The full moon and constellations of stars illuminated the rows of huge trees and the fine grass beneath. It gave the impression of a perfect work of art—a canvas of His creation. It’s a perfect place to recall every event of the day.
For two weeks now, it had been a tradition for Cassie to take a stroll through the meadow after dinner. Anyway, it’s only five minutes far from her grandparents’ house. She regularly sat on the grass under a huge Acacia tree—the only Acacia tree among the seventy-seven huge trees that stood firmly on the meadow and yes, Cassie counts them every year—and thought about the day she had. She mostly reflected how heavenly life in the province is compared to her life in the city.
“Can I sit beside you?”
Surprised, Cassie looked up to see his older brother staring at the full moon. “Kuya! How…how did you know I’m here?”
Dion glanced down and patted the top of her head. “I’ve always known you regularly take a walk up this meadow right after dinner.”
“But…”
“Hey! Can I sit?” He frowned but a small smirk is formed across his lips.
She rolled her eyes and smacked her brother’s hand on her head. “Of course you can! As if I own this place for you to ask my permission.”
He sat down leaning back with his arms as supports while his head’s facing the sky.
Minutes of silence passed.
“You like it here?” Dion looked at his sister’s peaceful face as she stared above.
Her eyes still glued on the full moon, Cassie smiled. “Yes. Very much. This feels like paradise.”
Dion chuckled. “I still could imagine the little us running and playing all around this place. We also made many friends here. And the trees weren’t this huge then. And this is where you first stumbled and got wounded badly.”
“You do remember, huh? That wound actually left this scar.” She showed him a blemish on her right knee.
“I know. And of course I remember. You’re my only sister. I remember everything about you. I even remember the date of your…what do you call that again? Men…what? The very first time you had your period?”
Cassie gaped at her brother. Then horror came crossing her face.
“What?” Dion gave her a puzzled expression.
Cassie managed to get rid of the flush on her face before she answered. “Menarche. It’s called menarche, alright. But…but how’d you know about that?”
He smiled. “It just happened that I was in my room which coincidentally is beside the bathroom when you kept on yelling and calling Mama. Minutes passed and you still haven’t stopped panicking. I thought I even heard you cry then. I was supposed to knock on the door and ask you what was wrong then because you got me worrying—big time. But I was embarrassed to do that because as you know, we weren’t close. So I ran down the stairs and looked for Mama. I ran all over the house, downstairs, upstairs then downstairs again. Then I heard the front door open and ran towards there. Mama saw me perspiring and running out of breath so she asked me what’s wrong. I told her about your screaming. Then we both ran up the stairs to you but I did not go inside the bathroom. I just waited by the door and when I heard Mama laugh and tell you what that was, I calmed down.”
Cassie bowed her head in embarrassment then laughed as she remembered her ignorance of adolescence stuffs. “I remember that very well too. That was on the 2nd day of April. One day after I turned twelve. I just got home from biking that is why I got worried when I saw the blood.”
