what mothers teach
1.
I am in a meeting when one of the interns peeks her head in the door and looks in my direction.

The meeting is boring. We have been discussing the same topic the past thirty minutes, as each amply lettered tenure-tracked Professor tries to wow the Dean.

I am quiet through these wanton acts of ass-kissing, glad that since I am acting as the facilitator, I don't need to say a thing. I look around the room of accomplished women and two men, excuse myself and make my way out of the conference room initially designated for Women's Studies only, but soon shared with every poorly funded socially conscious liberal arts interdisciplinary department, center, and program on campus.

"It's your daughter," The intern says, pressing a button on the office phone. "She sounds upset."

"Okay," I say, "I'll take it in my office."

I grab the phone just as it buzzes to hear my daughter crying hysterically. "Ana," I say, "calm down honey."

Her words come out the way they did when she was four--high pitched and incomprehensible--a language of her own.

"Slow down honey!" I feel myself beginning to shake even as I am saying this. Then the phone is silent.

"Ana! Ana!"

Only a second passes, then a woman says, "This the nurse..." Her voice drops lower and she says almost a whisper, "Ana has got her period and she's very upset about it. She had an accident and I think it might be best for her to just go home today."

"But," I say confused, "What happened?"

"Well, I'll let Ana tell you about it. She was in the pool and," the nurse pauses, "I think Ana would rather tell you herself."

"Oh," I say, relieved that it isn't more than this. "Oh, okay, I am on my way."

I put the phone back on the hook and sit down for a moment, my hands shaking as I grip the chair's arms. I'm puzzled, why would Ana react this way about getting her period? She is fourteen, fifteen in two months. We had talked about it before, she knew about her body. I had always been open with her. I wanted her to embrace her body, love it not be afraid of it, like I was at her age. I wanted Ana's experiences to be different than mine--better.

I grab my purse, "There's an emergency with my daughter." I hand a note to the intern and push open the double glass doors. A blast of air rushes in, and behind me I hear, "Sure, see you tomorrow then, hope she's all right."


2.

I ran the two blocks from the bus stop to get to my house. Behind me, Carol, my sometime-friend said, "Hey, why you rushing off?" But I didn't her, I just keep running.

I reached my house and open the door, trying to be as quiet as possible. Tightening the knotted blue jean jacket around my waist and careful of the empty cans of Michelob littered on the brown shag carpet, I ducked past my father sprawled-out across the sofa. One of his legs was strangely bent so that he had a foot on the floor and the other was propped up on the arm of the couch.

Silently, I walked through the empty kitchen, trying to remember the last time I'd come home to my mother there. I glanced at the clock and pulled off my backpack: four-fifteen.

Dad had packed away every photo we had with mom or of mom. He even took down the ones in the hall, leaving light colored boxes on the wood-paneled walls where the frames had been. It was as if he wanted to forget how normal we used to be. And now in my mind, her face had faded, like the squares on the walls.

I grabbed clean clothes and then rushed in the bathroom. I started to undress, untying my blue jean jacket. I turned my back and looked at myself in the mirror and in horror at a dark purple stain spreading from the seat of my pants and across my rear end. I stripped off the green chic jeans. They used to be my favorite, used to be the ones I'd wear to pep-rallies, our school colors were green and yellow. But never again.

Next, I took off the underwear with the bulky pad stickied to my panties. I took off everything, tried to clean up, and then started to redress. I snatched another pad from my backpack. The nurse gave them to me, felt sorry for me, not having a mom, told me if I stopped by tomorrow she'd have more for me.

Hurrying trying to finish before my father woke up, I pulled on a clean shirt, underwear, sweats.

When I was dressed, I turned on the water in the sink, turned the hot knob and let the water run onto the jeans. Steam started to rise as the clear water washed over the pants and drained into the sink a dark red.

But even with this, the stain remained.

I grabbed the Ivory soap and started to lather it into the pants. I turned the hot water higher until my reflection in the mirror started to disappear into the steam. But no matter how I scrubbed, the stain, black and purplish-- still, the stain.

The pants were ruined.

"Perfect Angie, just perfect," I said glaring at the girl reflected from the fog. "Can't you do anything right?" I couldn't stop the tears, hot and stinging my face. I started to twist the jeans tighter and tighter.

It was no use. I rolled up everything, the green jeans, the bloodied underwear with the pad still attached, even the yellow Charlie's Angels t-shirt, into a ball.

"Angela? Is that you?"

"Yes, Daddy, I'm home." For a second I wondered what to do with this damp mass, the tangle of wet bloody clothes.

"Well, get in here. I'm hungry!"

"Okay, Daddy, coming," I said, heading the opposite direction of his voice. He spoke with a perpetual slur, it was like an accent, his own special pronunciation.

Almost running, I opened the door to the utility room and dumped the ball into the avocado green washer, poured in a scoop of Tide. For the first time, as many times as I had washed our clothes, I noticed in the lid of the washer: WASHING INSTRUCTIONS in bold black letters.

My eyes followed down the list skipping over the little symbols for grass stains, and ketchup and mud to the square with a cross: BLOOD. The lid read:

Rinse IMMEDIATELY with COLD water. Soak in cold water with detergent for 30 MINUTES. Rinse with cold water. If stain remains, Rub in detergent. Rinse with cold water. Rinse thoroughly the WASH with detergent.

Cold water. I turned the dial until the arrow pointed to cold then pulled the knob with a click as the water began to fill the tub.

Cold water. Cold water removes blood. I wiped tears from my eyes.

I could hear my father yelling from his place on the couch. I went to the kitchen and started our dinner.

When the wash stopped, I left the chili-mac on the stove and ran to the machine. I opened the lid--my jeans would be good as new. But as I took the clothes out, they are covered with white fragments, debris, the disintegrated remains of hospital grade sanitary napkin. I picked through the wet clothes and turned the green cotton jeans to the back.

"You finished yet?" My father yelled from the living room.

"Almost," I said, chunking everything into the trash can.


3.

At the school, the office is easy to fine. Once there, they point me to the nurse's station. And just behind the white partition, there is Ana, eyes swollen and red, her sweater around her waist.

"Are you all right sweetheart?"

She doesn't speak. I sit down next to her. "Okay, well if you want to talk later, you know you can tell me anything."

"Oh! Mom!" she says, tears on her face, "my life is over!"

She leans over until her face is hidden and I put my arm around her as she cries.

"Let's go," I say.

Ana nods and I take her backpack. There'll be plenty of time to tell her otherwise, to tell her clothes can be replaced, the stains can be washed out, and the ones that can't be, eventually fade.

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