by Dana Spiotta
But before then, I ran toward the hill and the house, my new life unfolding ahead of me, and my old life left behind. I ran faster than I ever have, my body warming to the task. I lifted my head, my legs pumped in great strides. Up the hill they propelled me. I felt as if I had wings and I could run forever. What a thing this body is; what discoveries I will make with it.
Nine
Blood
1
Sam opened her eyes. Her face pressed against something. Stuck to something. She tried to turn her head, her cheek pulled, heavy, not all hers. Ow. She realized—slowly, because the world felt slow—something was terribly wrong. She touched the back of her head where the pain was coming from. Sticky. She looked at her finger the way she had seen in movies. Blood. She put her head back down to rest. Her face was wet; she realized, before she again lost consciousness, that she was lying in a puddle of blood, her blood, a deep crimson she had seen so many times. She recalled that she had been hit, knocked to the red oak floor, where she watched the pool of blood get bigger. She didn’t worry. She was too weary to worry. Instead she wondered.
2
In her dream, the blood flowed from her body and filled the whole world.
In her dream, she was not scared of the blood. She laughed. What was blood to a woman? There was menstruation, the monthly bleed: “A flow of blood and other material from the lining of the uterus, lasting for several days and occurring in sexually mature women who are not pregnant at intervals of about one lunar month until the onset of menopause.”
There was menopause: “The cessation of menstruation for at least twelve months.”
There was the in-between, the perimenopause, where Sam lived, in which you bled still, randomly and erratically, so that it would surprise you the way it did when you were a fourteen-year-old; it would stain things, unnerve you with its heaviness or clots or darkness.
Sam lay on the ground in her blood and hallucinated that all the blood was yet another period. She dreamed of her recent period, her painful, leaving, weird period, maybe her last ever period.
It began with the gurgle in the lower gut, the bloated, full feeling, but with movement. It was familiar to her, but it had been months, so it came with an odd distance to it: again? This again? There was a strange cathartic quality in the process. The doubled-over, lie-in-bed cramps. She visualized her uterus as she felt the intense period pain. She imagined it squeezing out the shedding lining. This made the pain feel better: productive, almost cleansing. This was probably the last one, certainly one of the last ones. And it was voluminous, intense, relentless. On and on it went. As always, after the pain, the bleeding was profuse. Copious. Overflowed. She had wadded up toilet paper to get her through the night. When she stood up, she had to hold the wadded tissue to keep it all from whooshing out of her. She waddled awkwardly to the toilet. Messy, her body was a mess. Disgusting yet fascinating. (Classic misogynist joke: Can you trust a creature that bleeds for three days but doesn’t die?) She had to go out and buy tampons and pads again. What a thing, this out-of-control body. It made her aware of how her body was alien to her, progressing toward its decline, its next phase, regardless of her desire or collusion. Her participation was not required.
Just like her pregnancy. At a certain point it had occurred to her that being forty weeks pregnant was like being on a terrifying ride at an amusement park. Once you are on it, you can’t get off. You will see the thing through no matter what, no matter how scared you are. Her body would do what it would do, her willing participation an illusion. Yes she could breathe and push. She could help it happen. But she could not stop it, she could not get off the ride. These wacky menopause periods reminded her of that feeling. She was a body, a highly complex organism in which there were many autonomic activities that she didn’t command. Her “cycle.” This was the last time, probably. After the first day, the pains lessened and she enjoyed the relief of the flow. Get it all out. What if her hormones, the things that kick that last period into action, what if they crap out before she got rid of the last lining, the mess of blood, the unneeded stuff of the uterus? Would it stay there for the rest of her life? Get it all out. She wanted it all out of her, and then it could shut down. Would she be at all sad that it was gone, this monthly process? Odd to have something so intimate and regular and pretty unpleasant stop. Would she forget what it feels like, actually feels like, the way you forget the body pain of childbirth?
Childbirth, another blood-ridden affair. A gush of effluvia, cleaned up by nurses, but then Sam bled for two weeks. Not a period, but it felt cleansing and draining, both, that postpartum bleed. And also sort of powerful. How could you not be in awe of your body and all its workings after it gave birth?
Blood had always been an elemental part of who she was. She had never been one of those women with an IUD or birth control pills who didn’t get her period. She had the monthly clock. Her amazing body had been so precise for years. She knew when she ovulated, knew when she would become ravenous, knew when she would bleed. But now, it had been haywire for over a year. Destabilizing. Transitioning. Her maybe last one. You of course can’t know your last period when you get it. Only later, looking back, could you realize it was your last. So maybe this one was it. Should she enjoy it more, feel sad in some way? She was no longer fertile (which had been mostly a burden, a horrible lifelong threat). No, she was glad to see it go. To see what her body would be like next, when it was no longer occupied with reproduction. When it was no longer blessed with this “special secretion.” Apparently, sleep mattered less. Would it change her relation to time passing? Was her cycle a measure of her life, and now days would turn to months to years without her noticing?
What did that come from, “special secretion”?
A nineteenth-century book of female sexual function by Alice Bunker Stockham. “Eve, having through her transgressions entailed upon her daughters a curse, they needed more renovation and regeneration than men; and that aside from ordinary depurition this special secretion was given to them.”
Right. The monthlies, the menses, the blood, was also called the Curse. Curse or blessing, her own blood did not alarm her.
3
What you didn’t want to see was someone else’s blood. What Sam didn’t want to see. She had walked past the street where she saw the shooting, but she was too scared to walk down the block where it happened. She was worried that there would be stains from where his blood had seeped into the concrete. She was worried there wouldn’t be stains from where his blood had seeped into the concrete.
Rust-colored, faded.
Her blood, Sam’s, was a sticky bright pool on the floor under her face. Where was it leaking out from? The back of her head but also her nose and her mouth. If enough blood sat on the waxed wood floor for enough time, it would stain the oak floorboards. Even if cleaned, some tiny amount would have seeped into the cracks between the planks. When it was cold, tiny gaps opened at some of the floorboard seams. This pleased her—if she died today, on the floor right here, she would be secretly absorbed by the house. Her body would become part of her house forever.
* * *
—
She heard the distant sirens coming her way, but before the EMTs pounded on the door and then came inside, she passed out again.
Ten
Sam
1
Sam woke in the hospital bed and her entire body ached, especially her head. She was told that she had a concussion, and the less she thought, the better. She laughed. Her head hurt. She winced but still laughed.
“What’s so funny?” the nurse said.
“Just thinking about not thinking is impossible,” she said. “I’m thinking about that.”
“Try to relax.”
“Trying to relax is like not thinking,” she said. She drank some juice through a bent straw.
At last the doctor came to talk to her. Sam told him she remembered bei
ng hit, but not who hit her. Would her memory come back?
“You weren’t hit by anyone.”
“What?” she said. “That’s impossible.”
“You had a transient ischemic attack. A TIA. You passed out. And you hit your head when you hit the floor, so you also have a concussion.”
“But I felt something hit the back of my head before I fell.”
“TIAs can cause a sharp pain in the back of your head, like a blow.”
This couldn’t be true.
He explained that a TIA was a stroke event, but the good news was that it didn’t seem to have done any damage. She wasn’t confused or having difficulty speaking.
But she was confused.
“A fucking stroke? I’m only fifty-three!”
“It happens,” he said.
“I’m so healthy, my god, my blood pressure, triglycerides, HDL, body fat, my liver enzymes, my kidneys, my A1C, my CRP—”
The doctor nodded. And he smiled.
“You need to rest. Stress is the problem here. Have you been under a lot of stress lately?”
Sam didn’t speak.
“Have you been getting enough sleep?”
Sam shook her head.
“You need to rest. You’re healthy. You’ll be fine,” he said. “Very little damage. Many, many years to come, I promise.”
Thank god! Thank god that I sustained very little damage after my mini-stroke. Eye-roll emoji, Sam thought, and laughed at her own pathetic joke. She was tired, and thankfully, her body let her sleep.
2
She didn’t dream about what had happened because she didn’t remember much about the entire night, really. When she woke, she tried—but trying to remember actually hurt. Memory was not a thing that responded to willful straining. It was delicate and temperamental. She had hit her head on the edge of the tile was what the EMTs had surmised, and this was what the doctor explained to her. You are lucky, he said, that you were able to call for help. The concussion and the cut were bigger concerns than the TIA.
No one had hit Sam. No one had persecuted or targeted her. No one to blame or be angry with.
* * *
—
Matt had been in the night before with Ally, but Sam was sleeping. He called her, and after she told him she had had a small stroke event, he sighed. “Yeah, the doctor told me,” he said.
“It isn’t that serious,” she said. “At least it wasn’t a cardiac event. Or an arrhythmia or an aneurysm or a seizure.”
“Stay off the internet, Sam.”
“Okay, okay.”
“No screens, concussion, you know the drill.”
Later he brought her some takeout food from Vince’s deli, her favorite: sliced porchetta with rosemary and garlic on a ciabatta roll, which she couldn’t eat, not yet. She picked it up. Put it down. She had become a person overwhelmed by substantial food, like a frail little old lady.
She should call her mother, but Matt said he had spoken to her. Everything could wait.
“What do I do? I can’t read or look at any screens.”
“I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “But close your eyes. Do that thing where you don’t think, you relax your body part by part.”
“Meditation?”
“Yeah, do a breathing meditation,” he said and held her hand.
After a few minutes of this, she rested, but she wasn’t sleepy. Not a cacophony of thoughts, but thoughts just the same. Ally. Also Aadil and his mother’s photo in the paper and the street that night. The street so close to her house. She opened her eyes. Matt was staring at her. She tried to smile at him, then winced.
“You aren’t sleepy?” he said.
“No,” she said, “but this is nice, thank you.”
He nodded. Squeezed her hand.
“What do you want now, Sam?” he asked, adjusting her pillow.
“I think—” Sam said. “I think—”
“Don’t think, remember? Your concussion, your cognitive rest?”
“Right,” she said, and smiled. “That.” She touched her bandages, which made an odd, muffled sound in her head, as if she were underwater. She looked up at him.
What did she want? She wanted an honest life. More than that. She wanted a good life. You can do nothing or you can do better.
* * *
—
After she was released from the hospital and went back to where she lived (the old beautiful wrecked house), Sam sat and took stock (her old beautiful wrecked body). She was recovered, but not completely. She would never entirely be the same as she was before. She knew this was true, but it didn’t upset her. Wasn’t that always true? After all, what is a body for? Her body, this body, and its glorious, sad flesh? Shouldn’t your body be inscribed with every thing that ever happened to you, every thing you did or saw or felt?
Her phone pinged. Ally texted to see if she could stop by.
yes please!
Sam hesitated and then added an emoji face with a head bandage.
She watched out the window for her daughter to pull up. When she did, Sam opened the door and watched Ally walk toward her (so tall and lovely), smiling and holding a giant white bakery box. “I’m so happy to see you, Ally-oop,” Sam said. They awkwardly touched each other’s arms, not quite hugging, and when they pulled back, Ally looked her mother over and frowned.
“Are you okay, Mama?” Ally said, and hearing Ally say “Mama” made Sam start to tear up.
“I am,” she said. “My head hurts because I hit it, but no permanent damage to the brain. I am concussed.”
“You do cuss,” Ally said.
“I must concuss that I cuss a lot,” Sam said. They laughed. Ally put the giant white box tied with pink string on the table. Sam pointed at it.
“Is that?”
“Cannoli cake from Nino’s. You need to eat. You’re too skinny.” Cannoli cake from Nino’s was Sam’s favorite. Sam wanted to jump up and get the elegant silver-plated Oneida cake cutter she had found at a yard sale, but she was tired, so she just waited and let Ally figure it out. Sam sat on her bed and watched. Ally opened the box, and with a dull butter knife she lopped off two giant, awkward pieces. She plopped them onto two small bread plates. Then Ally grabbed two tablespoons from the dish rack and placed them on the plates alongside the cake. She handed a plate to Sam. The smell of the cake woke Sam’s brain up. The most perfect dopamine delivery system ever. They ate their cake together with the big spoons and it was intoxicating.
“This house is so pretty. And cozy. Exactly as I pictured it,” Ally said.
“You pictured it?”
“Yeah, when you texted me, I imagined you here.”
“Can I show you?” Sam started to get up.
“Later, Mom.”
Sam nodded, sitting back on the edge of her bed, watching Ally eat her cake at Sam’s table. Ally scooped a large frosty chunk with her spoon, slowly chewed, and then swallowed.
“You saw us at the fair, didn’t you?” Ally said.
Sam nodded. “I did.” (So Ally knew that Sam had seen her!)
“But you said nothing. You walked away.”
“I thought I should leave you alone. Not that I liked it.”
“You didn’t like leaving me be or you didn’t like me being with Joe?” Ally said.
“Both. I’m worried he’ll hurt you.”
Ally stared down at her plate. She was now prodding the cake with her spoon. She pushed it away, to the center of the table.
“It’s already happened. Or is happening. He dumped me, which is strange because I had started to question things with him, but I wasn’t expecting him to do that. It upset me a lot more than I would have guessed.”
“Oh, honey—” Sam said.
“Oh, Ally—”
“I’m joking!”
Sam smiled weakly. “Oh.”
“Sam, sometimes I think you lack faith in me.”
(Now it was “Sam,” not “Mama.”)
“You panic. I’m resilient. I’m okay,” Ally said.
“I know you are. I really do know.”
Ally looked intently at her, the serious girl again. “Do you think you will come back home now?”
“I’m staying here,” Sam said. “I can’t live there.”
Ally didn’t look surprised or mad. “I kind of feel the same way—I can’t wait to leave for college.”
“Good,” Sam said, and nodded. Her head hurt with the nodding, and she touched the bandage.
“Does it hurt a lot?” Ally asked and moved from the table over to her mother. They sat side by side on the little bed. Sam shrugged.
“Can I see?”
Sam turned the back of her head to Ally. Lifted the edge of the giant bandage.
Ally sucked in her breath. “Oh, Mama!”
“Looks worse than it is, I guess.” Sam pushed the bandage back into place.
“Grandma’s sick,” Ally said.
“Yes. What did she tell you?” Sam said.
Ally looked down. “She didn’t go into much detail about it.” Then Ally’s mouth started to quiver. She put her hand over her mouth and then she reached for Sam, who pulled Ally to her. Sam heard Ally cry against her chest.
“I was so scared when you got hurt, Mama,” Ally said into Sam’s shoulder. “I didn’t think anything could happen to you—” She pulled back and looked up at Sam. She laughed and shook her head, her eyes red from crying. “Because you’re—”