All You Could Ask For A Novel

THE NEXT CHAPTER BEGINS two days later, when the phone rings again. The voice on the other end is one I do not recognize.

“Hi, Brooke, this is Dr. Downey calling.”

For a moment I cannot recall any Dr. Downey. Then I remember the throat infection I had two years before. He is a primary care physician, and when my husband’s company switched insurance companies, I had to choose one, so I listed Dr. Downey. Even though I haven’t seen him since then, his name is on all my insurance papers. And so it is that the call I have been waiting so impatiently for comes from, essentially, a total stranger.

“Hello, doctor,” I say, my throat barely open.

“I was hoping you could come into the office this morning,” he says. “I have the results of the test you took the other day and I think we should talk about them.”

Then I am in his completely unfamiliar office, staring at his completely unfamiliar face, listening to his completely unfamiliar voice. “We see breast cancer,” he is saying, “and we do see an invasive cancer. That means it is the kind of cancer that could involve your lymph nodes. We think it is localized but we’ll need some more tests to know for sure. I have the name of an excellent breast surgeon here in Greenwich and I recommend you visit him. Of course, if you have another surgeon you would prefer to see, by all means you should see him or her. But seeing a breast surgeon is the next step in this process.”

If I were you, this is the part where I would put the book down. I hate it when things like this happen to characters I like. I can’t count the number of books I haven’t finished because I didn’t like where they appeared to be heading. So if this was a book I was reading, I wouldn’t want to read any more. But when you’re the lead character, you don’t have that choice.

If you’re still reading, you’re braver than I am.

The next scene takes place six days later, first in the operating room, where the breast surgeon is performing a lumpectomy and a sentinel node, which is where they take out the lump in your breast and, while they are in there, inject a dye that makes its way into a specific lymph node beneath the arm. And then they take me to the recovery room and I wait. And wait. And the seconds feel like hours, much as they did when the twins were small and I was home alone with them, and there were days when they were crabby and uninterested and those were the days when time felt as though it stood still. The difference is now oftentimes I feel nostalgic for those days, but I am pretty sure I’ll never feel nostalgic for this one.

Then, finally, the doctor comes back, and the news is good.

“Brooke, we got the lump out, it looks to be about a sonometer and a half—”

“How big is that in English?” I ask.

“About an inch.”

I like the look of this doctor’s face. Which is not to say he is handsome, but rather that he doesn’t look troubled. I am pretty sure his face would look different if he were here to tell me I was going to die.

“The important thing is all the lymph nodes appear to be negative,” he continues.

“That’s good?”

“Very good, yes,” he says. “You are probably only going to need radiation to prevent the cancer from coming back in your breast, which means we probably won’t need to do a mastectomy. What you will need to do is see a specialist to determine what other treatments may be options for you.”

“You say that as though I have some choice in the matter.”

“Of course you do,” he says, “you’re the patient. It’s your body and your life, so you’re the one who should make the decisions. Don’t ever forget that.”

I would not forget. In fact, those would prove to be the most memorable words I heard through this entire ordeal.

The next chapter takes place in a different office. Now I am listening to an oncologist who specializes in breast cancer explain what he means when he says “the breast, and the rest.”

“Your tumor is triple-negative,” the doctor says. “That means it does not respond to hormones, or a number of other drugs we commonly use, treatments you may have read about in the newspapers.”

I nod my head to affirm, even though I have never read about any cancer treatments in the newspapers. I avoid stories about cancer in the newspapers, and everywhere else as well.

“We are going to use chemotherapy,” he continues, “because that gives us the best modality to prevent this cancer from coming back somewhere besides your breast.”

“Wait, I think I don’t understand,” I say. “I had a small tumor in my breast. They removed that. It didn’t spread to my lymph nodes. Why do I have to have chemo?”

The doctor’s face changed, a little. He looked more professorial now, and I was his student. “Well, we know based on the pathology, based on the tumor’s size and other factors, that there is still the potential for the cancer to come back somewhere else. So we do the radiation for the breast, and the chemo for the rest. That’s why we call this approach ‘the breast and the rest.’”

I think about it for a minute, as clearly as I am capable of. I’m still not sure I understand. “But why do we have to do this now?” I ask.

“If we wait for the cancer to come back somewhere else, we have lost our window of opportunity. We can treat it if it comes back in your liver or your brain or your bones, but right now our goal is to cure it.”

“But . . .”

I can’t really think of what to say after “but.” Or maybe I just have so many things to say after “but” that I can’t choose one. So I ask questions, lots of them. And the doctor is patient and supportive, but he never tells me what I want to hear. He never offers to give me back yesterday and most of today.

Finally, he says to me: “Brooke, I’ll say this to you as directly as I can and I hope you’ll excuse my language but this is the best way I can think of to explain this: the time to shit or get off the pot is now. Not in a few years or even a few months. The best way to affect the behavior of this disease, to minimize the chance of it coming back, is to have what we call adjuvant radiation for the breast and adjuvant chemo for the rest of you. The chemo will be directed at any microscopic cells we currently cannot see, with the goal of preventing them from ever becoming an issue.”

It is at that point that I tell him I need to go home. It is just too much right now. I understand what he is saying and I will come back soon, as soon as he wants, but right now I cannot talk about it anymore. And, to my surprise, he is not judgmental, he does not scold or browbeat me. There is understanding in his face, in his tone, and he calls in a nurse and instructs her to make time for tomorrow, regardless of what else needs to be postponed.

So that was today.

Tomorrow I go back. Tonight I have a babysitter downstairs with the kids. I called and asked her to spend the night, told her I think I have the flu. I wish I did. I never thought I’d wish that, but right now the flu sounds so good, so normal. I feel so far away from normal. I have no idea when I can expect to feel normal again. I want so badly to feel normal. I’ve never wanted anything more. I want yesterday, and most of today.

Can anyone here tell me how to get that?



* * *



Person2Person

From: Samantha R.

To: Brooke B.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



Hello Brooke, my name is Samantha.

I’m from Greenwich too. I graduated from Greenwich Academy in 2001, did you go to GA? (Could this be a more awkward introduction? I’m sorry, this is my first person-to-person.)

My situation is a little different from yours. Actually, my whole life is different from yours—I don’t have a husband or children, and I guess it’s no guarantee that I will ever have either one. What I will be having is a double mastectomy next week. My doctor says I can still have kids; the only tangible effect of my surgery will be that I won’t be able to breast-feed, and that seems like a small thing to me now. I imagine it might not seem so small if I ever get there, but right now I’m really not thinking that far ahead. I’m just focused on today, for the time being, maybe tomorrow, not much past that.

I’m not writing to you because of our shared hometown. That may be the reason I was first drawn to your entry yesterday, among the hundreds of others, but it is not the reason I read it over and over, so many times I think I could recite it from memory. It is not the reason I feel I know you, even though we’ve never met. It is not the reason I am reaching out to you now. I am actually writing to say thank you, because you made me realize the refrigerator had stopped humming. And, as it turns out, that was the single most important thing that has happened to me through this whole ordeal.

You see, I am a crier. I mean, pathetic. The way most people behave at the end of the movie Old Yeller is the way I often react to television commercials. I have been known to weep after seeing a Subaru ad. I know it’s pathetic, but I can’t help it.

Which is why it is so interesting that I didn’t even notice that I never cried over my diagnosis. I mean, I bawl over a mom choosing her breakfast cereal, but I did not shed a tear when a doctor said to me: “Samantha, you have cancer.” I didn’t cry that day, and I hadn’t cried since. Not a single, solitary time.

Until last night.

As I said, I first opened your entry because of the hometown. It was probably the fiftieth post I have read since I joined the discussion last week. All of them have moved me, inspired me, made me feel less alone. They have done what I believe we are all here to do. But none of them did for me what yours did. You made me cry, and I thank you for that.

I read John Irving too. I have just about every one of his books, and when you quoted Franny saying she wanted yesterday and most of today, I remembered it. And I remembered her. And I realized that she was exactly right, and so were you. That’s what I want, too. It’s what we all want, to wake up and have it be yesterday, before all the tests and doctors and decisions. I want to remember what I worried about yesterday. Whatever it was, I would so welcome it today.

I got into bed with my laptop and read your words over and over, and I started to cry. And suddenly it was like that moment when the refrigerator stops humming, and you realize you didn’t even know the sound was there until it was gone. That’s how it felt. I hadn’t even realized I hadn’t cried until you made me. So I sat there, acutely aware of the silence that replaced the hum, and I cried really hard, by myself, sitting upright on my bed with your letter on the screen in front of me. I didn’t have tissues or anything but I didn’t even care, I just let the tears fall wherever they wanted.

I feel much more myself now than I did before. It isn’t quite like yesterday or most of today, but it’s better than it was, and I feel like it’s going to get even better still, maybe as soon as tomorrow. I feel I have you to thank for that, at least partly, because I needed to realize the refrigerator was humming and it took your letter to point it out.

Please do not feel an obligation to write me back. I know how much you have on your mind right now, you may not have time or need for a pen pal. I just wanted you to know, even if it’s just a voice deep in the wilderness, that your words were read and they made a difference.

I will be following however much of your story you choose to share in the weeks ahead, and please know that I am rooting for the heroine in your story from the bottom of my heart.



Love,

Samantha from Greenwich



* * *



Brooke B.

BreastCancerForum.org

Greenwich, Conn

Date joined: 9/30/2011



* * *



The following morning I was lounging in a hot bath.

The water was super hot, as hot as I could stand it. I love baths, have since I was a girl, but I seldom indulge anymore; showers are so much more efficient. But this was not a morning for worrying about things like that. This was a time to reflect, and to feel, though I wasn’t quite sure I could. I’d been numb for days, increasingly so, worst of all in the last few hours. I awoke today devoid of any emotion, any feeling. I wanted to see if I could feel the hot water, and I could, but only a little. Not the way it is meant to be felt. More like the way orange juice tastes right after you brush your teeth: you can tell it’s there, but everything that makes it special is missing.

I surprised myself by sleeping soundly. I hadn’t expected to sleep at all, but last night I slept hard and long, waking with drool on my pillow. The babysitter spent the night and she’d handle the kids this morning and get them off to school. There was a part of me that wanted desperately to be downstairs with them, pouring milk over cereal, packing snacks into backpacks, giving goofy hugs and smiles and kisses. Mornings are the best time of day for children, before they have had their energy sapped by the rigors of their day. Mornings are the time when they have the most time and love for their mom. But the first wrinkled nose I saw at the bottom of the stairs was liable to send me into a fit of hysterics I could never control. Right now, perhaps it was better to be numb. Better to sample the hot water, see if I could feel that, and do it alone. There will be other mornings in the kitchen. There may never be another morning quite like this one.

As I dipped my toe in the bath, I realized that not only did I sleep last night but I dreamed as well, which is also unusual. I hardly ever dream anymore; as I say to Scott sometimes, I don’t have to dream. I already have everything I want when I’m awake.

But now, as I settled into the scalding water, pausing here and there as my body grew accustomed to the heat—feeling it, but only a little—I was thinking of the dream I had. And, when I finally submerged myself completely, holding my breath, clasping my fingers over my nose, I could see it all behind my closed eyes.

It began at the foot of my stairs, in the entryway from the garage. I was myself but as a young girl, thirteen years old, and I was with my grandmother, after whom I was named and who died when I was that age. I loved my Grammy desperately, and still sometimes feel sad that she never saw the house I live in today. Grammy would have loved it. It is decorated, to the most painstaking detail, the way Grammy would have done had she been alive. I realized now, in a way I never consciously had before, that in nearly every decision I make I consider how Grammy would have reacted. I realized this in the tub, with my head underwater. But not in the dream. In the dream I was thirteen years old, taking Grammy on a tour of a house she did not live long enough to see.

We stopped every two or three steps. There was no detail we ignored, no square inch that was not explained. The mirrors hanging on the walls at the landing of the back staircase, the sequential photos of the children in the rear hallway, the painting Scott bought from a street artist in Paris for less than a dollar. The cabinetry and the cookware and the wineglasses and the breakfast stools, the rug in the main entry, the furniture in the living room, the desk with the inkwell in the office. The runner on the main stairs, the chandelier above the great room, the painted colors of the children’s walls, the linens in the master bedroom. In my dream I proudly explained it all, as a docent might when giving a tour in a museum. And in the tub, I was realizing that every one of the choices had been made with Grammy’s silent approval. And it made my eyes fill with tears, just for a moment, even with my head beneath the water, because I realized it meant Grammy was still with me in a way I hadn’t been aware of.

The best part of the dream was showing Grammy all the pictures on the wall that separates the kids’ bedrooms: my courtship with Scott, my wedding, where the “something old” was Grammy’s diamond brooch, and then all the photos of the children, both of them named in her honor: Grammy’s middle name was Megan, her last name was Jarret, hence Jared. Had I done that on purpose? Megan I had, I knew that, but I couldn’t remember about Jared. All I could recall was saying to Scott: “All my life I have loved the name Jared.” And so it was. In the dream I had told Grammy the boy was named for her. And now, in the bath, for the very first time, I realized it was true.

The dream ended with Grammy smiling warmly, exactly as I most love to remember her, with the smell of her cookies somehow wafting in the air, and her saying: “I am so pleased that your life has turned out this way.”

And me, at thirteen, replying: “Me too. If I had seen all these pictures when I was this age I would have thought that I was going to have the best life of anyone in the world.”

“You do, darling,” Grammy said, in the last of the dream I could remember. “You have all you could ask for.”

I sit up in the tub and let the water rush through my hair, and I scrub my face hard with my palms. I am more awake now, though I still don’t feel very much. And I still think that’s probably for the best. I glance at the clock on the face of the radio my husband listens to while he shaves. The kids had gone to school by now. It is almost time to go see the doctor, but I desperately want to stay in the tub a few more minutes. I couldn’t possibly bring myself to rush. And so I lie back and let my head drift beneath the water again, and that is when I realize that it hasn’t once occurred to me through this entire ordeal that Grammy, my mother’s mother, died young from cancer.

I am going to be late for my appointment. I am writing now when I should already be there, and I am the sort of person who is never late for anything. But somehow today that doesn’t much seem to matter. It isn’t the proper thing to do to make them wait, but today that doesn’t feel as though it makes as much difference as it should.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Samantha R.

To: Brooke B.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



Hi, Brooke, I am writing to you from room 324A at Greenwich Hospital, the same building where I was born and where you may have been as well. I’ve been thinking a lot about that this week, sort of a circle of life, which sounds cheesy but in my mind is a good deal more profound than that.

I spent a lot of time in this hospital as a girl. Not for any horrible reasons; my father was president of the board of trustees. I must have gone to a hundred fund-raising events with him. I remember some of them really well, mostly the Christmases. They always had wonderful events around the holidays, with tinsel and reindeer and visits from Santa. When I got older I was allowed to go to the grown-up functions, dinner dances in fancy dresses, with floral arrangements on the tables and live bands playing standards like “It Had to Be You.” The first time I ever slow-danced with a boy was in this hospital, at one of those parties. I was sort of a tomboy then, an athlete, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to clothes or my hair, and I didn’t pay a lot of attention to boys, either, maybe because I thought they wouldn’t pay a lot of attention to me. And then, when I was fourteen, I was here, at a dinner dance, and my father was away from the table, drinking scotch and talking business, and I was peeling the frosting off a piece of chocolate cake, when Andrew Marks came to the table. He was two years ahead of me in school and handsome and athletic and smart, captain of the basketball team and the debate team, which is a dream combination if you ask me. His father was the chief of pediatrics, so I had seen Andrew at many hospital functions over the years but had never really spoken to him. I didn’t think he even knew who I was.

Then, suddenly, he was standing over me. I don’t know how long he was there. People were always milling around at those things, and I was fixated on getting as much of the frosting as I could off the cake. But finally I realized someone was standing over my shoulder, and when I turned I could tell Andrew didn’t recognize me.

“Hello, my name is Andrew Marks,” he said stiffly and formally, as though he had taken classes in the proper etiquette for asking a young lady to dance and this was his first stab at it. “Would you like to dance?”

Like all girls, I had had crushes before, but that was the first moment for me, the first time I learned what it is like when your heart beats a little faster and your breath catches at the back of your throat. I wanted to tell him that he knew me, even if he didn’t realize it. I was the same girl he’d seen at these dances a dozen times before, only this time I was wearing a more grown-up dress and mascara and had gotten my hair blown out at a salon. But then I also didn’t want to tell him. There was something about being the mysterious, pretty girl that appealed to me. It was right there, in that chair, as I said the words “I would love to,” that I first realized it was all right to be a girl and also a jock. Maybe that’s why I remember the night so well.

Or maybe it’s because of the way Andrew held me.

At first, the band was playing “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees and everyone was out of their chairs in full boogie mode, even my dad was dancing with one of the divorcées in town who had been after him since the day my mother died. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about how well Andrew could dance, how handsome he looked in his suit. He was really tall. I’ve always liked tall men, beginning with that night.

When they finished the song, the next one they played was “How Deep Is Your Love,” also by the Bee Gees. You know that song, don’t you? I love that song, and had even before that night. I think it is the most perfectly romantic song I know. When the band began to play it that night, in the ballroom in this very hospital, I felt myself sweat a little beneath my arms. People started leaving the dance floor all around us; lots of people who were willing to boogie were not going to stay out there together for a slow song. Were we? I didn’t know. And when I looked up at him I could tell he didn’t know either. And I could see that he wanted to, and I knew I did, so I knew ultimately we would but I would leave it to him to make the decision for himself. I just stood there, sweating, trying to smile away the awkwardness until he mustered up the nerve, and when he did it wasn’t really much, just an embarrassed shrug of the shoulders, and a look that seemed to say “I’m up for this if you are,” but that was enough for me. I took a very deliberate step toward him, and then he opened his arms and I stepped between them and he pulled me in. And then it was as though there was no one else at that party, no one else in the room, no one else in the world, just Andrew Marks and that song and me.

So that was the night I learned that I like being pretty. It didn’t matter to me at all before and it has ever since. It still does, now, even as I lie here in this bed, wearing a stained cotton gown that ties in the back, thinking about the dress I wore the night I danced with Andrew Marks. It matters to me, even as I contemplate what life is going to be like for me from now on.

They removed my breasts today.

There’s no doubt it was the right thing to do, it was an easy decision to make, but somehow typing out the words isn’t quite so easy. Just looking at them now is hard, reading them in the dim backlight of my laptop. They removed my breasts. I have a gene that dictates I am at a disproportionately high risk of breast cancer. If not for the gene, the doctor said he would have considered just a lumpectomy, but I think I still might have asked to have the surgery. I want this out of me and I don’t want it back.

Still, it was strange to hear.

“I strongly recommend we take your breasts off.”

Like they were ski boots.

Next up is reconstructive surgery. And then, for all intents and purposes, I am cured. So, my emotions are in a peculiar state this evening. Because of my breasts, but also probably because of the drugs. And what I find most interesting is that when I woke up from the surgery, my first thought was of you. I needed to go to the forum and find out what has happened to the heroine in your story.

You don’t know me at all, and I understand that I have absolutely no right to intrude on your experience, but I can’t help myself. You didn’t respond to my person-to-person and I fully understand that, but if you can please update your story, I can’t explain why, but I need to know.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Brooke B.

To: Samantha R.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



Andrew Marks is my family’s pediatrician, and he is super cute.

He looks like he’d be an excellent kisser. Is he?



* * *



Person2Person

From: Samantha R.

To: Brooke B.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



I cannot tell you the excitement that raced through me when I logged on this morning and found my icon flashing. No one has ever written to me on the forum before and I just knew it was going to be you. (And, by the way, I don’t have very good past associations with surprises in my e-mail. I’ll tell you that story someday. Major drama.)

It hasn’t been the easiest day. The good news is my reconstructive surgery was a complete success, and the surgeon does not foresee any complications. Everything is as good as it can be under the circumstances. Still, I feel tired and sad, and a little worried about ever feeling as good as I did just three weeks ago. I was a serious athlete. Now I am a patient. I know I should feel grateful, I know how much worse this could have been, but I’m sorry, I’m just having a hard time feeling lucky right now.

Your note cheered me. I cannot believe Andrew is your doctor. I knew he had followed in his father’s footsteps but I had not heard he was still in Greenwich. I lost track of him while he was at Yale. He’s not on Facebook—one of the very few people I grew up with who is not. I think the last time I saw him was at his father’s funeral, maybe ten years ago. The whole town was there. I saw Andrew from a distance but I never got the chance to talk to him.

I’m not at all surprised to hear that he is good-looking. He always was, and never more than that night with the Bee Gees in our ears and me in his arms. We danced for a while, through three or four more songs, and when the next slow dance began (“Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” by Elton John), my father came barging over and announced loudly that it was his turn to dance with his daughter. I could see a funny look on Andrew’s face. He knew my dad (everybody knew my dad), and I think it was at that moment that he realized who I was. And I looked up into his eyes, afraid I’d find regret or embarrassment, but there was neither of those. Andrew just looked very content, and very handsome.

He bowed formally and raised my hand, offering it to my father with an overdone flourish. It was very corny and funny, the sort of thing that could have come off cheesy but I had such a crush on him he could have gotten away with anything. So I danced with my father and then I went back and sat down and continued to pick at the frosting on my chocolate cake. And Andrew never came back to ask me to dance again, or to say good night, or anything. I went home and ran a hot bath and lay in it for a long time.

At school that Monday I found a note in my locker, handwritten in red ink on a sheet of loose-leaf paper with holes on the side where it had been ripped from a binder.

Thank you for a splendid night.

I’ll be seeing you.

A. M.

I still have it. I love everything about it. I love that he took the time to find out which was my locker, and I love that he used the word “splendid,” which I’m not sure I have ever seen used in any context since. I still remember it as one of the sweetest encounters of my life, even if nothing ever came of it. There is something endlessly romantic about my memory of the whole thing; in fact, if you told me you had it all on videotape I would refuse to watch, because I’d be afraid it wasn’t quite as perfect as I remember. And I still think of Andrew as my first boyfriend, even though I’m afraid I can’t tell you for sure if he’s an excellent kisser.

Please write me back.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Brooke B.

To: Samantha R.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



Pity, he’s a hunk.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Samantha R.

To: Brooke B.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



I’m not at all surprised. His father was the only man in town more handsome than mine. Is he married? Does he have a family? Does he seem happy?

You may or may not know the answers to any of those. I realize he is your children’s doctor, not necessarily a family friend. Frankly, it’s you I want to know about. I apologize for prying when it is so clear you don’t want to share, but I’ll ask one more time and then I promise to leave it alone.

How is your heroine doing?



* * *



Person2Person

From: Brooke B.

To: Samantha R.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



What was the major drama you found by surprise in your e-mail?



* * *



Person2Person

From: Samantha R.

To: Brooke B.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



I found a naked photo of another woman in my husband’s inbox. And it happened on my honeymoon. So I was married for two days.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Brooke B.

To: Samantha R.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



Wow, I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean to be so glib about something so serious.

I’ll tell you, though, maybe in a way you could look at it as though you are lucky. You say you’re having a hard time feeling lucky, and I understand that, but in a way you are, because you found out more quickly than most that you married the wrong man. Some women don’t have the good fortune of discovering that in two days. For some it takes two years, or two decades. And it isn’t always so obvious. A nude photo of a woman seems less like a sad surprise than a sign from above, like a flashing light with a megaphone attached, blaring: “You married an a*shole, run away before he ruins a lot more than two days of your life!”

I have been married a long time. People often ask me about my marriage, and I always tell them the same thing: being married to the right man is hard work but it is the most wonderful thing in the world. Being married to the wrong man is the worst mistake a woman can make. I know that to be true, not from personal experience but because I have seen it. I have practically lived it with some of my closest friends. I won’t get into any names or specifics, but just understand any number of men in the swanky suburbs turn gay when you least expect it, or become addicted to prescription drugs, or develop a sudden longing to travel the world with a backpack. Or, worse, sometimes they just become distant, because they are disappointed in themselves or envious of the husband across the street who just put a six-figure addition on his house, so they drift away emotionally, blaming the women closest to them for their own shortcomings, projecting onto their wives feelings of inadequacy that most times the women don’t even feel.

Men are complicated, Samantha, but they are also very simple. If yours was such an a*shole that he was cheating on you within two days of your wedding and clumsy enough about it that you caught him, the best thing that ever happened to you is that you found out when you did. Because the alternative would be finding out after you had twins and a joint mortgage and reservations to go on safari in Africa. That would be much worse.

What I’m saying is I understand that you are struggling to grasp how lucky you are right now, but if you were able to read it instead of live it, you might decide that where you are is actually a fairly wonderful place. Even if you are wearing a hospital gown instead of a pretty dress.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Samantha R.

To: Brooke B.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



You know, I have had a lot of people say a lot of things designed to make me feel better these last few weeks: my father told me there isn’t a medical procedure known to man that will not be considered if I desire it, a nurse told me the nice thing about reconstructed breasts is I can choose the size and they will always be perky, and my best friend from college said, “Dude, you’ve always been hot and you always will be.” I appreciated all their support, but none of them made me feel lucky. You just did. Thank you.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Brooke B.

To: Samantha R.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



You’re welcome. Good night.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Samantha R.

To: Brooke B.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



Good morning!!!!

I hope you can sense the energy in my exclamation points. I slept more, and better, than I have since all this began. I awoke feeling strong and optimistic. I am going home either today or tomorrow. The end of this is in sight for me.

I also want to tell you I totally respect that you don’t want to share what is going on with you right now. I know how hard and how personal this is for me, and I understand that unlike me you have a husband to share your feelings with, to cry with, to laugh with, to hold you, to make you feel lucky.

You don’t need me. I understand that, and I won’t ask you again. But I do want you to know that I will help in any way I can if you ever do.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Brooke B.

To: Samantha R.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



Let me tell you about me. When I was first out of college, I worked in marketing for Donna Karan, and I enjoyed the work and the people and mostly the clothes, but to me it was not a career, it was nothing more than a job. I have never had any interest in a career; I never saw the point. What would I do? Sell something? Market something? To what end? Nothing I would be selling or marketing would be really important to me, certainly not in the way my family is.

So that is who I am. And I don’t mind at all telling you what is going on with me. What is going on is I am living my life, nothing more, nothing less. And by the way, you are right that I have a lot of people in my life to care for me and I have a wonderful husband to share my feelings with, and he often holds me, and he always makes me feel lucky, and in all the years we have been together I have never kept a secret from him. But I haven’t told him about this and I’m not sure I ever will. And if you try to tell me I have to, you will never hear a word from me again.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Samantha R.

To: Brooke B.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



What are you talking about? Why haven’t you told him?



* * *



Person2Person

From: Brooke B.

To: Samantha R.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



I said not to ask me that.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Samantha R.

To: Brooke B.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



No you didn’t, you told me not to tell you what to do, and that’s fine. All I’m doing is asking a question because I am totally confused.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Brooke B.

To: Samantha R.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



You wouldn’t understand.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Samantha R.

To: Brooke B.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



Listen, I’m not easily insulted.

I’ve had a lot of people say things that could have hurt my feelings. A friend of my father’s once told me my ass was too small. A soccer coach once told me I was a pretty good player “for a rich girl.” When I worked in TV, a news director once said he was sending me on a story because I “wasn’t as likely to get hit on” as another field producer we had. I once made out with a boy all night at a fraternity party and then he called me by the wrong name. And, of course, how can we forget: I caught my husband cheating on me during my honeymoon.

The point is that I can ignore or laugh off almost any insult, but for you to tell me I couldn’t understand your situation hurts my feelings. Tell me what happened. Help me understand it. I want to be there for you but I can’t if you won’t let me.



* * *



Person2Person

From: Brooke B.

To: Samantha R.

BreastCancerForum.org



* * *



I’ve already told you everything.

I was turning forty, so I went for my first mammogram upon the advice of a handsome young pediatrician who once slow-danced with you and made your insides turn to Cream of Wheat. I did not expect to hear bad news, so I was completely unprepared for what I was told.

Breast cancer.

The sort that does not respond to certain treatment options, triple-negative they call it, invasive cancer, the kind that can spread. The kind that can end your life. None of it made sense. It was like a dream, a bad dream. Life was no longer in color, it was black-and-white. I could listen to my kids but couldn’t hear them. I could watch them but couldn’t see. For the first time in my life I could not feel my own children. I couldn’t feel anything.

My husband was not aware of any of this. He is a Wall Street executive and was in China for three weeks, departing the day before the mammogram. I scheduled it that way, figured I’d have nothing much to do that day. I had that wrong.

So he was in China while all of this was going on, and would be for several more days. He called twice each day, without fail, and I told him nothing of this. When he is away he takes great comfort in knowing we are safe and comfortable. He calls once in the morning and once at night, and there is simply no room for bad news.

Then I was back in the doctor’s office, and he was explaining why I would still require radiation and chemotherapy even after the lumpectomy, and the good news that the disease was confined to the breast.

“This is very simple, Brooke,” he said. “We can minimize the chances of this disease coming back. The statistics are very clear, I can show you the numbers if you like. You substantially reduce the chances of recurrence if you have the adjuvant therapy, radiation and chemo. If the disease comes back, I cannot cure it. I can manage it, but I cannot make it go away forever. So we need for it not to return, and this is the way we maximize our chances of that.”

I had only one question, but I was embarrassed to ask it, so I found something else to say instead.

“Doctor, I made a mistake when we talked before, when I told you I had no family history. That was wrong. I forgot about my grandmother. She had cancer. She died from it when she was in her late fifties.”

The doctor nodded. “What form of cancer did she have?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“I mean, was it breast cancer? Ovarian cancer?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “No one ever told me.” Because no one ever did.

“Were you not born yet when she died?” he asks.

“I was a teenager.”

“You were a teenager when she died,” the doctor said, with a quizzical look, “and no one ever told you what she died from?”

It sounded strange, but it was the truth.

“Do you have any questions about the treatment?” he asked.

I did. Only one, and it was time to ask it. “Am I going to lose my hair?”

“The best therapy options would likely cause you to lose your hair, yes.”

That’s when I began to cry. I said I would go home to think about it, even though the doctor was telling me there was nothing to think about.

“It’s a hard thing to do,” I said.

“It may be a hard thing to do,” he responded, “but it should be an easy decision to make.”

But he’s wrong. It’s not easy at all.

So I sat in the tub again that day. I find myself spending an increasing amount of time there lately. Maybe because I feel a constant chill, and the hot water warms my insides. Or maybe because I feel unclean, as though something is all over me, or inside me, and nothing makes me feel more clean than a hot bath.

Then Scott came home.

He was so happy to see me. He told me he felt he’d been gone for years, that he felt he’d missed so much, and I said I felt the same way. He was desperate to squeeze his children and then his wife, in that order and in very different ways, so he did and it felt wonderful to be wanted. We snuck upstairs while the kids were busy with homework and did it in the closet, with me bent across a dresser and him fighting to stifle his moans. He squeezed me tightly the entire time, and I felt it all in a way I hadn’t been able to feel anything while he was gone. And then ten minutes later I was washed up and back downstairs helping with math problems. And it was just like it was supposed to be. It was my perfect life back again. I just couldn’t spoil it, not that night. Sometime soon, perhaps, but not that night. It was a night for perfect, and there is no room for cancer in that. So that was ten days ago. And everything is pretty well back to normal. My husband wants me first thing every morning before he dashes to the train, my children need lunches fixed and hair braided and arguments settled, my dog needs walking and tenderness, and offers unwavering affection in return, and when I have time to myself you will find me in the tub, soaking in the hot water, able to feel it now, perhaps not in all of its intensity but certainly more than I could a week ago. I had a lumpectomy and it left behind a scar, nothing huge, nothing my husband has noticed yet. If he does and asks, I will tell him I had a cyst removed. But there is no space for cancer in my life and I don’t want to create any, because it would change the way things are and I don’t want them changed. I have worked my whole life to make everything perfect, and I’m not at all prepared to have cancer come in and screw the whole thing up.

And when I am alone, when I am in the tub, I alternate between crying uncontrollably and feelings of intense joy, because I have what I begged for when this all began. I have yesterday, and most of today. What more could any woman possibly ask for?



* * *