“Maldita luna,” says Ma, glaring out the window. I pop the meds in my mouth and chew them with the meat and potatoes. Maybe the Z stands for the zzz’s they provide. Strange, since the blue bottle they come in says they’re called Septis. I cup the pills in my palm, and for the first time I notice a faint Z etched into their center. These chalky tablets plunge me so deep within my mind that it takes me nearly three nights to climb back out-long enough to miss my gut-contorting menstrual cramps. The first few nights of my period are so painful that I can only endure them sedated.

When I open them again, three bright blue pills line the outer rim of my dinner plate. I stop chewing and close my eyes to focus on my breaths. Sucks that I won’t get to finish that book until lunaritis ends.Ī tremor shoots up my belly, and my hand clenches around the red-and-white checkered tablecloth-a warning shot that soon I’ll be in excruciating agony. A delicious warmth fills my mouth and body as I chew, and I fleetingly feel sorry for Rebeca from One Hundred Years of Solitude who would only eat whitewash and dirt. “Sí,” I say as I slice into the tender oven roast and spear my first bite of succulent pink meat. Ninety-year-old Perla has been homeschooling me since we moved in with her eight years ago, so she’s used to lesson-planning around lunaritis. “Cuando te despertés seguimos con Cien Años de Soledad,” says Perla as I’m squeezing salsa golf over my roasted potato wedges. The apartment’s ancient air conditioner has a hard enough time battling the Miami sun, but it can’t compete with the heat of Ma’s cooking. I feel a quiver of discomfort in my uterus, and I pry my sticky thighs from the plastic chair to readjust my legs. Even if this weren’t one of my favorite meals, I’d still need sustenance for my sixty-hour fast. My mouth waters with a whiff of the meat’s smoky aroma. “Comé bien que en una hora empieza lunaritis,” Ma reminds me as she shuts the oven door and places the seasoned carne al horno on the table to start carving. Ma blames the lunar cycle for hijacking my menstrual cycle, so she calls my condition lunaritis-a made-up diagnosis that depending upon inflection can sound like English or Spanish.

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