Kind and Loving God
Fiction
By Meg Favreau & Lauren Johnson
Published: July 27th, 2006 | 11:08pm
I received my period from that kind and loving God in the November of my 12th year. To show just how generous and thoughtful he was, God sent it to me at Thanksgiving dinner so my whole family could share in the beautiful declaration of my womanhood.
I soon became an atheist.
But that year, the year in question, we have the big Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house in Massachusetts. This isn't normal; my grandmother is supposed to be in Florida. Her old bones are too weak for New England falls and winters, but it's also common knowledge that she is about to shuffle off to the Buffalo in the sky, so my father and his siblings swallowed their pride and agreed, for the sake of grandma, to come together in a joyous celebration of food and her impending death.
So we sit at dinner at my grandmother's house, at a long, hacked-together table stretching from the dining room into the living room, where my Uncle Mike tries to turn on the TV on mute before being swatted at by his wife, who will stand no football on this Holy Day. Honestly, she thinks it's a religious holiday. The turkey represents Jesus and our eating him his suffering, I think. That's how we get sin in ourselves. By eating Jesus. Religion's a nasty cycle.
Grandma sits at the end of the table nearest the kitchen with an ashtray. She's determined to leave the world however she wants, and she has a pack of Camels snuggled between her water and her wine glasses. When Aunt Jo tries to kindly suggest that maybe grandma put out her cigarette, at least while we say grace, Grandma makes a dismissive hand motion. "Screw it," she says, and then taps ash into a standing ashtray positioned next to her chair. My stomach hurts.
I get asked the same questions again and again as we pass the dishes around. Take peas. "How's school, Alyssa?" Take bread. "What have you been doing lately, Lyss?" Take cranberry sauce that's still marred with the lines from the can. "Are you thinking about college, Alyssa?" This one comes from Uncle Bradley, two people down on my right. I can't tell if he is just out of touch with his extended family and takes my tall height for tall age, or if he simply wants to talk about his Alma Matter, Freeburg State.
"You know Alyssa, you should start thinking about Freeburg. I met my wife there." He pinches Aunt Marie's ass and she smiles, brushing him away. "But it's a great opportunity! I was in the honors program there you know, and I had a lot of fun. What are you thinking of studying?"
I don't know what I'm thinking of studying. I like art. I think I like acting. I tell him this.
"Art seems like a good one, even if you'll never make any money. But acting? You're so shy, Alyssa! I can barely hear you when you talk!" He laughs. Aunt Marie laughs. Everybody laughs. I eat, even though my stomach still hurts. Maybe I'm just hungry.
The laughter dies out as we all lapse in to quietly stuffing our faces, except for Uncle Mike who isn't quiet at all and makes a kind of horse-like smacking sound when he chews. Then, in an effort to break the silence, my father says, "You know, mother, I got a promotion recently." He already told her this on this phone.
Grandma's eyes are watery and blue. "Oh yeah?" she asks. "Are you shoveling more or less shit now?" Everybody laughs again, except my mother. She has no sway in the family but hates it when my grandmother swears in front of me. Mom thinks Grandma holds nothing sacred, even though a big crucifix hangs on the wall in her living
room.
My father straightens himself up. "No, mom. I'm pushing more paper. I'm a manager."
"But you don't say, own your own business, do you Rodger?" This is Aunt Barb. She has a clothing store. I went there once. She sold padded butt briefs, among other things. Grandma loves Aunt Barb. She smiles at her. Aunt Barb has shoulder pads to high heaven. She's also very efficiently nursing her baby son while at the table, whose little head is partially hidden in her suit jacket.
I eat. Turkey. Dad says to Aunt Barb, "At least I didn't sell the cat to the neighbors when I was little."
Uncle Mike jumps in. This is when it starts to get really ugly, and I excuse myself to the bathroom. As I leave, Uncle Mike says, "I make more money than both of you, and I never kissed any of my siblings while playing hooky from school!"
In the bathroom, I pull down my velour pants, my cotton undies, and sit. I look up at the ceiling while I pee. I think about how weird it is that the ceiling tiles look like the floor tiles. Then I look down.
My underwear is brown and red.
My underwear is brown and red.
I'm bleeding because I sinned and ate the Jesus turkey.
But I know, really, that's not it. This is the moment that all us girls have been waiting for for the past couple of years.
I spread my legs a little and stare into the bowl. Blood has dripped down and swirled like cream in coffee. At least I know I don't have a stomachache. I have Cramps. Like the school nurse told us about, like my mother complains about once every month.
I really don't know how I feel about this.
And then my mother knocks.
"Alyssa?" she says, pissed. "Alyssa, it's rude of you to leave for this long in the middle of dinner. What are you doing in there?"
"Just a minute, mom," I say. I wipe hastily. There's supposed to be something I can put in my underwear to fix this, right? A pad? A tampon? I shove a little bit of toilet paper into my vagina and get down on my knees on the bath rug, pants still down. I start opening my grandmother's cupboards. Nothing! Baby powder. Soaps. Mouse poison. Of course she doesn't have anything! She's 80-something! I'm frantic though, convinced that maybe if I look real hard, I'll crawl far back enough in her history to find something.
And this, this is when my mother opens the door.
"What the hell are you doing, Alyssa?"
I look up at her, wild-eyed, feral. I'm in National Geographic. She sees my underwear.
"Oh, honey!" she says. She lifts me up by the arms. "Here, sit in the tub for a minute." She bustles out, shutting the door behind her. I sit in the tub, no water, clothes on, pelvis exposed. My mother comes back. She's holding a massive, thick pad.
"Do you know how to use this, honey?" I start to nod. "Oh, let me show you," she says. She makes me stand up. She puts the pad on my underwear as it hovers around my knees. When I pull up my pants, it feels big and thick and alien. Then my mother hugs me. Tears well up in her eyes. Tears well up in mine. Goddamn, this is embarrassing.
"Congratulations, Alyssa. I'm proud of you." Like I did anything.
We walk back out together, my mother holding me by the arms, marching me in front of her like a trophy. It's actually comforting, my mother's touch, until we get back to the table. I'm ready to sit down, to slip quietly back into the meal.
But no. Mom squeezes my arms when we get back to the table. She squeezes hard.
"Excuse me, everybody," she says. They're all eating or arguing or doing both. She tries again, louder: "Excuse me!"
Grandma taps ash and looks, and out of reverence for her frail condition, everyone else's eyes follow.
"I have an announcement, everybody." I cringe, waiting. "Our Alyssa is finally a woman."
Everyone stares at me in silence. Uncle Bradley leans over to see if there's blood on my chair.
I am a woman, and I hate everyone.
Aunt Barb starts clapping. Everyone else follows, half-smiling, unsure of what to do. Uncle Bradley moves his glass of wine in front of my place setting, and his wife promptly moves it way.
And then, gingerly, with her shoulders sloped and her cigarette between her fingers, my grandmother stands. The clapping stops.
"Alyssa," she says, motioning with her head, "Will you and your Aunt Barb please join me in the kitchen?"
I look over at Aunt Barb, who doesn't move. "Mom..." she starts.
"I just want you girls to help start cleaning."
Grandma starts to walk out; I walk behind her. My mom starts to follow, but grandma says, "Sylvia, why don't you stay here." My mother doesn't like this and she grips her napkin in a fist, but my father puts a hand on her shoulder and sits her down, rubbing her with his thumb like she likes. Aunt Barb furrows her brow but she hands her baby to Aunt Marie and follows behind us.
Grandma holds my arm softly with her thin hand as she leads me into the other room. She smells like death, like smoke and muscle rub. The kitchen is a mess, and Aunt Barb takes her jacket off and moves behind me and starts running water to do the dishes. Back at the table, I can hear Aunt Jo loudly asking my mother about her childhood. Grandma looks into my eyes and speaks with gravel in her throat.
"You're a woman, Alyssa?"
"I guess, Grandma," I say. "Do you want me to start...?" I gesture to the dirty counter behind me.
Grandma shakes her head. She looks sad somehow, like she's staring at a bird with a broken leg knowing there's nothing she can do to help it. Deftly, she takes her cigarette and presses it into the skin of my forearm, burning it. I swear I hear a sizzle.
I pull back strongly, harshly. Aunt Barb is suddenly behind me and she catches me, holds the back of my arms in her two hands, stands there like a wall. I think I might've broken bones in Grandma's barren fingers, but she gives no clue as to whether she's hurt, just stares into me, that same look. My eyes are watering, brimming like dams. I try to process: my arm is burnt. It's not like any other pain, easy pains, like a needle prick or a pinch or bruise. It's like the skin is pulled too taught and it's ripping from itself in that one spot, a tiny black hole on the universe of my arm, pulling at the fabric of everything else. Oh, God. Grandma stares at me and she knows something, she's watching, she's waiting for me to speak. I'm feeling woozy, dizzy, I'm seeing black spots like I've just woken up in the morning, and even with Aunt Barb there I reach my hand my half-blindly to the wall to steady myself.
"Grandma," I say, softly, "This hurts more than anything." The tears brim up and over and fall out of my eyes, rolling, gathering mass, dropping off my chin and making dark spots on my shirt.
Aunt Barb puts a cold cloth on my arm, and I really see for the first time what I thought had been a mole, a birthmark: a cigarette scar, thin and pale.
And Grandma lowers her head and speaks, quietly, reverently: "Hallelujah."
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