke returned. Why wasn’t she more alarmed, both by her sister’s startled actions and the blood on the bed? First she wondered if Brooke had cut her finger on the notebook’s wire spiral, but then realized that Brooke’s hands had been atop the notebook (which sat to one side on the bed, Brooke’s hearts mute witness to this heart’s outpouring). She did wonder briefly what she later learned most girls wonder at such moments—am I dying? Or, in this case, was Brooke dying, which would be even worse for Leah than her own death. The blood on the quilt was a far more stark and potent affirmation of her mortality than the pretty entwined corpses at the end of the movie. Why wasn’t she afraid? Or maybe she was, a fear she forgot later. All her attempts to recall the details of those fraught moments alone with the blood returned her to the same generalized reaction—Brooke would take care of it, which also happened to be her response to almost every challenge of her childhood and early adolescence.
After what seemed a very long time, and Leah not moving or reading one word in Tess open on her lap, Brooke finally returned dressed in full-length flannel pajamas despite the season. Keeping her eyes downcast, she leaned over from the side of the bed and hugged Leah in a prolonged embrace, quivering slightly.
When she finally stood, Leah expected the worst. Instead she was greeted by a beaming smile from Brooke and the giddy statement, “I’m a woman now!”
Leah was confused. Brooke was no more a woman than the man in the moon was—or the precocious Juliet.
Brooke plowed right through her sister’s confusion. “I can have a baby!”
Now Leah was really confused. She glanced over at the child’s rocking chair in the corner with all of Brooke’s “babies” carefully arranged on the seat—Sammy, Meredith, and Jack: two stuffed bears and a floppy-eared white rabbit.
“No, no, no, no, Leah!” Brooke exclaimed. “Me! My body can have a baby!” She sat down on the bed and took Leah’s hand in hers and gave a generalized summary of the female reproductive organs and the menstrual cycle, including an explanation for the spot on the quilt that had faded from bright red to dull maroon. While Brooke got sex education in school, and plenty of additional information (of varying accuracy) outside the classroom, Leah’s special school had not yet incorporated sex education into their curriculum. So all of this came as genuine news to Leah. Brooke left out many of the details, including the entire male side of the equation; but even so, the lesson was too much to absorb. She just nodded each time Brooke paused to see if she were following along.
Brooke finally finished and jumped up. “Isn’t it great? I’m a woman now!”
Leah turned and looked at the blood spot. She couldn’t for the life of her understand how that spot made Brooke a woman.
Brooke followed her gaze. “Don’t worry, Lee. It’ll wash out.” She started to untuck the quilt.
Leah grabbed her book and the notebook and stood up to let Brooke remove the stained quilt.
But Brooke paused suddenly in her efforts. “Don’t touch it, Leah,” she said.
Leah nodded assent. Touching the spot was not something she planned on doing.
“I’ve got to preserve the moment.” Brooke ran out of the room.
“Preserve” when associated with the spot didn’t seem all that wise to Leah. In fact it struck her as downright disgusting. And if Brooke cut up the quilt Momma would tan both their hides.
But Brooke didn’t return with scissors. Instead, she brought the Polaroid camera from the hall closet. And with one press of the shutter and the simultaneous brilliant flash, Brooke had preserved her moment. She set the camera and its developing print on the dresser and resumed stripping the bed. She balled up the quilt and ran out of the room, headed for the laundry, practically flying in her joy and excitement.
Leah walked over to the dresser and looked at the instant print in the camera’s holder. Its black background slowly resolved into colors and shapes. The reddish-brown spot that emerged in the middle looked like just one more accent in the quilt’s diverse patterns and design. No one except Brooke and Leah would know its true meaning.
Later in the month, a week before the start of school, Momma informed Brooke that she’d be feeding Sally Milton’s cats for a few days.
Brooke responded with predictable obeisance. “Why?”
“Because I said you would.”
“Why can’t Matt do it?”
“Because I said you would be glad to help out.”
“Why did you say that?” Brooke shrieked. “She’s a senior and I’ll be a freshman! She’ll probably force me to carry her books or shine some boy’s shoes! Why should I help her?”
“Because it’s the Christian thing to do,” Momma said calmly.
“Sally Milton has never done one single Christian thing or even a normal sort of nice thing to me my whole life. She’s been nothing but a pain in my derriere!”
Leah giggled. She loved Brooke’s expanding vocabulary.
Momma said, “Their family needs our support.”
Brooke said, “Why? You don’t hardly know Mrs. Milton. What’s so important about helping them?”
Momma had had enough. She pinched her right index finger against her thumb and drew them in a zipping motion across her lips.
Brooke took a breath to speak and Leah feared she might actually try it. But in the end she swallowed her continued protest unspoken and substituted the stomp of her foot and a low growl.
After a pause, Momma continued, her face calm again. “The key will be in the mailbox, the food and feeding instructions on the kitchen counter. You begin tomorrow evening.”
Brooke stormed out of the kitchen.
Leah looked at Momma and shrugged as if to say, “You know Brooke.”
Momma sighed and said, “Watch over for your sister, please.”
Leah nodded then followed after her new charge.
The next day they were returning early from the pool in the cloudy and cool mid-afternoon. They passed the cul-de-sac where the Milton house was, and Brooke turned down that road. She answered Leah’s question without even pausing her stride. “So Sally’s stupid cats get fed a little early; I’ll be darned if I’m going to make a special trip all the way back over here.” She strode on ahead.
Leah followed.
They rounded the end of the tall hedge along the road and turned up the Miltons’ drive when they spotted a car parked in front of the house. The two girls stopped at the end of the drive. At that moment the front door opened. They slid behind the screen of the hedge but were able to see the front of the h
ouse through a gap in the branches. Mr. Milton emerged from the doorway carrying a suitcase in each hand. He was a balding round-faced, round-bodied man who was so naturally jolly that the Rotary Club always used him as Santa Claus at their family Christmas party. But today, for the first time in their viewing, his face was weighed down in a somber expression. Had someone died? There’d been no mention of such a loss at church this week. And what about the bags? Brooke and Leah looked at each other with wide eyes, coming to the same conclusion simultaneously—Mr. and Mrs. Milton were getting a divorce! Poor Sally! No wonder Momma wanted to help them out. But why would they need to take care of the cats if only Mr. Milton was moving out?
Just then Mrs. Milton came out on the front stoop. She too had a very serious expression, and her eyes squinted as if into the sun though the day was cloudy.
Mr. Milton finished loading the bags into the trunk of the car then waved to his wife before getting in the driver’s seat.
Mrs. Milton said something into the void of the doorway and Sally walked out, pausing on the stoop while her mother locked the front door and dropped the key in the mailbox. Then the two paced down the front walk together, Sally hobbling on swollen feet and leaning lightly on her mother’s arm. Even carefully wrapped and belted into the large gray trench coat, months ahead of season, Sally’s ballooning midsection was conspicuously apparent. Leah