Maren

Maren is my eldest niece and she has bled on me twice in the last, hm, probably six weeks. Before that I’m sure I could count on one hand the number of times I’d gotten someone else’s blood on me. In fact, perhaps never before. I don’t remember why she was bleeding the first time. I think she fell off her bike and took a chunk out of her toe. In helping her, I got blood on my hands and on my pants. I love Maren, but she also frustrates me. She is seven years old and she is a manipulator. She is not good at hiding this and you can see her plots create themselves, unfold and infiltrate simply by watching her face. But getting her blood on me that first time felt sacred. And I loved her more that day than perhaps I had before.

This most recent time was a little different. It was on the fourth of July and I had gone running and was returning just a little before 6:30 p.m. It was hot. It had been a mediocre run, due mostly to the heat. I was walking around the cul-de-sac on which my sister’s house sits and as I came around for the last time, Maren appeared from a neighbor’s yard, hands cupped over her face, panic in her voice. She had a bloody nose. I picked her up, big though she is (long for her age, lean and with thick, honey colored hair) and started running towards her house. This is an act I find illogical. First off, she was walking just fine and could’ve made the trip herself. Secondly, carrying her was difficult and my running, though it could be called that, was slow. I was sweaty from my run and huffing from her weight. She cried that she didn’t want to get blood on her shirt. It was a white shirt that had been tie-dyed with blues and reds. There were already several large drops on it and on her capris. Her two hands, inadequately pressed against her face were sticky and stained, blood pouring over and through them. I told her she could put her face in my shirt and reassured her that I knew how to get blood out of clothes. We half waddled-half ran into the garage. I set her down and opened the door that led into the house. Despite my calling her to the bathroom, she walked into the kitchen where my mother took over with cold, wet wash cloths and a low tone of frenzy. With Maren’s blood dripping down my shirt, I went and stood before a mirror. When I was carrying her, she had cried in gasps and each gasp sent blood spraying. I had a thumb-sized dab of blood under my chin and blood splattered near the hollow of my throat and on my chin and on my lips.

What is it about having someone else’s blood on your skin that makes you pause? Again, it seemed holy. To have those red drops on my skin—on my neck and mouth. A kind of accidental sacrament. And I couldn’t say why, but having her blood on me made me love her more. She seems beautiful and graceful and I can’t help but believe that I have been given a gift. To have her bright and summer-sequined life splattered on the surface of mine. I used to be queasy around blood. I think I still am. But the blood of this little girl doesn’t make me queasy—that doesn’t even cross my mind. Instead I see her life--shocking and chaotic and unbelievable and beautiful and pure.