My grandmother had on not one skirt, but five, one over the other. It was a hot summer in Kentucky, but the heavy heat never seemed to bother her. She went on cooking for the family, skirts swaying as she stepped around the kitchen. The smell of dinner called me home from the field every night. I would play with my brother during the day, frolicking among the plants and streams. I only wore one skirt then.

It was a Tuesday and my second day of fifth grade. I was walking home with my brother from school, my lunch pail clanged against my knees. My skirt was white, made from an old tablecloth, and the thin fabric brushed against my ankles. A gentle stream ran through the trail, and my brother and I stopped. He waded into the water, gesturing for me to join. We played in it for a little while, and the cool stream offered much needed relief from the heat of early August. When we stepped out, my skirt clung to my thighs, almost see through. I entered the house, and my grandfather’s eyes drifted over me, expression dripping with disgust. That night, my grandmother sewed me another skirt from a stained bedsheet. I wore two skirts then. 

 It was a Wednesday and my thirteenth birthday. My extended family came to my house for a birthday dinner, and I was ecstatic to have them over. My cousins crowded around me at the table as I opened presents. A pocketbook from my uncle. From my aunt, a delicate locket. From my mother, a long skirt with carefully placed pink lilies embroidered along the hem. 

“For your womanhood,” my mother told me. 

Afterwards, my cousins sprang outside to play. I stayed in and emptied the table with my mother while my father sat in the living room playing cards. I wore three skirts then.

It was a Thursday, and I was in my first real algebra class. I sat on the edge of my seat, scribbling notes and hanging on my teacher’s every word. Numbers sprang from the page and danced in my brain as I walked home. That night, my family and I sat around our dinner table. My brother spoke of what we had learned in class, of the fascinating numbers and algorithms. My face lit up as I joined him. The table grew quiet, and my grandmother and my mother scrambled to clean the kitchen. My father shot me a look, eyes dark and empty. I cleared his plate and joined them in the kitchen. That night, my grandmother pulled an old curtain from a box beneath her bed. She set it on the sewing table and folded it. 

“Sit and watch,” she said, “so you’ll be able to make your own.” 

I watched as she cut and sewed the curtain into a skirt, gnarled hands trembling with the thin sewing needle. I wore four skirts then. 

It was a Friday, and I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing the oak floors of our house. I heard the door slam and the giddy laugh of my brother as he returned home from school. The brutal heat of summer had just begun to creep up on our town, and my brother was getting ready to finish his schooling. He was wet from the stream, and his boots tracked mud through the house as he walked through the living room. 

“I brought a friend,” he leaned to my eye level, “and we’re hungry.” 

A low guttural noise came from his friend behind me. I stood, and the friend leered.

That night I pulled an old tablecloth from beneath my grandmother’s bed. It was painted with tiny white lotuses. Pretty. I set it on the sewing table and folded it, cutting and sewing until I had the perfect skirt. I wore five skirts then, one over the other. The heat didn’t bother me anymore.