Kimmy blinked. “Are you playing a trick on me?”

“No,” Alex insisted. “I promise. Please, just close your eyes.”

Kimmy obeyed.

Alex undid the tie on her pajama bottoms, which were a lightweight blue cotton, and she reached all the way in beneath her underwear, dipped her index finger in, then pulled it out. Even in the dark room she could see the blood.

A strange and desperate noise slipped out of Alex, and Kimmy’s eyes snapped open.

“What?” Kimmy said.

Alex held up her black-red syrupy fingertip.

Kimmy said in an awestruck voice, “Oh my gosh, did you start your period?”

Alex nodded. And for some reason, tears oozed to her eyelids, even though she wasn’t particularly upset by the presence of blood nor the idea of menstruating.

Kimmy noticed the tears, and she swiftly retrieved the box of Kleenex from the bed stand and handed Alex two tissues—one for her finger and one for her tears.

Kimmy placed her hand on Alex’s forearm and said, in the most grown-up and comforting voice she could muster, “You’re a woman now, Alex, it’s nothing to be sad about.” She stroked Alex’s bald head fondly. “You’re just growing up. I wish I would start my period too, I can’t wait until I do. Really, I wish it was happening to me too, right now. Lucky you, becoming a woman.”

Alex listened to these words of reassurance and hazily nodded her head in a show of appreciation to Kimmy.

Kimmy was so encouraged by the gesture that she went on, “I really shouldn’t say this because I know she’s not happy about it, but”—Kimmy leaned forward to whisper this highly confidential piece of information—“not even Rae has got her period. She’s waiting and waiting, she’s got maxi pads ready in her bathroom at home and everything. She wrote in her diary about how bad she wants it, so she can be a woman. She hasn’t gotten hers yet and she’s fourteen, Alex, so you are so lucky that this is happening to you now.”

Alex did not respond to this but stared at the blood on her finger, twisting her wrist to see it in different light.

Kimmy said, “Should I go upstairs and get a maxi pad from your mom or my mom?”

Alex nodded. “My mom,” she said. “I’ll stay right here so I don’t get it on anything.”

Kimmy left the room and went up the stairs to the main floor. She was prepared to knock on Poppy and John’s door, but before she had reached it, her eyes were drawn to movement in the kitchen.

She walked along the hallway toward the kitchen to investigate.

Rae was at the refrigerator, returning a magnum of screw-cap white wine to the shelf. The refrigerator door suctioned shut with its gentle foomph, and Rae turned toward the hall. She held a mug in her left hand. She still hadn’t noticed her sister, although Kimmy was now in plain sight.

Rae was wearing her pink pajamas from Victoria’s Secret, size triple-extra-small, and still the waistband hung loose over her bony hips and the shoulder seams were nearly at her elbows. Rae had begged Lisa to take her to Victoria’s Secret for bras and panties last month, and Lisa had eventually acquiesced. Once they got there, though, all of the lingerie was way too big, so they had settled on this set of pajamas and a few training bras.