Golden Anniversary with Black Cats & Bees

When I was a child, I learned the days of the months by making two fists and tapping my knuckles left to right: the mountains are thirty-one days, valleys are less. I still find this incredible, every year captured within the terrain of my hands. In the very bones of my body, a calendar.

thirty-one:
the number of teeth in a cat’s mouth,
according to the vet who twitches her nose
to jostle her purple glasses higher, I think

Isabel sits on her bed, hands slowly squeezing her black cat’s neck. Her bitten nails are dirty or bloody, maybe both. Later, her younger sister Ana will hear a crash and run into the room to find the flowerpot in shards, chair toppled, Isabel splayed on the floor, apparently dead. But as Ana runs out of the room calling for help, Isabel’s chest, her left eyelid, her lips twitch. This is just a game to her.

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When I was a child, my sister and I would sleep in the big bed in the basement. Finger letters on each other’s backs beneath our homemade constellations glowing green in the dark. You always fell asleep before me.

thirty-one:
my mother’s age when she gave birth to
her second daughter

My husband and I watch the Spanish film on our living room floor in July, the swamp cooler churning above, stuffing hot air into our apartment. Our black cat snores on the coffee table, gums healing as he dreams. He’s finally eating again. In the opening scene, the two young girls—daughters of a philosophical beekeeper and a woman who writes letters by honeyed candlelight—attend the village screening of Frankenstein.

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When I was a child, I avoided going downstairs in our house, even during the day. Our tabby kitty would sit out of sight around the corner of the stairs and lunge at my ankles. I found cigarette butts on the concrete under the stairs, old enough not to smell like anything. It was too dark down there by myself.

1931:
the year the American horror film Frankenstein,
adapted from a woman’s screenplay
based on a woman’s novel,
was released

The girls sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the dark, eyes wide and unblinking as the father sends his young daughter to play by the river. There she sits alone, plucking daisy heads and tossing them into the running water. The thin white petals dimple the dark surface. Suddenly, the monster steps out from the bushes. Though the girl is startled, she takes his hand and leads him to the bankside. He takes the daisy she holds out to him. I can make a boat! she says, squinting up at him, See how mine floats?

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When I was a child, my older sister told me to say I love you to her. I remember this because our father was recording us, heavy camcorder steadied on his shoulder against the palm of his hand. I didn’t hesitate.

thirty-one:
the number of permanent teeth in my mouth
because one of my baby teeth never fell out

In The Spirit of the Beehive, we don’t see Frankenstein’s monster toss the little girl in the river, her dress splayed out, pale as the daisies she offered him. We only see Ana’s face as she watches the father carry his daughter’s body into town, nearly tripping on the cobblestones of the main street.

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When I was a child, I fell off the jungle gym and swallowed a tooth. I wonder if some part of it is still inside me.

thirty-one:
the eve of a new month, new year, the soon-to-be
named after a woman birthed from a fearful man’s rib

After they watch Frankenstein, Isabel eagerly enacts death. She strangles the cat, stages a fatal fall and lets her sister inspect her “dead” body for several minutes before resurrecting herself, at which point, with good reason, Ana shrieks and runs away. The monster reaches for the little girl’s open hand.

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When I was a child, I would push my doll off the table with a dramatic, And she fell to her dooooom! My dad thinks I saw it in a fairy tale, the evil witch toppling to her death. You’d always giggle after, he tells me now.

thirty-one:
my next birthday, at which time
I will have been alive for one billion seconds

Since watching The Spirit of the Beehive, honeycombs decorate my days: yellow honeycomb-patterned felt brightens the New Books display at the public library; I stop myself from buying the cheesy bee pun mug at Goodwill, then buy an even cheesier stack of four old books tied together with honeycomb-print ribbon, spines stamped BEE KIND / BEE HAPPY.

A week later, I open my laptop to attend a virtual discussion about the film on its golden anniversary. Unlock for free ✨ Eventive says, but the access code isn’t listed on the event page. When I attempt to guess, the website reprimands me in bold red font: The code ‘spirit’ does not exist. Codes are case sensitive. The code ‘beehive’ does not exist. Codes are case sensitive.

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31:
the title of a horror movie in which
sadistic maniacs dressed as clowns
torture a group of friends at a carnival—
my mother was terrified by the clown
at her fourth birthday party until
she noticed her father’s shoes

After school, Isabel leads little Ana to an abandoned farmhouse, points to the squat doorless building. Ana hesitates outside, clutching her red metal lunch box as her older sister steps into the dark. The next day, Ana returns by herself. She walks through the dusty room, stands on tiptoe to toss a stone into the well, stops short when she sees a large boot print in the brown dirt. She stares down at it, then carefully places her small boot in the print, heel to heel.

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When I was a child, my older sister attended the funeral service for her fiancé’s grandmother. She told me afterward that was the first dead body she’d ever seen in person.

thirty-one:
“__bodies, some decomposing, found at funeral home”
“mass shootings leave __ dead”
“dead at __ by suicide”
“dies suddenly at __”
“__ dead after gas explosion”
“destructive winter storm has killed at least __”

At a crucial moment in the film, little Ana runs away from her father, afraid of being punished. That night, as the villagers search for her, Ana encounters the monster beside the river, long stiff legs, metal bolts in the neck. The monster approaches her and takes her outstretched hand. The Criterion Collection essay says the six-year-old actress was terrified while filming this scene. It’s easy to tell: her eyes could not be any wider.

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When I was a child, I was—and still to this day, never have been—stung by a bee. Knock on wood. But not hard enough to wake the bees

thirty-one:
the atomic number of gallium,
a metal soft enough to cut with a knife,
melting into silver-white liquid in your palm,
painted on glass to create a mirror

The little girl dies because the monster isn’t taught to speak. Cannot ask her what the word float means. The little girl dies because of a lack of imagination, compassion, that has nothing to do with her. She gives the monster daisies.

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When I was a child still in many ways, my tabby cat died. In the early morning, my father placed the body in a small cardboard box and buried it in the backyard, within the tree line. A few hours later, I took a long quiet drive through rows and rows of cornfields. Afterward, I wrote a poem: the mirrors in his eyes covered with clouds. Ten years later, I still have never seen a dead body.

thirty-one:
the number of minutes
left in this hour

The closing words of the film are an act of introducing, naming, reminding, or recognizing. Is she offering herself to whatever she sees hovering outside in the dark, or is she identifying with it? This invisible spirit, something not yet capable of language or breath. Crossing the bedroom in her long white nightgown, she stands at the tall open windows with the honeycomb-shaped panes. Soy Ana, she whispers to the seamless night. Her face fills the frame. She opens her big dark eyes. She sees us. Her body in the silver-white moonlight drops a shadow on the floorboards.