Don’t be angry with your body if she is not letting go of her blood. Eat strawberries, make strawberry tea with the leaves to facilitate the flow. To increase the flow, drink squaw weed tea. For soothing before your blood flows, drink some black snakeroot or valerian tea. For cramps, chew wild ginger.

“Indigo, I don’t want to hear another word about it, do you understand me. I’m not setting the table with my Sunday china for fifteen dolls who got their period today!”

“But, Mama, I promised everybody we’d have a party because we were growing up and could be more like women. That’s what Sister Mary Louise said. She said that we should feast and celebrate with our very best dresses and our very favorite foods.”

“Sister Mary Louise needs to get herself married ’fore she’s lost what little of her mind she’s got left. I don’t want you going round that simple woman’s house. You take my good velvet from ’tween those dolls’ legs. Go to the store and buy yourself some Kotex. Then you come back here and pack those creatures up. Put them in the attic. Bring yourself back here and I’m going to tell you the truth of what you should be worrying about now you sucha grown woman.”

“Mama, I can’t do that. I can’t put them away. I’ll have nobody to talk to. Nobody at all.”

“Indigo, you’re too big for this nonsense. Do like I say, now.”

“Mama. What if I stopped carrying Miranda in the street with me, and left my other friends upstairs all the time, could I leave ’em out then, could I? Please Mama, I know they’re dollies. I really do. Sassafrass and Cypress kept all the things they made when they were little, didn’t they?”

“That’s a lie. Don’t you have all their dolls? I can’t believe a girl as big as you, wearing a training bra and stockings to school, can’t think of nothing but make-believe. But if you promise me that you going to leave them in your room and stop asking me to sing to ’em, feed ’em, and talk with ’em, you can leave them out. Now go on to the store.”

Indigo left her lesson book on the kitchen table, went to her mother tearing collards by the sink, and gave her a big hug. Her mother’s apron always smelled like cinnamon and garlic no matter how many times it was washed. It smelled of times like this when her mother felt a surge in her bosom like her nipples were exploding with milk again, leaving her damp and sweet, but now it was Indigo’s tears that softened her spirit.

“Indigo, you’re my littlest baby, but you make it hard for me sometimes, you know that.”