Free Cures for Heartbreak by Margo Rabb Page B

by the pains. I was embarrassed by how badly they affected me, how I missed school and threw up and ran fevers, spending all day in bed, writhing and crying, praying for the Midol to kick in. Even my father didn’t wholly believe the pain was real; he seemed frightened of me then, averting his eyes when he asked me how I felt. And he wasn’t unsympathetic just because he was a man—Alex didn’t believe me either. We never confided our womanly secrets; when she first got her period, stealthily popping the Kotex into our shopping cart, I was shocked and elated, expectant and jealous. “What’s it feel like?” I’d asked her, eager to share in the delights of her budding womanhood. “Shut the fuck up,” she’d said.
    My mother was the only one who believed the pain was real. To her, any illness, menstrual or not, became an occasion. Out came the ginger ale, strawberry Jell-O, soup; sometimes she’d stay home from work, and when the painkillers finally kicked in, we’d paint with watercolors and play board games I was far too old for. She brought up trays of food for me to eat in bed—sandwiches with the crusts cut off, saltines spreadwith peanut butter and jam.
    But now, all day, as rain poured down outside, we’d been practicing, decorating, and preparing for the showcase; I wouldn’t see my mother till it was over.
    â€œOnce we start dancing, you’ll forget it hurts at all,” Lucy told me. “You’ll be fine.”
    But by evening my cramps were even worse. At six-thirty, half an hour before the performance, I pulled off my leotard in the bathroom.
    Blood. Drips and gobs of it on my underwear; I recoiled at the sight. I always felt shocked and surprised at seeing the blood: the sudden horror of the redness, so frightfully bright. I never accepted that all this blood outside my body could actually be a normal thing.
    I found Lucy backstage. “I’m really sick,” I said. “My friend’s here .”
    â€œCan’t you just take care of it? No one will know.” She glanced out at the auditorium. “You have to go on. The dance—we can’t not do the dance. I can’t do it without you.”
    She summoned Jolée, who suggested I try deep breathing methods, and Fanny, who procured Midol from someone in her hora group.
    â€œDo you know where my mother is?” I asked Fanny, my voice beginning to break. “I need to see her.”
    She looked around at the people filing into the auditorium. She seemed nervous. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since this morning. Maybe—she might be by the lake. Buthoney—” She reached her hand out to me, but I started running, past Fanny, Lucy, Jolée, out the stage doors. I didn’t know what I was doing. The performance, our rehearsals, our plans to reunite my mother and Rolf—suddenly none of them mattered. I had to see my mother now; I had to know where she was. I wanted not just her comfort but the assurance of her presence. For a moment I felt like I was the mother, worried about her daughter’s whereabouts, needing the fact of her life to validate mine.
    The rain had stopped. I ran the whole way to the lake, half a mile, moisture from the grass soaking through my pink ballet slippers, mud splattering onto my tights. Near the lake I paused, panting. My mother, her back to me, was sitting quietly at the water’s edge. A man sat beside her.
    â€œMom!” I called out. “Mom!”
    She turned and stared at me, standing there sopping wet and streaked with mud; she looked at me as if I was crazy.
    â€œI’m really sick. I think—I think I need to go home.”
    I didn’t get a good look at Rolf. In the rush all I saw was the dark form of his body, shaded angles of his face. My memories after that are shady too, my brain trying to edit out my clumsiness, my humiliation at destroying my mother’s love