Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

grass. That made me cry even harder.
    Emily hadn't forewarned anyone. As usual, she had marched into the house and up the stairs to her room. Mamma didn't even realize I wasn't behind her. She was listening to the music on her wind-up Victrola and reading her newest novel when I opened the front door and wailed. It took a few moments for her to hear me and then she came rushing out.
    "What is it now?" she cried. "I was just in the middle of a good part and . . ."
    "Mamma," I wailed, "something's terrible wrong with me! It happened on the road. I got terrible cramps and then I started to bleed, but Emily ran off and left me there. I left all my books there, too!" I moaned.
    Mamma came closer and saw the blood trickling down my leg.
    "Oh dear me, dear me," she said, her right palm on her cheek. "You're having your time already."
    I looked up at her in shock, my heart pounding.
    "That's what Emily said." I rubbed the tears off my cheeks. "What does it mean?"
    "It means," Mamma said with a sigh, "you're going to be a woman sooner than I expected. Come along, dear," she said, holding out her hand, "and we'll clean you up and get you prepared."
    "But I left my books on the road, Mamma."
    "I'll send Henry back for them. Don't worry. Let's take care of you, first," she insisted.
    "I don't understand. It just happened to me . . . my stomach hurt and then I started bleeding. Am I sick?"
    "It's a woman's sickness, Lillian dear. From now on," she said, taking my hand and telling me something that would leave me horrified, "you're going to have the same thing happen once a month, every month."
    "Every month!" Even Eugenia didn't have the same terrible things happen each and every month. "Why, Mamma? What's wrong with me?"
    "Nothing's wrong with you, dear. It happens to all women," she said. "Let's not dwell on it," she insisted with a sigh. "It's too unpleasant. I don't even like thinking about it. Whenever it happens, I pretend it hasn't," she continued. "I do what I have to do, of course, but I just don't pay any more attention to it than I have to."
    "But it hurts so much, Mamma."
    "Yes, I know," she said. "Sometimes, I have to stay in bed for the first few days."
    Mamma did stay in bed from time to time. I had never given it much thought before, but now, I realized there was something of a regularity to her behavior. Papa seemed so impatient with her at those times and usually stayed away, finding it necessary to take one of his special business trips.
    Upstairs in my room, Mamma gave me a quick little explanation as to why the pain and the bleeding meant I was entering womanhood. It terrified me even more to know that my body had changed in such a way as to make it possible for me to have a baby of my own. I had to know more about it, but any questions I asked, Mamma either ignored or grimaced after and pleaded for us not to talk about such dreadful things. Mamma introduced me to womanly protection and quickly ended our discussion.
    But my curiosity had been aroused. I had to have more information, more answers. I went down to Papa's library, hoping to find something in his medical books. I did find a small discussion about a woman's reproduction system and I learned in more detail about what made the bleeding occur monthly. It was so shocking to have this just happen. I couldn't help but wonder what other surprises lay in waiting for me as I grew older and my body developed more and more.
    Emily poked her head into the library and saw me on the floor, submerged in my reading. I was so involved, I didn't hear her step up to me.
    "That's disgusting," she said, gazing down at the illustration of the female reproduction system. "But I'm not surprised you're looking at it."
    "It is not disgusting. It's scientific information, just like in our books at school."
    "It is not. That sort of thing wouldn't be in our school books," she replied with assurance.
    "Well had to learn what was happening to me. You wouldn't help me," I snapped back. She glared down at me. From this angle on the floor, Emily looked even taller and leaner, her narrow facial features cut so sharply that she looked like she had been carved out of a slab of granite.
    "Don't you know what it really means, why it happens to us?"
    I shook my head and she folded her arms under her chest and lifted her face so her eyes gazed toward the ceiling.
    "It's God's curse because of what Eve did in Paradise. From then on everything to do with childbearing and childbirth was