Page 2 of 32 Days in May

“Hey,” they call out. “You’re Pep’s daughter, right?”

Dammit. “Hey,” I call back. My voice is high and pinched. “Yeah. Sorry for the—” I hold up my cigarette. “I’ll get out of your way.”

They wave me off, pausing at the bottom of the steps that lead to the first-floor door. “Your dad called me.” What the hell? They catch the look in my eye and quickly add, “I think he was afraid we’d get spooked if we heard you moving around upstairs. But he also said you need a job.”

My mouth falls open. That’s low, even for Pep. I can almost hear his raspy, accented voice. She thinks she’s depressed! She thinks she’s sick! Back in Italy no one ever depressed or sick! She just needs a job!

“Of course he did.”

They do a quiet little laugh. An acknowledgment of how ridiculous my father is, and I soften. “Yeah, I figured you didn’t know about that. Anyway, I run a produce stand, and I always need help. I leave every morning around five a.m.—” I hold back a string of expletives. “Just come down and knock if you wanna join.”

Yeah, right. “Cool—thanks.” I sound stiff. I sound like my dad. I clear my throat and add, “I appreciate it.”

They nod curtly. “I’m Soph, by the way. If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to knock.”

* * *

April 1

I’m drinking my afternoon coffee on the balcony when, for the first time in months, I want to write. The sensation starts in my chest—a warm, comfortable light that blooms slowly into excitement or, maybe, delight, growing until it presses at the base of my throat.

I run inside, grab a pen and a notepad from the junk drawer before inspiration slips away.

Pen to paper, I begin:

things i never knew before lupus:

we should be terrified of our bodies. you realize how little control you have over yourself; how all you can really do is react. if i’m afraid, i can look away. if i have a headache, i can take medicine. if someone breaks my heart, i can hold a grudge until i die. but i will never be able to stop the pain before it starts.

I set down my pen and admire the ink pressed into the page. I like these words. These words are different from everything else I’ve written since November. Maybe, they’re the beginning of a story.

When I look up, I see something strange, a blip interrupting the endless gray-blue horizon. Tangled in the low-hanging cable lines that stretch along the wide, empty streets parallel to the ocean.

Twisting and reaching for the dull, flat sky is a single, straggly tree branch. At the tip, there is a blink of pink. So small that without the stillness of its milieu, I would have missed it.

A cherry blossom.

Monday, May 1

Now

I repeat my mantra, out loud, to steady myself.

Deep breath.

“I am no one.”

I lift the scissors and bury them into my hair.

Wild and recklessly curly. An implacable shade of light brown or perhaps dark, wooden blond. Wonderful and strange. When I was a baby, people would stop my mom and ask, Did she come out like that? My ever-growing mass of tightly wound corkscrew curls told the world: she is someone.

My hair has been deceiving me for years. Like most beautiful things, people, and places, it is a mirage.

But not anymore.

Now, it’s coating my bathroom sink. Mucking up the plumbing. Twenty years from now someone’s boyfriend will snake this drain and gag at the moldy, ancient clump that’s choked back up.

What the fuck happened? they’ll wonder.