Page 26 of Falling Too Late

Wren’s period.

I didn’t know what to do.

Wren hadn’t mentioned anything about it to Ma, unless it was in private. I hadn’t pulled anything out of the bags when I was unloading things from the grocery store.

I closed the bedroom door quietly and went to the phone and dialed the diner’s number.

“This is Tony’s, Candy speaking.”

“Hey Candy, it's Alex. Can I talk to my mom?” The words came out in a rush, and I tapped my foot impatiently.

“Oh hey, doll, yeah, let me get her for you.”

“Alex?” My mom’s voice sounded on the line.

“Ma,” I started.

She must have heard the urgency in my tone. “Alex? Is everything okay?” The worry was thick in her voice; I never called her at work.

“Yeah, Ma, everything's fine.” Then I paused. “Well, I don’t know.”

“What's going on?”

“Wren and I took a nap and when I woke up, I saw that she bled through. . .” The words felt weird coming out of my mouth.

“Bled through?”

“Yeah. . .through the sweatpants. . .” I knew what it was, learned about it in health class a few years ago. The halls erupted with jokes about women bleeding and how it was gross. I went home and Ma explained it to me better than the school ever did.

“Oh. . . OH. Oh dear.” The meaning of my words finally clicked for her.

“Do you have anything for it here? I can’t find anything.” I’m whispering into the phone, not wanting to wake Wren up.

“No, baby, I don’t have anything there. I haven’t needed anything in a long time.” The phone muffled for a minute, and I could hear her asking someone behind her a question.

“She’s still asleep. I don’t know what to do.”

“Take the money for the laundromat and go get her some tampons and pads from the corner market. It’s closer than the diner is and she shouldn’t sleep like that.”

“Do I wake her up?” I glanced back down the hall.

I could hear Ma hesitate on the phone.

“I don’t want her waking up like this alone, but I also don’t want to wake her up and then leave,” I explained.

“Just let her sleep and run fast.”

Without another word, I ran for the door, only to be jerked by the phone cord that I had managed to wrap around my chest while pacing. Untangling myself, I went into Ma’s room, getting the coin purse where she kept quarters for the laundry days. I left the apartment, making sure to lock it behind me, and ran the eight blocks to the corner market. Once inside, I found the aisle.

This wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it would be. I stared blankly at the rows of different boxes, not understanding what I was looking at.

“Can I help you?” I jumped. A lady, who looked to be about my mom’s age, watched me.

“Uhm, yeah.” I gestured at the wall of products, too in a hurry to have the time to be embarrassed. “I don’t know what to buy.”

She laughed. “There are a lot of options. Did she tell you what she normally uses?”

“Uh, no.” Awkwardly I said, “It’s her first time.”

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