Above The Thunder

by Renee Manfredi

  Flynn heard Jack go into the bathroom. She’d been lying awake for hours, disturbed equally by the aches and cramps in her head and belly, the absence of her nightly ritual with Jack, and the shadowy figures walking past her door and milling around the foot of her bed. It was better when she could dig, could see worlds underground and not have to worry about the topside. Now, every time she turned her head she saw faces, forms of people she didn’t know, mostly men, and none of them very old; she’d always believed ghosts were supposed to be old, unhappy, mean. But if these were ghosts, they were happy ones. An hour or so ago, when she finally closed her eyes and thought she might sleep, she was awakened by Baby Jesus growling from his bed on the floor and the sound of clinking of glasses, laughter. In the hallway, she counted ten men having some kind of party. There was music playing, something with a disco beat, a buffet table with food, and two men kissing each other. She knew all of this wasn’t real, or wasn’t real enough that she could talk to anyone about it. Even to her grandma, who pretended not to believe or know these things. There was a man who followed Anna around, for instance, who stood right up against her when she was making dinner and touched her hair, or sat beside her on the sofa when she read the paper. Flynn saw him, but she knew he didn’t know she could see him, until she made the mistake of staring at him as he was whispering something in Anna’s ear that she of course couldn’t hear. Flynn couldn’t either, because it wasn’t intended for her ears, but the minute he caught Flynn’s eye, it was as if some barrier had broken. Tell Anna not to worry, he said. Everything is fine. Flynn looked away; down at the math homework she was supposed to be doing. She never relayed the message, except once, when Anna came in and asked who she was talking to. “An old man,” Flynn said, “who loves you a lot, now, still, and forever.” Those were the words in her head. But Flynn mistook the look on her grandma’s face and she kept talking. Told Anna that the old man said he was waiting for them all, described how beautiful it was where he lived and that nothing was lonely or alone. Even the raindrops came down in pairs. But Anna had been so upset by it all that Flynn never spoke of it again, and the old man disappeared from her view.

  Flynn felt really sick now, a dragging tightness in her belly, sweaty and achy all over. She called to Jack quietly, not wanting to walk through the wall of spirits in the hallway. “Jack?” she said louder. And then louder again.

  Finally he heard. He stood in the doorway of her bedroom, framed by faces who looked in at her curiously, as if noticing her for the first time, and the Spanish man in the yellow shirt was here now, too, grinning at her in a mean way and holding a knife with blood on it. Flynn wished Jack hadn’t told her about him. If Jack hadn’t described him so well, he wouldn’t now be so vivid. “What are you doing up, baby girl?”

  “I don’t feel well.”

  “Oh?” he sat down on the edge of her bed, flicked on the light. “What’s the matter?”

  “My stomach.”

  “I’ll lie with you a little while, how’s that?” He turned back the covers. There was blood on the sheets. “Oh,” he said. “Are you having your period?”

  She felt herself waver between terror and calm familiarity. She knew what this was, had been waiting for it in fact, but still she felt her head go light with shock. “I don’t know. I never have before.”

  “Oh. Did your mother tell you…do you know what to do?”

  Flynn started to cry. She wasn’t ready for this, wasn’t ready for this nipping pain along the inside of her thighs, the dragging heaviness of her breasts. She was used to her body being small and quick and light.

  Jack drew her close, kissed her sweaty brow. “Don’t cry, darling. This is a good thing. Anyway, your mother and grandmother would tell you about how wonderful this moment is because you’re officially a woman. I’m telling you, what’s wonderful and what you want to remember for later, is that for five days every month, you can rant and rave and bitch, eat all the chocolate you want and blame it on that little bit of blood flowing out of you.”

  “How long will this last?”

  “Four, five days.”

  “No, I mean, how many years will I have periods?”

  “How many do you think?”

  “Twelve?”

  “A bit longer than that.” He reached his hand out, helped her up, and the two of them walked into the bathroom. In the back of the linen closet, he found a box of tampons, size super, which surprised him, since Anna was such a small woman. Christ. What was wrong with American culture? It wasn’t enough that fast food restaurants kept increasing the size of their portions. Now you could even get your tampons supersized. “I don’t suppose you know how to use these?” Jack said.

  Flynn shook her head, her eyes wide, her face white.

  He went through all the cabinets again; didn’t most women use pads in addition to tampons? “These are all I can find. Did your grandmother ever use Kotex?”

  Flynn frowned, looked down at the toilet. “She uses Ajax.”

  Jack sighed. “I’m going to go wake Anna. She’ll know what to do.”

  “No, don’t,” Flynn said. She wrapped her arms around Jack’s waist. “Don’t wake my grandmother.”

  “Flynn, darling. I’m a gay man, which is about as far away from a twelve-year-old girl as it gets. The only periods I understand are at the end of sentences.”

  “Please don’t wake my grandma. I want you to help me.”

  “Why? Oh, all right. What’s the point of arguing.” He turned on the light above the sink, perched on the edge of the tub to read the instructions in the box. He skimmed past the warnings about toxic shock, blah blah blah, and looked for the schematic: just three parts, the applicator in two parts, and the pad inside. Simple. “Okay. Here you go,” he said and handed her one from the box. Flynn looked at it as if were an explosive, or a living thing about to hatch. “Flynn, I’m going to walk you through this, step by step, but I am not, understand me, under any circumstances, under threat of death, going to insert it for you. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “All right. I’ll be right outside.” He closed the door. “Step one is to remove outer wrapping.”

  “Check,” Flynn said.

  “Step two…oh,” he said. A drawing of a woman, hollow and faceless except for the internal reproductive organs. How terrible! He was glad Flynn didn’t have to see it—what kind of message was this? The shape of a woman, curvy with long hair, but no internal organs other than the vagina and uterus. “Step two is to find the position that’s most comfortable for insertion.” He felt dizzy. “You can either stand with one foot on the toilet seat, or sit, with both legs spread wide. The sitting position puts the vagina in a more horizontal position.” Jesus! He sat on the floor.

  “Is this whole thing supposed to fit inside me?” Flynn called.

  He looked down at the directions. “No. Just insert to where the little ridges are.” He looked for the next step. “When you’ve inserted it as far as the ridges, gently push in the plunger.” He couldn’t leave Flynn with the instructions, couldn’t let her see the awful faceless woman with the uterus and vagina and labia taking up fully one-third of the otherwise blank body. At least they could have given the woman a heart. Tomorrow he was going to write to the manufacturers, write and tell them that they needed to either make this drawing a woman with a face and features or eliminate all but a close-up of the parts necessary for comprehension. “How are you doing in there?”

  “I can’t do this. It’s not working.”

  “Which part isn’t working?”

  “Can you come in here?”

  “I’m sending the directions under the door, okay?” He started to tear the part with the drawing away, but saw that if he did that he’d be ripping off part three. Normally, a mother or another woman would be in there with her, guiding her through, and she wouldn’t have to see this blank woman. He couldn’t let her see this. No twelve-year-old should be made to feel there was something unnatural about his or her b
ody. This drawing more than suggested that.

  “Jack?”

  “I’m here. Just hang on one second. Keep practicing.” He went to the little antique desk in the hallway, found a pen in the drawer, and sat down. He gave the woman eyes and lashes and brows, drew in a smile that was supposed to represent a calm self-confidence, but which made the figure look like the cartoon character, Sally Forth. Long hair, wispy bangs and a ring on the right hand. That was better. He slid the directions under the bathroom door then went in to wake Stuart.

  He shook him, called his name three times before he stirred.

  “What? What’s the matter?” Stuart said.

  “You have a sister,” Jack said.

  “Another one?” he said, then coming a little more awake, “what’s wrong?”

  “What do you know about tampons?”

  The two of them walked to the bathroom door. “Slide the directions back out here, Flynn,” Jack said. “Here’s the schematic,” Jack said to Stuart. “We’re on step three, gently insert.”

  Stuart glanced at the drawing and read the instructions. “Flynn?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you sitting?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” He read through the steps that accompanied this position. “All right, if you’re seated, what you want to do is aim back and down, toward your tailbone. Take your time.”

  “Can you send Baby Jesus in?”

  “Why?” Jack said.

  “For company.”

  Jack didn’t want to open the door, didn’t want to risk a glimpse of anything. “He’s a boy. It’s not a good idea to have boys in there. Even boy dogs.”

  Flynn sighed. “But why?”

  “Boys aren’t as strong as girls. He might have a heart attack.”

  Stuart shot Jack a look. “Take your time, Flynn.”

  They waited through the silence on Flynn’s side of the door. In a few minutes she said, “Okay.”

  “Okay?” Jack said. “Okay means you did it?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  The men applauded.

  Flynn came out of the bathroom and sidled up to Jack.

  “Good work, Flynn,” Stuart said, smiling.

  “Yes. We should celebrate. I’ll go see if Anna has any champagne,” Jack said.

  “Jack,” Stuart said, and shook his head.

  “What? Oh, no? Maybe hot chocolate, then.”

  “Where does Anna keep the sheets? I’ll change your bed,” Stuart said.

  Flynn pointed to the hall closet. “Can we watch Riverdance?” Flynn asked.

  “Not now,” Jack said. “Tomorrow. It’s late. How about some hot chocolate?”

  “No. Can you sleep in my room tonight?”

  “I need to be with Stuart. But if you need me, come get me.” He kissed her goodnight. “Okay?”

  “Can I sleep in your room? I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  Jack considered. It would be all right with him, but Stuart might not be comfortable with it. “I think you need to sleep in your own room tonight. But the minute you need me, I’ll be there. That’s a promise,” Jack said. “Okay?”

  She nodded. She kissed Stuart goodnight and then Jack again. Back in her room she felt like her body was closing in around her like those heavy drapes her grandma used to block out the light in her bedroom. It was dark both inside and outside herself and she was trapped in some terrible basement that she couldn’t tunnel her way out of. Her belly was a boxing ring, two big powers fighting against each other. Flynn was a TKO. The cheerful cocktail party of men was gone, and there was nothing around her but the twin scents of wishes and dreams—lemon and lavender—and the deep-down dread that everything was about to change again.

  TWELVE

  ON THE WAY TO SANTIAGO

  Anna, vaccinating for the flu at Dr. Naylor’s office, guessed she was on her twentieth patient and it wasn’t even lunchtime. Naylor was offering a reduced price for adults and free vaccinations for the elderly and children. Just before nine, a whole busload of senior citizens from the nursing home poured in like it was bingo night at the church social hall.

  “What was my rationale, again?” Naylor said, as he peered out into the waiting room beside Anna.

  “That’s what I was wondering. My skills are wasted on the healthy trying to stay that way. What ever happened to the local jaundiced? The great unwashed? I was hoping for a white count raging out of control,” Anna said.

  He chuckled. “Sorry. But I appreciate your coming in.”

  “Next,” he and Anna said in unison.

  A young mother and her toddler went with Anna, the town librarian headed toward Naylor—for some reason she didn’t like Anna, would barely speak to her when Anna went in for her weekly stash of books on tape.

  “How are we today?” Anna asked, leading the mother and boy into the examining room. Anna had examined both of them before. The woman was about twenty-three or twenty-five, the toddler about three. The last time they’d been in, Naylor treated the woman for pelvic inflammatory disease and her son for head lice and an ear infection. Anna had looked at her chart, the intake care worker’s rounded script that described the woman’s welfare status and her activities thusly: “Pt. spends her days watching television.” To the question, “Are you sexually active?” the woman had declared, “Not really. I just lay there.”

  “I can’t sleep. Can you give me medicine?” the woman asked.

  “No,” Anna said, and positioned the syringe against the woman’s skinny arm. “Only the doctor can prescribe. Make an appointment at the front desk.”

  She didn’t especially like working here, didn’t care for Naylor’s laid-back country doctor ways, but Naylor had privileges in the lab at the local college, where he sent Anna to read patient slides. She could check Jack’s blood samples while she was there.

  “Next,” Anna called, and called for the subsequent two hours.

  At lunchtime, Anna walked over to the Shimmer Deli—terrible food, but she could never resist the alluring name. She sat in a booth by the window and picked at her food; not hungry, but not ready to go back to work, either. It was a near record-breaking warm day—the clock on the bank said sixty-two degrees. Thanksgiving was just around the corner, and it felt like Indian summer. She and Flynn checked the forecast daily. Flynn loved snow as much as she did, and like Anna, preferred the cold to the heat. Last summer she and Flynn swam every day at the quarry or the public pool, muted and fuzzyheaded and somber; Flynn was the only other person Anna knew who reacted to heat the way she did.

  Anna used her cell phone to call Flynn’s school. Flynn had been having more trouble than usual in her classes. Her classmates’ teasing had intensified after her teacher assigned the students how-to reports, oral presentations to demonstrate some special skill or talent.

  “I’m really worried about her, Mrs. Brinkman,” Flynn’s teacher had said at the first conference of the school year. “Most children brought in blenders and knitting needles and basketballs.” Miss Jamison paused. “Most of the students showed us how to make fruit smoothies or knit scarves. Flynn brought in some glasses from the eye doctor’s office and told us how to communicate with the spirit world. The kids are picking on her without mercy.” Anna said she knew this; Flynn had been telling her all along. It is always better to tell the truth. Anna remembered that long-ago game she and Flynn played, and was haunted by her words. It would have been better if she had taught Flynn to tell healthy lies.

  The phone rang and rang; they were probably all in the cafeteria. Anna left money on the table and drove straight to the middle school. The children were eating lunch outside at picnic tables set around the playground. She scanned the crowd, saw the bright yellow hair of Flynn’s teacher, and then the group in her charge, who flocked around her in twittery energy. She spotted Flynn sitting alone, her lunch spread out over the entire table. Anna was pulled back through every sadness she’d felt in her own life. She caught Flynn’s eye and smiled, and
Flynn’s smile in return was the most genuine Anna had seen in nearly a year—this, then, was why she had come, for this bit of happiness she saw now in her granddaughter.

  “Hi,” Flynn said. “I had a feeling you’d be here.”

  “Did you?” Anna glanced down at Flynn’s uneaten lunch. “Wanna ditch school and go to the quarry? I don’t know if it’s actually warm enough to swim, but we can sit by the water at least.”

  And then the second smile, one of surprised delight that filled Anna with relief at the thought that everything might be okay after all. Anna called Naylor’s office from the car and told him that something had come up and she wouldn’t be back in until tomorrow.

  It was warm enough in the sun, the day windless, so she and Flynn did swim. They floated on their backs in water so smooth and perfect the trees and rocks and clouds were mirrored in its glassy dark surface. Anna tasted the granite in the water at the back of her throat.