Blood Ink

Goiabada

Martina was watching "Top Nosh with Rachel Haverfield" when her father came in. The tattoo had finally settled into the shape of a kitten, sleeping just over her navel. 

Her father stood in the doorway of the living room, still wearing his work clothes.

"Mr. Skokie talked to me," he said, "Before we left the hospital."

"Who's Mr. Skokie?"

"Mr. Skokie is your principal."

"Oh."

On the TV, Rachel Haverfield was energetically stirring eggs into a mixture of milk and cream. Her father's eyes went from Martina to the TV; Rachel was her father's favorite chef, for two very large and prominent reasons.

"She's making frozen custard," Martina said. Normally he would grunt and sit down on the other couch, but he remained standing.

"So what happened?" Dad asked.

"Didn't Mr. Skokie tell you?"

"I want you to tell me."

"It wasn't a big deal," Martina shrugged. "I was having some feminine issues, and I went to the bathroom without a hall pass." She looked him in the eye. "I know it was wrong, but I was desperate."

She could feel what he was going to say, before he even said it: Desperation may be an explanation, but it's not an excuse. Could he see the little dabs of concealer over the few ink-spots that hadn't yet moved? Could see the scabs all over her face, the ones that could take days, maybe weeks, to heal? If they even healed right--from now on, she might look more like a burn victim than a normal teenage girl. But he didn't seem to notice. He sat down next to her on the couch, pushing her legs away to make room.

The tattoo stirred at her navel. Martina could feel it reorient and spread itself thin over her stomach. Only a ghost of the kitten, a blood-soaked silhouette, would remain; in a few minutes it would be gone, and the new design would take its place. She pulled her legs up to her chest.

"What did he tell you?" Martina asked.

"He said you had blood on your face. All over your face. Said you were screaming. He thought you'd fallen into broken glass."

"Well, he's wrong. I was sweating blood, and I didn't want the other kids to see, so I..."

Her father stared at her so hard, she broke off. After a moment, she met his eyes.

"You remember what the doctor told us," Martina said. "Some people bleed through their skin when they get stressed out. It's in the Bible, remember? When Jesus was about to be executed, he sweat blood."

"So Jesus did it, that makes it okay?"

"Uh...yes?"

Her father was now staring off into the distance; Martina sat up and put her hand on his shoulder.

"They ran about a million tests," she said. "I think I gave them a pint of my blood by the end--another pint. And if I have porphyria--it's not likely, but if I do have it––I'll deal with it. We'll deal with it. It's not a death sentence."

He turned to look at her.

"Is everything all right at school?" he asked. "You're not having any trouble with falling behind, like last year?"

"No."

"Are you hanging out with anyone new?"

"No."

He sighed and patted her arm. The tattoo had moved from Martina's navel to the top of her thigh; a few exploratory limbs were now prickling over and around her kneecap. To distract herself, she tried to remember the different parts of the knee: meniscus, LCL, ACL, patella...