The First Year

by Jeff Rosenplot

  Bypass the tampons, (yeah, I learned wherethey’resupposed to go in health class and they certainly aren’t goingthere), and pick up a few boxes of pads. There’s a dedicated “for teens” box, complete with stylish lettering and hip colors.

  “Do these people think I’m going to a rave?” I laugh. My laugh sounds out of place in the silent drugstore, like a fart at a funeral. I laugh again. Farts are funny. The wholething is funny.

  Pick up several bottles of Midol and a cartful of first aid supplies. Surprisingly, a drug store has never been part of one of my scavenging missions. For all my careful planning, bandages and disinfectant haven’t crossed my mind. I find a large plastic packing crate behind the pharmacy counter and use that as my first aid box. I pull everything I recognize from the shelves, including some antibiotics from behind the pharmacy counter. A few names of the drugs behind the counter are familiar, Oxycontin and Vicoden, from TV news stories. Those stories always ended badly.

  Later, after I’ve thoroughly cleaned and flipped the sofa cushions, I sit down and take a breath. Feels like I’m sitting on a diaper. The maxi pad is uncomfortable and confining. The Midol helps a bit, but the aching pain has sapped my energy. Oliver looks up expectantly. We skipped our beach walk, and now it looks like we’ll miss our afternoon swim, too.

  No one got around to telling me the details. Health class went through the mechanics. The lining of the uterus being shed, how tampons and pads worked, even about a thing called Toxic Shock Syndrome. Mom, in her own awkwardly ineffective way, had tried to be supportive. But no one told me about the pain. I’d heard the word “cramps” thrown around, usually from Grace and usually as a response to Mom or Dad demanding from her some physical exertion. The only kind of cramps I ever had came after gym class, when Coach Michaels had made us nerdy kids run an extra lap in order to “build character”. Was this something all women went through? Mom and Grace, too?

  Is this what I have to look forward to? Month after month of pain and mess and gross? That’s totally not fair.

  “Do I have to worry about this every time I go swimming?” I have a sudden flash of myself, bobbing in the surf, slowly turning into chum for the sharks.

  “This is bullshit. All of it, breasts and periods and cramps. I don’t want any of it. I didn’task for any of it.”

  But change is inevitable, isn’t it? Change is a wall toward which I’ve been racing since the moment I was born. Each time I crashed through one, another wall appeared, another change, another race forward. There’s no ability to stop, or alter direction, or even jump off. This ride is one way. Every change is catastrophic. Sometimes the damage is physical, leaving my body altered and unknown. Crashing into change, though, it always leaves an emotional casualty. Each mile marker makes me have to start from scratch. The person I knew, the skin I used to occupy, the crash removes it all. I’ve survived dozens of these collisions. Each one left me to rebuild from scratch.

  A part of me desperately wants to go home, but not to any physical home, not the house in Detroit or the house in Flint. Each crash, each change, it leaves debris by the side of the road. It’s that debris that I use to build my home. The place I see when I see home, it’s a mishmash kaleidoscope of all the broken pieces I’ve left behind. It’s built from my inability to pronounce the letter “J” until I was four. BAM. A direct hit into the wall. It’s my bright-eyed waking joy before I started kindergarten. BAM. It’s my belief in justice until Tyler Mann copied off my spelling test and I got blamed for it. BAM. The wall’s damage isn’t always physical. Most often, the scattered debris are pieces of my core beliefs. Right and wrong, good and evil, the safety of home and the infallibility of whoever is in charge. All of that gets shattered and crushed one piece at a time. The thing that’s built from its scraps, call it memory or wishful thinking or even home, it’s the place of long-lost teddy bears, hugs that encompass your whole body, the smell of powder and cotton and LEGO blocks, and it grows stronger and wider and farther away I go.

  There’s no ability to stop the ride, not even when no one else is riding. Change is inevitable. It’s the only truth that’s constant. This change, though, its debris field is vast. I’m no longer the person I was when my parents knew me. That part of my life, it’s gone. The physical body that occupied that space, my physical body, it no longer exists. Pieces of it lie broken and sharp in the desert dust.

  Growing up. That’s what they call it. Sometimes it’s said with lament, sometimes as a frustrated taunt. Oh, grow up. I’d uttered that phrase myself a great deal, usually to Gabe. I had never recognized its awful power. Grow up. It’s profane, a four-letter word and then half of a second one. It’s only too late, once the pieces are scattered and I’ve begun collecting them, that I start realizing precisely what’s gone. Grow up. I hold myself tightly, pulling my legs up to my chest. There’s no way back. All I can do is mourn, and know that at some point, these broken pieces will be added to the walls of the ever-changing place I call home.

  NOVEMBER

  The Storm

  It’s impossible and it won’t stop. I’m holding onto Oliver. For a long time it’s felt like the walls are going to fall in on us. The glass already has. I spent hours picking shards out of both of our skins. After a while, Oliver stopped crying with each extraction. We’re huddled together now in the bathtub. The bathroom is the only room that isn’t surrounded by walls of windows.

  I watched storms roll in before across the ocean. Dozens of them, spectacular pantomimes of electric madness, towering clouds that seemed to draw the ocean itself into the sky. They’d appear like ghost ships on the horizon, eating the crystal sky one swirling piece at a time. The fire sizzle of electricity building as the monster stretched and grew and then suddenly a burst of lightning and the thin, fine hairs on my arm stood up. The wind and the rain, it was all secondary to watching the beast come to life. Oliver hates them. At the first hint of a storm he’ll race into the house and hide under a bed. I was mesmerized. Michigan storms were impressive, but they couldn’t hold a candle to what I watched roll in off this angry ocean. As soon afterwards as I safely could, I walked the beaches. My best shells came after storms.

  This storm was different as soon as it started forming. Clouds congregated far offshore and huddled there for most of a day. The storm seemed to be waiting, as if it had a consciousness. None of the other storms frightened me. This one did.

  Every hour the storm sat offshore, it seemed to double in size. And it was black. At its heart, it looked like someone had ripped the color out of the sky and put the inky emptiness that was leftover into the middle of the ocean. I tried to remember if hurricanes rotated clockwise. This storm sure did.

  I sat on the beach for a long time, just watching it. Oliver hid in the kitchen. The surf was rough, churning up whitecaps that invaded farther and deeper ashore. Strong gusts of wind whipped my hair. It also sprayed me with salty rain.

  As the storm began to roll ashore, I put my most important supplies away. I unplugged the generators and stowed them both in the garage. I moved the truck inside as well, and pulled the crate of first aid supplies into the bathroom. The storm hit hard and when it finally came ashore, it did so quickly. It seemed to have finally made up its mind, the hours of indecision giving way to a full frontal assault on the South Carolina shore.

  The glass walls remained intact for a long time. I guess the builders of the house had planned for something like this. If you built a house made of windows in front of the Atlantic Ocean, you probably knew a hurricane would eventually hit it.

  It’s difficult to tell day from night. The only clue comes from the eerie green color that passes for daylight. Green fades into black and the storm keeps raging.

  I eventually coaxed Oliver out from under the counter. His entire body was shaking. I calmed him as best I could with off-key renditions of Beatles songs. We sat together on the sofa, huddled in the dark under a comforter from one of the beds.

  It was the comforter that protecte
d us from the brunt of the flying glass. The wall of windows made a painful last cry before the pressure of the storm became too much. We were showered with thick, sharp shards of glass.

  It was only by sheer dumb luck that I kept hold of Oliver. Pain and terror made him claw at my chest, trying to climb over me to get away. He’s grown significantly in the months we’ve been together, no longer the pliable little puppy he was. The house was dark. My flashlight was in my pocket, but if I released my grip on Oliver I had no idea what he’d do. If he ran outside, I knew I’d never see him again. A prolonged flash of lightning gave me my bearings. I pulled Oliver off the couch and half-dragged, half-rode him into the bathroom. The sound of the storm became more intense. It was on top of us and it simply didn’t want to stop.

  I closed the bathroom door and let Oliver go. He whimpered and growled. His claws skittered across the bathroom tile.

  I fumbled for the flashlight, turned it on. The sudden presence of blue LED light made me scream. My heart gave the thunder outside a run for its money.

  My reflection in the bathroom mirror looked like a crime scene. Blood streamed from my scalp and forehead, turning black by the flashlight’s glow. Oliver was curled up in a ball beside the toilet. His fur was matted with deep black puddles. I set the flashlight on its base, pointed at the ceiling, and crouched down beside Oliver. He growled and snapped his teeth at me.

  “Hey, buddy, c’mon, we’re in this together. It’s me, remember? Hannah. I’ve gotta’ get that glass out of you.”

  It took some time, but Oliver eventually slithered out from his hiding place and into my lap.

  I used tweezers and two whole bottles of Bactine to pull the shards of glass out of each of our bodies, and then sterilize the bloody wounds. The storm never let up. The bathroom walls rattled and shook. Outside the door, more glass shattered. It sounded like the house was coming down around us.

  Oliver eventually dozed off. I couldn’t sleep. I had no connection to what was happening outside. The bathroom has no windows. The wind never stopped. I coan’t imagine how one storm could maintain such power. I’ve seen hurricanes on TV, with the unlucky weatherman trying to stand up in the driving rain. And I’ve seen their aftermath. But an image on a TV screen is different from feeling it all around me. My ears continue to pop from the sudden drops in pressure. The storm reaches through the walls and invades my soul.

  At one point there was an explosion of glass above us. The windows upstairs blew in. I listen to a growing waterfall cascading down the stairs outside the bathroom. The house reallyis coming apart.

  I pray. I do it silently, and without much skill. My prayers become a jumbled-together collection of promises and begging. I don’t want to die. And I don’t want Oliver to die. For all the death and terrifying things I’ve seen, I’ve never been more afraid than I am right now.

  Oliver shifts in my lap. He’s asleep, and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful forhim. I’ve gotten so used to it being the two of us that it’s tough to remember when it was just me. I didn’t realize how badly I need him. What had he been through before finding me? What nightmares haunthim? I often watch Oliver sleep, his legs twitching like he’s running from something.

  Wake up with a start. Did I actually fall asleep? I’m disoriented. The room is pitch black. The flashlight’s batteries died while I was sleeping. Struggle to get my bearings. Oliver remains in my lap, still snoring.

  There’s no sound. That’s what’s different. The storm is gone.

  I disentangle myself from Oliver and stand up. My legs are shaky and I’m lightheaded. I open the door.

  It’s daytime, late morning judging by the sunlight. And it’s a sunny day too, as if mocking the aftermath of the hurricane.

  I step out of the bathroom. All the glass walls in the living room are gone. Large jagged panels are strewn throughout the room. The floor is wet. Here and there, brackish puddles have pooled. The room smells dank and fishy. The coffee table in the living room has blown against the kitchen island. Leaves and debris carpet the floor and cling to the walls.

  I’m numb. The damage is absolute. Above my head, a ragged hole in the roof drips water onto the staircase.

  “Oh my God.” It’s all I can muster.

  I pull a couple of lukewarm bottles of water out of the fridge. Aside from a puddle of leafy water, the kitchen is largely intact. I pour one of the water bottles into a bowl. Oliver drinks lustily.

  “We’ve got some decisions to make, buddy.” My initial shock is wearing off. The water helps too, although I was starting to get used to cold water again. The warm water is an unwelcome reminder of how things really are.

  We can’t stay in the beach house in its current condition, that much is obvious. I strain my head trying to come up with some plan to fix it. Board up the broken glass walls, repair the hole in the roof.

  “In what universe is that gonna’ happen? This place is a loss, Ollie. We’ve gotta’ find someplace new.”

  There are a lot of places I’ve seen on our long walks down the beach. But this, it’smy place. It’s home. It’s been six months since I discovered it. And now it’s gone. Just one more thing I’ve lost.

  The garage and everything in it has been spared. The house, situated between the ocean and the garage, has taken the brunt of the storm’s damage. The truck, the generators, most of my scavenged supplies, everything seems dry and safe. Good. I have enough to do without having to start over from scratch.

  I find a broom in the corner of the garage. Spend the next couple of hours sweeping glass and wood and leaves and water out through the holes where the windows had been. The debris turns the sand outside the color of week-old snowdrifts. We’ll have to stay in the house at least one more night. I’m exhausted from riding the storm out in the bathroom. I feed Oliver a bowl of dry dog food. He turns up his nose. The boy is accustomed to fresh fish.

  “We’ll get back out there again. The fish’ll still be there. But tonight we’ve gotta’ slum it.”

  Reluctantly and with great dramatic disgust, Oliver eats the dry dog food. I drink some more water and sit on the floor beside him.

  I’m exhausted. The sun is still blazing, but I can’t keep my eyes open. I drag myself to the damp, smelly sofa and I’m asleep as soon as my head touches down.

  My dreams are chaotic and terrifying. I’m being chased by something, I can’t see what exactly, and my legs are like rubber. I wake up violently. The echo of a scream is in my ears. I’m distantly aware it’s mine.

  I snuggle tightly with Oliver and stare out through the empty holes where the wall used to be. It’s night, a clear one. The stars blaze over the ocean. They’re oblivious to anything but their own blazing. Sometimes the stars are comforting. Other times, like now, they only serve to remind me how small and alone I really am.

  God, I hate that. My default emotion is fatalism. I sound like some whiny little teenager.

  “Iama whiney little teenager.” But I know that’s not true. Maybe Icouldhave been, if things were different. Mope around the house in my black jeans and black sweater, dabbling in a hybrid of Goth and Emo makeup and hairstyles, listening to music designed only to annoy, hanging around with friends who all looked and acted the same while proclaiming fiercely how unique we each were. I could’ve complained about rules and unjust punishments, and screamed at the top of my lungs about how much the world had changed since my parents were teenagers, which gave them no understanding of my singularly poignant problems. I’ve been stripped of that gift. And itwas a gift, the freedom to be my age. Grace and her outraged rebellions, finding fault as a form of greeting, that’s what I’m owed. Instead, survival took that from me. And like everything else, that opportunity has simply ceased to exist.

  I rub tears off my cheek. God, look at me. Lying here in the dark like some blubbering fool. But grief is like that. It sneaks up on you when you’re most vulnerable.

  “I need to figure out what’s next.” Oliver groans his disapproval at being wakene
d.

  “Sorry, buddy. Go back to sleep.”

  I rub the top of his head. Maybe it’s time to make some plans. Something more long-term than watching movies and going fishing.

  Starting Over, Over Again

  The problem is, I really love the beach house. The windows, the beach, the private lagoon, so much of it has been like a dream. And in the dream, I’ve felt like an authentic Jimmy Buffett character. The other houses that line the miles of private beach don’t evoke the same connection. Each of them are big, rambling places, and their opulence makes me angry. I know that’s an archaic reaction. Wealth and status are as dead as the bodies I’ve found inside each of them. But old habits are hard to dispose of. My family was never rich. Far from it. And at the end of things, even farther. Being rich is a luxury I don’t understand. So instead I’ve become prejudiced against it. My prejudice isn’t based on personal experience. I had no rich friends, and the closest resemblance in school came from the gaggle of popular girls who dressed identically and affected an air of snooty dominance. These houses are like the mansions I saw on those Travel Channel countdown shows. Some of them were probably even featured there. My prejudice confuses me. I had no problem spending a week in that house with the waterfall, which was probably worth ten times what these houses are.

  It dawns on me eventually that it’s grief. Good old grief, masquerading as anger and ignoring hypocrisy. The beach house ismine. God or the universe or whatever it is has already taken enough away from me. Why does it have to take my house, too?

  Recognizing that makes the process easier. Spend most of the next two days walking up and down the beach trying to choose our new house.