She tells me that according to my insurance, I get to pick out six bras and a breast form. Black, white, beige—easy. A strapless. A sports bra.
“Do you want something lacy and sexy?” Tita asks. I think about John’s gaze falling on me, undressed. My body. My carved up, asymmetrical body.
“No,” I say. “Not really.”
I choose a second black bra, with a small bow and the slightest sheen.
For the breast forms, we poke our fingers into different degrees of density, different shapes. They all feel like something between a memory foam pillow and a balloon.
“The new ones are waterproof,” says Alethia as we browse. “And really keep their shape nicely.”
We are giggling and cupping them in our hands. We have no idea what to pick, what the best option is to get the right curve. I ask Alethia to choose for me. The one she picks comes in a fancy square box with gold embossed writing: Nearly Me.
“That one is made by the lady who invented Barbie,” Alethia tells us.
“Well, then that’s a done deal,” says Tita.
*
At home I model my new breast and bras under a tight T-shirt for John.
“What do you think of my optical illusion?” I ask. “The Amazing Appearing Woman.”
“Lovely,” he says. “But I still prefer you topless, even when you’re lopsided.”
“Aww,” I say. “Liar.”
I agree with him though. I appreciate having the ability to suggest symmetry, but sometimes I prefer the one-sidedness, the wrongness of it—the gap and the scar. It’s a truth, an artifact—a way to put my hands on my losses and take stock.
17. Not Men-o’-War
First major holiday after my mom dies, and we rent a beach house down on the coast. I wake and cook the pies early. My dad and John tend the turkey. The beach is deserted, except by sunlight and crab carcasses. The boys run until they cannot.
One morning we wake to a line of jellyfish rolling aimlessly in the surf for as long as the eye can see. Not men-o’-war, but not clear and harmless either.
“I know they’re kind of creepy, but I like them,” says Freddy, poking one with a stick. “The way they allow themselves to be swept this way and that. Like they’re always up for a new adventure.”
“I like how you can see their nice red hearts from the outside,” says Benny.
“Those aren’t their hearts, Benny! Jeez!” corrects Freddy. “Those are their stingers!”
“Oh,” says Benny. “Well, that way they can not get hurt as much on their adventure.”
Here we are closer to something I am trying to understand: that openness to fear. We are hearts and stingers. We ride the tide. We believe in resistance; we are made both of fight and float.
Freddy and I take sticks and write in the wet sand thanks to things we admit have made us stronger, but are ready to say goodbye to: CANCER and DIABETES. Then we stand and watch it wash away on the rising tide. Benny chooses to write POOP.
“What?” he says with one of his grins. “It’s good to say thanks and goodbye to poop, too.”
18. The Machine
Radiation is daily for a month—I start after Thanksgiving and am supposed to be done by Christmas. Freddy—who loves to stay up late reading about atoms and quarks—has been unfortunately stuck on the notion of being a Billionaire Weapons Inventor for a while now. And Benny has an entire notebook of recipes he’s conjured for how to turn humans into different animal species (tail hair of a Welsh corgi, saliva of an ocelot, chocolate chips, sea salt). Nudging them away from the realm of evil science toward the realm of medical science seems like it can’t hurt, and might possibly be at least as lucrative someday in their future, so I decide to bring them to see the machine.
My radiation oncologist Dr. Rosenblum—who has a little boy—thinks it’s a great idea.
“Make sure to tell your boys the machine is called a ‘linear accelerator,’?” she tells John and me at the appointment before I start radiation.
“Ooh—and wait—how old are they again? Eight and six? Yeah, tell them we’ll be using lasers to guide the photons and electrons to the right spot and that we will be using the exact same technology we use for radar. And that we will do it all from a remote command center with closed-circuit monitors! And that each machine costs millions of dollars!”
Her eyes are glowing maybe a little too brightly.
I mention all this at the dinner table that night as casually as possible.
“Hmmm,” says Freddy, a little interested. “What are the chances you’ll come away from this with mutant powers?”
“I imagine not infinitesimal,” I say, getting kind of worked up myself.
“I have two things,” says Benny. “Is radiation a kind of technology, and will you have hair?”
My having hair again has been a primary concern for Benny for months now. He climbs into our bed each morning and vigorously pats my sprouting head. “You rubby little fuzzball I’m going to rub you all up because you are the softest thing.”
“Yes!” I say. “Radiation is in fact ultra-high-tech technology! And doesn’t affect your hair at all!” I can hear all the exclamation marks in my voice.
A week later when Veterans Day rolls around and the kids have no school and John is off work and I have to be at Duke, I think: perfect. Let’s all drive over to Durham and we can eat a hip foodie lunch on Ninth Street and browse through actual paper books at The Regulator and we’ll take the kids to see the Duke campus and the impressive gothic hospital that is saving my life and where I—and their grandmother—have spent so many important hours. Plus: science!
My first Spidey sense that there might be some reason why teachers don’t regularly take their eager elementary schoolers to tour hospital radiation facilities comes just as we step foot off the elevator into the waiting room—the same waiting room where I wait every day, where I have my usual seat and say my usual hellos and chat with the usual suspects and settle in for the usual routine.
Radiation happens in the basement—Level 00. There is a grand piano in the foyer where a med student has dropped his backpack and is playing “Wind Beneath My Wings.”
Suddenly I am aware of so many wheelchairs. So many unsteady steppers. So many pale faces and thin wisps of hair and ghostly bodies slumped in chairs. Angry, papery skin. Half-healed wounds. Growths and disfigurements straight out of the Brothers Grimm. So many heads held up by hands.
These days, these are my people—the Feeling Pretty Poorlies—but I haven’t really seen us as we are in a long time—the (mostly) walking wounded of the cancer militia. We’re kind of disheveled. We’re often asymmetrical. We’re wearing comfortable pants and bright scarves. We tend to either smile too quickly or not at all.