Love in the Time of Global Warming

Part 4

Venice’s cap is gone but I can’t go back and look for it. That little soiled red cap he always wore, even to sleep. I touch my bare, bristling head remembering how his felt after he insisted on getting his floppy hair cut off every autumn and spring. He didn’t like hair in his eyes but I thought he looked cuter, puppylike, with it long.

I sit in the van in the dark somewhere in this city behind a building with a caved roof, gnawing on the chocolate bar with my front teeth, thinking of Merk, the man who gave me the key. “I knew your parents,” he’d said. How? Who was he? Why hadn’t he just said that right away? “We don’t need any more blood on our hands,” he’d said. What did that mean? Is that what people did now, the ones who were left; did they go around killing people? I remember Merk’s eyes. They reminded me of something. And he’d given me a car. Why? Because he knew my parents? He’d given me a candy bar and told me about his kid. My mom and I used to fight about sugar, too.

I take a bite of chocolate and close my eyes, seeing my mom’s face. There are tears in her eyes.

---

When I was twelve I started being really mean to her. I couldn’t help it; everything she did made me mad. Or, maybe it was just that she was the only person I could let my anger out at. One day I was running late for school and she asked if I had put on sunscreen. I said, “No, I’m late, leave me alone!” and she ordered me back.

I tried to push past her and she grabbed my arm and pointed to the bathroom.

“I’m late,” I screamed again.

“It’s not my fault. You’re late because you ate too much sugar last night and didn’t get up when I told you. . . .”

“You’re such a bitch!”

She smacked me on the butt and I ran to the bathroom sobbing, put on the sunscreen, and was twenty minutes late to school.

When I got home she looked like she’d been crying; her eyes were still puffy.

“I’m sorry,” she said. It was the first time she’d ever hit me.

I mumbled I was sorry too. But I wouldn’t let her hug or kiss me. It made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. Like I was going to disappear, vanish back inside of her.

Two weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, I was by myself in my room reading a biography of Frida Kahlo, while my mom and dad and Venice were downstairs watching a movie. When I went to the bathroom there was a small brown stain on my underwear and a red trickle in the toilet.

I asked my mom to come upstairs. “I think I have my period.” My voice was soft; she didn’t hear me at first. I had to repeat it, embarrassed even more because of how I’d been acting toward her. I was afraid she’d say, “My little girl is a woman now,” or something stupid like that, but she controlled herself. Then I started to cry. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

“It’s okay, love. I know. The way you’re treating me, I don’t love it. But it’s pretty normal for your age. And especially with moms and daughters who’ve been really close.”