Storm in a B Cup - A Breast Cancer Tale (13 page)

I climb into
bed and snuggle up close to him. My head rests on his shoulder and I slide my
hand across his bare torso. I love the feel of his skin. It’s so smooth and
toned. I could rub my hands over his body for the longest time. He lifts his
arm, so I can bury myself in the crook between his arm and chest.
 
His hand is stroking my shoulder, which
is promising but he’s still reading.

I shuffle
myself around so my lips graze the side of his jaw. It’s smooth and he smells
of soap where he got out of the shower. I trail my lips into the nape of his
neck and nuzzle.

Brendan
reaches across and puts his book on the bedside table. He rolls back towards
me, his eyes sparking with that dangerous look I love. “Feeling better, are
we?”

“Mmm.”

He reaches
around and squeezes my bum. His hands travel up and down my body and as I’m
beginning to get in the mood, he freezes. He’s reached the spot where my breast
used to be.

He looks
like a deer in headlights. He doesn’t know what to do. I have another breast, I
think. It’s not that hard. I can almost feel the tension between us as he rolls
back over and turns out the light.

Chapter 13

I feel like
shit.

Last night
was an absolute disaster that ended with me, in the shower this morning,
sobbing with my face against the tiles because I can’t believe Brendan is
repulsed by the way I look, so repulsed that he had to turn the light off
before he could bring himself to do the deed.

And the deed
was not that good.

I always
believed Brendan loved me for the person I am. It appears I am wrong. He only
wants me as an accessory to his life. He loves my looks. Or should I say,
loved
?

In previous
times, our sex life was healthy, creative even. We were both up for being
inventive and trying new things — within reason, of course. We were the
envy of our friends, the couple who were still in love after years. Our
relationship wasn’t that of a stale, married couple. It was fun, exciting. At
least, it had been on my end. After the events of twelve hours ago, I’m
beginning to think I may have been wrong about Brendan.

Last night.
It was like some sort of ‘let’s-get-it-over-with-to-shut-her-up’ thing. I could
tell his heart wasn’t in it. He could hardly bring himself to touch me anywhere
between the hips and the neck. His foreplay was perfunctory, which is being kind.
And when he climbed aboard, he wouldn’t lower his body to mine. It was like I
was contagious, that he could catch cancer by touching where I’d had it.

I tried to
reassure him that he wasn’t hurting me, that everything was okay, that because
I look different physically, it didn’t mean I was. I did the things he loves.
Nothing worked. To add insult to injury, when I woke this morning with another
thumping headache and a heart that felt like it had been bashed by a baseball
bat, he had the cheek to ask me why I was crying. I know it’s not about me, but
for once, just once, can it be? Why do I always have to be the strong one? Why
do I have to take it on the chin, suck it up?

The phone
rings and I answer it. It’s Mum. She’s been on holiday in Cambodia or China or
somewhere Buddhist. She hasn’t heard my good news. And before you go thinking
she up and left me when I had cancer, I said she should go. Cancelling would
have been such a waste of money and what good could she do here? Really?

“Hello,
darling.”

“Hi, Mum.
How was the holiday?”

“Glorious.
Though Colin got the worst bout of food poisoning. They had to stop the bus so
he could squat behind a haystack on the side of the road. It was fortunate we
were in the countryside, his bottom could be seen from the moon, it’s so
white.”

The image
I’m getting from this description is one I’d rather not have, but in a sadistic
sort of way, it’s cheering me up.

“Is he
better now?”

“Of course.
But he was such a baby about it. Honestly, you would have thought he was dying.
It cost us three hundred dollars to have a doctor come to the hotel to give him
a shot. He
did
perk up when he saw
the nurse. I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head. She was the
Asian version of a nurse from those
Carry
On
movies. If Benny Hill had come through the door behind her, I wouldn’t
have blinked.”

“Apart from
the fact that Benny Hill’s dead.” I chuckle.

“Is he? Gosh,
how come I never heard about that? I love Benny Hill.”

“It was a
while back.”

“Mmm. So,
how did the visit to the doctor go? What’s the latest news?”

I relay the
events of the past week, including my exciting news about no longer needing to
have chemotherapy.

“Oh.”

She sounds
deflated which is not the reaction I expected. Though cancer seems to be
causing many of the people in my life to react oddly.

“What’s the
matter, Mum?”

“I sent you
another care package. Colin and I had such fun shopping for everything after he
got better, but I guess you won’t be needing it now. Send it back when it
arrives.”

I’m curious.
“What’s in it?”

“We found
you this gorgeous red Mandarin hat. There’s a Chairman Mao cap as well and a
cute Chinese Liberation Army cap in green. It’ll go with your eyes. The best
part is the Tibetan winter hat though. A man was knitting them on the side of
the road. It has these darling little earflaps. So useful if you don’t have
hair to keep your ears warm in winter.”

As if I
would ever be seen wearing anything with flaps, even with hair.

“It sounds
like a great present, Mum. Thanks so much. I’m sure I’ll find some use for
them.”

If worse comes
to worst, there’s always fancy dress parties.

“Well, yes.
You’ll have to send the Advanced Hair Studio voucher back, though. That won’t
be of any use. I can cash it in.”

“Advanced
Hair Studio?”

“You know,
the hair loss people. They made Shane Warne’s hair grow back.”

“Shane
Warne, the cricketer? The one who goes out with Liz Hurley?”

“Yes.”

“He had male
pattern baldness, Mum.”

“Which is
why they were so pumped to work with you. They’ve never had a cancer patient
before. Julie is going to be so upset when I tell her.”

This conversation
is on the train to Crazy.

“Who’s
Julie?”

“The hair
consultant. We’ve had so many conversations about you over the last few days. She’s
going to be devastated.”

Oh, for
Pete’s sake. Sometimes my mother is insane. “It’s a pity I won’t get the
opportunity to meet her then, isn’t it? Maybe I could keep the voucher in case
Brendan ever feels the need.”

“I doubt
that boy’s head would have the gall to go bald, darling. It would be too afraid
of what the rest of his body might think.”

A snort of
laughter escapes my lips. After last night, I’m very aware of what looks mean
to Brendan. He’d never let himself go bald. He’d talk himself out of it, if
that were possible.

“Anyway, I
have a follow up with Dr. Downer in a few weeks.
 
She’s going to tell me what’s next on the agenda. I have to
go for a fitting for my real prosthesis, too.”

Something I’m
not looking forward to.

“When will
that be?”

“In about a
month.”

“Perfect.
 
I was planning to come home for a few
days, anyway. I can work around that and we can go shopping together.”

And here we
go again. All I want is to get this thing over with while attracting the least
amount of attention. I want the experience to be stress-free and calm,
something that it invariably won’t be if Denise Molloy has arrived. Once Mum
commences her well-meaning antics, I’ll probably need to be committed.

“That would
be lovely, Mum,” I reply, hoping she can’t hear the grimace in my voice.

After saying
goodbye, I hang up and go to pick up Rory from his sleep over. The weekend is
almost done and funnily enough, even though the cancer is supposedly gone, it seems
as if that’s the only thing on my mind in one way or another.

Chapter 14

“This is my
son, Rory. Rory, this is Dr. Downer.”

I sit in the
chair opposite Dr. Downer. Rory, who has been allowed to have the morning off
school to attend this appointment, sits in the chair beside me. His legs don’t
touch the floor and his body appears as if the big barrel shape of the chair is
swallowing him whole. Usually, his school uniform makes him seem older but
here, in this setting, he’s suddenly a little boy again. My little boy. Even
his fingers appear tiny as he clutches at the wooden arms of the chair.

Dr. Downer
holds her hand out across the desk for Rory to shake. She gives him a pleasant
smile. I’m not sure she’s used to having children in her rooms, cancer is more
of an adult thing.

“He wanted
to come because he wants to ask you a few questions about my illness,” I say.

Rory and I
have been having interesting bedtime chats over the past couple of weeks. I’ve
tried to be up front with him but I think he needs reassurance that I’m not
going to die, from someone other than me. I think he’s convinced I’m pulling
the ‘mother’ wool over his eyes. You know, bending the truth to make the
prognosis more favourable. I’ve never done it before, not even when Glossy, his
goldfish, looked terminal, so I’ve no clue where this is coming from. Even as Rory’s
eyes swelled with tears at the fish that was bobbing around in the bowl like a
cork in the ocean, I tried to say it straight, but gently. There was no hope
for Glossy. And no, mouth to fish resuscitation would not bring him back to
life.

“Rory has
some questions he’d like answered,” I explain to Dr. Downer, who is looking
increasingly nervous at the prospect. I wonder if she has children and how long
it is since she’s had to explain the ins and outs of tumours to a six-year-old.

“Of course.”

Rory reaches
into the pocket of his school shorts and pulls out a piece of paper. I watch as
he unfolds it and shifts his body to the front of the seat. His face is very
serious as he focuses on the doctor. He’s giving this his full attention and is
demanding to be treated the same. I’m a little shocked by this maturity in my
child. I wasn’t expecting a list. When had he made a list?

Rory looks
down at the paper. He clears his throat and begins to read. “Is my mum going to
die?”

Dr. Downer
straightens her body in a similar fashion and considers her answer, not so she
can change it, but rather tailor it to suit my son’s understanding. I can see
her pondering the best way to form the sentence.

“No,” she
says at last.

Well. That
was easy to understand.

“When we
operated on your mum, we did a lot of tests and the tests show that we got all
the cancer. She is not going to die.”

“So, she
doesn’t have to have the medicine that will make her hair fall out? She’ll look
silly with no hair. Grandmam sent her these hats to wear but she’ll still look
like Granddad. He’s as bald as a football. He’s a bit fat too.”

The doctor’s
lips are holding in a smile. Perhaps she’s picturing me looking like a sixty-year-old
balding man with a paunch.

“Mummy won’t
have to have chemotherapy because the type of cancer we found was not spreading
fast. The other doctors who have been looking after her also agree she’ll be
fine. She has take a tablet every day for the next five years, though. That
will stop any little tiny cancer that might have an idea of growing somewhere
else in her body from doing so. The tablet is very powerful. Lots of ladies
have taken it to make them well.”

Rory nods, satisfied.

“Will her
boobie grow back? Spiders can grow their legs back if you chop them off.”

“Unfortunately
not. Your mother will have to have another operation and we will make her a new
breast if she wants one.”

“So, she’s
not going to die?” he repeats, to make sure the doctor wasn’t tricking him the
first time.

“Not until
she’s an old lady.”

“And she can
make my bed again soon? Her arms are going to go back to normal?”

“A big
fellow like you should be making your own bed.”

Rory is
affronted by this comment. “I do, but when I’m not looking she comes in and
fixes it up. Mum likes things tidy.”

Sprung.

Dr. Downer
glances at me. The glint of smile has moved to her eyes. Somewhere in her
history there must be children whose beds she’s straightened.

“Any other
questions, Rory?” the doctor asks.

“Can I go
and look at the fish in the waiting room?”