When Bess read Report, she’d been impressed by how many slang words her mother knew for breast. Simone used coarse language; she wrote the way men did to describe female objects of lust, envy, and scorn. Simone described her own breast as a sack of fat and tissue, having, apparently, zero emotional attachment to it. Simone hadn’t breast-fed Bess and her brothers.
Like many nineties mothers these days, Bess breast-fed all four of her children—for nine months each. She’d been a dedicated dairy bar, in part, because nursing was supposed to prevent breast cancer. She often reflected on specific nursing moments with each of her kids, their infant eyes closed, little lips moving rhythmically, with love and joy. Her breasts had served a purpose, both physical and emotional. Bess had a nostalgic association with her boobs. They’d developed early, at eleven, during the happiest years of her childhood when her father was still alive. As she got older, Bess loved her breasts for how they stopped men in their tracks, filled out a sweater, felt comforting in her own hands. Bess would not politicize her body parts, if those arguments were still being made. If her breast was removed, she’d be devastated. She’d mourn the loss of a part of herself. Simone had been lucky. No recurrence. Bess took heart in that.
If Bess seemed anxious on the short walk from school, Charlie and Tom didn’t ask her about it. Once home, the kids were easily diverted by snacks. Bess ushered them into the kitchen, poured milk, and handed over an entire bag of cookies (usually, she plated a few). Then she went up three flights to her private bathroom, locked herself in, and was preparing to cry when her cell vibrated.
“Bess? What’s going on?” It was Carla.
“Carla! I was going to call you.” She’d thought of calling her doctor buddy, but hadn’t had the chance yet.
“Zeke and Manny are waiting for you at Brownstone,” said Carla. “You were supposed to pick them up today.”
Shit. “I forgot,” said Bess. They’d made the arrangement when Carla was the big winner at the last poker night. “I’ll go to school right now.”
“Thank. You.” Then Carla hung up.
Bess would have to postpone her cry. She went back into the kitchen and told her kids that they had to run back to Brownstone and get the Morgans.
Charlie said, “Mom, that’s what I was trying to tell you when you told me to shut up.”
Bess said, “I did not say ‘Shut up.’ ”
Tom nodded. “You did.”
“Let’s go,” she said. “Manny and Zeke are waiting.”
“Can’t we wait here by ourselves?” Charlie protested.
“You’re too young,” she said.
“It’s ten minutes,” said Tom.
“Fine,” said Bess. “Don’t eat anything until I get back. If you choke, I won’t be here to Heimlich you.”
They rolled their eyes. She put her coat back on, and put the bag of cookies in her purse. As if that would stop them from eating anything else in the house.
Bess ran to school, found Carla’s Zeke and Manny in the lobby, apologized profusely; the over-the-top groveling made the two boys shrink into each other with embarrassment.
They followed her out of Brownstone, walking a step or two behind her as she stomped back to Clinton Street. Her hands deep in her pockets, Bess visualized the scene of telling Borden about her day, Dr. Able’s office, the mammogram, PA meeting, multiple round-trips to Brownstone. She pictured them in their bedroom, after lights out, where and when they always had their talks. Late night was their only opportunity to pay each other undivided attention.
Behind her, she heard Carla’s kids giggling. She looked in the direction of their eyes, and saw a couple of teenagers making out on a stoop on Joralemon Street.
Bess’s first thought: They must be freezing.
Second thought: I recognize that coat. It’s Amy. She’s kissing a boy.
The teens untangled themselves when they realized they’d drawn a crowd. Bess’s third thought: That is not a boy.
Blinking in confusion, amazement, embarrassment, and several other emotions her mind was too overwhelmed to process, Bess made a small urp sound. The Morgan boys, realizing that one of the kissing girls on the stoop was their friends’ sister and their own erstwhile babysitter, stepped backward a pace, their eyes huge O’s.
Amy, red-faced and puffy (she had gained a lot of weight), shouted to her mother, “What’re you looking at?”
Bess said, “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
Which inspired Amy to grab her girlfriend (?) by the wrist, and scream, “Can’t you leave me alone? I hate you! I wish you were dead!”
What could a mother do but start laughing? Her daughter hated her and wished she were dead. This coming only half an hour after Bess had received the news that she might have breast cancer. The irony was too precious.
“And, one day, your wish will be granted,” said Bess. “Until then, do you prefer to sit out here in the cold or would you like to come home? Please bring your friend, who must have a name.”
Amy was too flooded with adolescent hormones to calm down. Bess watched her daughter’s mouth fly as accusations tumbled out—Bess was spying, violating Amy’s privacy, not respecting her individuality. Bess wondered, given the fullness of time, if Amy would ever regret this moment. Should Bess’s coffee bean turn out to be malignant, should the cancer spread through her body, consume her organs, kill her in her prime, would Amy feel ashamed of ranting at her mother on the street in front of other people?
On one level, Bess understood that Amy was acting like an escaped mental patient because she was in some kind of emotional pain. The glint of maternal empathy was barely detectable. At the moment, Bess felt only her own hurt and anger.
Amy had been handed everything. She’d been loved, placed in the sun, nurtured, tended, and given room to grow. Bess mutely stared at her oldest child’s lips twisted in rage, and couldn’t understand what she’d done wrong.
Finally, raving monster Amy stopped. The sudden absence of sound was almost louder than the screeching. Then, Amy asked, “Have you heard a single word I said?”
Bess replied, “I left the boys alone at home. I have to go.” She turned on her heel, and continued to Clinton Street. Zeke and Manny followed closely. When Bess peeked at them, they seemed astonished. Surely, they didn’t see such fireworks in their house. Their family’s style was to strike silent blows. She could only imagine what they’d tell Carla about this scene, if they said anything.
They arrived home. Charlie and Tom had not choked on food while she was out. Zeke and Manny ran up to the boys’ room, and began doing whatever it was they did. Bess went into her room to lie down. And she didn’t get up.
When the boys came into her room looking for dinner, she told them to order a pizza and take the money out of her wallet. When Carla came later to pick up her kids, Bess barely heard the sound of the buzzer, but she did catch the stampede of sneakers down the stairs. She assumed Zeke and Manny let themselves out.
“Are you sick?” Borden asked, upon finding her flat out on the bed, fully dressed at eight o’clock at night.
Sick? She might be dying. But, yes, she’d take sick. And tired. Sick and tired of caring for everyone, and no one caring for/about her. For all she’d done for her children, none of them had shown the slightest interest in why their mother was in bed all afternoon and evening.
“They can get along without you,” said Dr. Able.
Bess pulled a pillow over her head. Muffled, she asked Borden, “Is Amy home?”
“Don’t you know?” he asked in return.
“Just check.”
“Okay,” he said, and then walked out of their room and down a flight. Bess could hear him knocking loudly on Amy’s door.
Murmurs, voices bounced off the hallway, and up the stairs. Amy was home. She’d slipped in at some point. Bess felt her back muscles relax at the knowledge that her entire family was present and accounted for, even if some of its members were ungrateful brats.
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They’d be sorry when she was dead. Just to make sure, Bess intended to put that in her will. “To my children,” she’d stipulate. “I bequeath all my worldly possessions, and a lifetime of feeling sorry that I’m dead.”
When her father died, Bess had felt plenty sorry, for him and herself. Twenty-five years later, she was still sorry. Fifteen-year-old Bess had been just as self-absorbed as Amy. She’d barely gotten to know her father while he was alive. Once he was gone, she got deeply acquainted with missing him. But a parent was never completely gone. His genes were in her; his kindness, consideration, and patience.
Turned out, Bess had inherited something from her mother besides feline bone structure and height—the ticking time bomb in her breast. A new wave of resentment for Simone washed over her. Despite the rancor of the moment, it felt good to have a new reason to hate her mother.
Would Amy get breast cancer, too? She would, of course, blame Bess for it.
At what point would it be appropriate, she wondered, to send out invitations to her Pity Party?
Borden reentered their bedroom and closed the door. “Okay, the boys are watching TV, Amy is crying in her bedroom,” he said. “I heard you two had a fight?” Borden took off his suit jacket and undid his tie.
“With you, she’s Daddy’s little girl,” said Bess. “I’m the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“Just tell me what happened.”
“I might have breast cancer. I have a lump that needs to be biopsied,” said Bess. “I think that grants me an afternoon in bed.”
Borden was on her in a flash. He rolled her onto her back, and started hugging her, petting her hair and kissing her cheeks. He didn’t ask any questions, demand an explanation, or act hurt she hadn’t called him earlier. His instinctual reaction was to hold and help. Bess had married a good man. She immediately burst into tears.
Once she’d cried herself out, she unraveled the story. Borden said, “So you don’t know yet. It could be nothing.”
“My mother’s breast cancer presented when she was around my age.”
“I don’t care if you lose a boob. I’ll be just as attracted to you as ever. Even more.”
“That’s simply not true,” she said.
“Let’s not decide it’s cancer,” he said, ever the optimist. He stroked her shoulders and arms, his hands wandering to her chest. “Where is it?”
She lifted her shirt and bra and guided him the bean. He said, “I feel it. It’s tiny, Bess. Does it hurt?”
“A little, but only since I realized I had it.”
“How could I have missed it?” he asked.
“You’re not a breast man,” she said.
“Who says I’m not?” he replied. “I love your breasts, and I stupidly neglect them. Never again.” He proceeded to lavish attention on her breasts—left and right. She felt his erection against her hip.
“A lump turns you on,” she said. “Is there anything that turns you off?”
“I told you,” he said, between kisses. “I am your slave, your servant. One breast, no breasts. Bald, skinny, I don’t care.”
Bess and Borden made love that night. Her breath, she knew, was sour from her nap and skipping dinner. But that didn’t stop him from kissing her, pecks and deep mouth melds, while he lay on top of her. He was careful, treated her gently, like a precious, fragile doll. When he wasn’t kissing her, he was watching her face, promising without words that he’d never look away. The attention Borden paid to Bess’s face, to her lips and eyes, was far more erotic and exciting for her than his usual crotchcentric focus. When she came, a slow-creeping orgasm, it was a surprise and a spinesapper. She felt boneless and blissed out after, emptied of her anxiety.
Sadly, the relief was temporary. Her apprehension returned after only a few minutes. She would carry her fear in her chest until it was surgically removed. Perhaps Borden would be ready to go again soon. Bess could easily imagine how a cancer diagnosis might turn someone into a sex maniac.
“I’d want you to marry again,” she said to her husband as they lay in each other’s arms. “The kids need a mother.”
“You’re not dying,” he said. “Don’t you think you’d know if you were? Intuitively?”
“Like how the bullet comes at you in slow motion,” she said, “the one with your name on it?”
“Exactly,” he said.
Bess searched her intuition for a clue to her fate. Was she dying? Was her lump the slow-motion bullet with her name on it? Only twelve hours since its discovery, her brain was simply not ready to go there. When she closed her eyes and searched her sixth sense, all she saw was the underside of her eyelids.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Bess added. “Your daughter is a lesbian.”
Bess showed her full house to the committee members, queens over tens. “I’m a nihilist now,” she announced.
“Nice non sequitur,” said Robin, folding her cards and taking a single piece of popcorn from the bowl Alicia had put out for her guests. “So you’ve gone nihilist? Is that like going native?”
Tim said, “How do you make the conversational leap from ‘Top Chef’ to nihilism?”
Alicia said, “At the end of the day, doesn’t it always come around to nihilism?”
“I’d rather it always came around to ‘Top Chef,’ ” said Tim, folding his cards, jumping up from the couch, and jogging a few steps into the kitchen. “Who’s ready to try my paella? Saffron imported from Spain.”
Carla said, “I wish I lived over Fairway.”
Robin said, “I wish I had a husband who cooked. Or just a husband.”
Tim clarified, “I don’t cook. I chef.”
Robin and Bess made eye contact. The redhead mouthed, “Beyond gay.”
Alicia whispered, “I saw that.”
Robin said, “Tell us, Bess, what brought on your philosophical change?”
“Just thinking about life and death. What really matters,” replied Bess.
“Oh, that.” Robin gathered the cards and started dealing a new hand. “I had a near death experience once.”
Alicia said, “When?”
“Back in my fat days,” said Robin. “Walking down the steps at the Borough Hall subway station. I stumbled, fell, wound up on all fours, my skirt around my hips, giant granny panties and fish-white thighs exposed for all of Brooklyn to see.”
Carla said, “And you nearly died of embarrassment?”
“I did die of embarrassment,” said Robin. “Saw the light and everything. But I didn’t go toward it. It wasn’t my time.”
Bess listened to the conversation, waiting for it to come back to her. She’d been looking forward to this meeting to tell her three friends (and Tim, a de facto inclusion since it was Alicia’s turn to host) about the events of the last two weeks. The discovery of the lump, her renewed responsiveness with Borden (it was like they were newlyweds again), the ongoing frozen silence with Amy, her surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, the week of pain and recovery.
The three days of waiting for a pathology report were the longest of her life—a life that would not be cut short by cancer, at least not yet. Her lump was benign, a calcified duct, left over from her breast-feeding days. Bess decided that the operation was a signpost, marking the end of the first half of her life and the beginning of the rest of it. She’d been afraid to die, but even more afraid that her death wouldn’t matter. The world would get along fine without her, whether she died today, next year, or fifty years from now.
When some people had a cancer scare, she knew they rebounded with a commitment to love everything and everyone. Others reacted with anger at fate, God, their genes. Bess hadn’t felt bursting with love or anger, but with disillusionment. In the larger scheme of things, there was no larger scheme. There was no smaller scheme, nor a medium-sized one. The fact that she was alive at all? An accident of nature. The point of existence? None to speak of. We were born, after which point we ate, slept, and trudged through time for a while. And then we stopped. If r
eligion and morality were removed from the equation, duty and responsibility were irrelevant. Bess had been a slave to duty. The last two weeks had set her free.
It’d been a bumpy realization, that her children didn’t really care what she did for them. She’d reacted against her mother’s negligent parenting by devoting herself to her family. But, as it turned out, her kids would rather do more for themselves. During Bess’s convalescence, the boys fought over who got to make dinner. Granted, heating up Bagel Bites wasn’t on par with the meals she prepared. Again, that didn’t matter. They been trying to tell her all along, saying, “I can do it myself,” and “Let me.” They’d been chafing for independence. She’d been trying to prolong their dependence. Their need gave her a purpose.
Her youngest, Charlie, in fourth grade, could peanut butter his own sandwich. He could fetch himself a glass of milk. What’s more, he could make his own bed, do his own laundry, complete his homework. Tom was in sixth grade; Eric in eighth; Amy in tenth. She did them no favors, as children and future adults, by making their lives easy. Bess finally saw her mother’s point. Practically speaking, Simone had helped Bess by leaving her on her own. Simone’s emotional neglect was still unforgivable. But forcing Bess to learn coping skills? That wasn’t a killing offense. Bess was resolved to take a giant step back, and let her children do more.
During her week in bed, Bess thought about what she’d do to find purpose outside her family. “What do I enjoy doing?” she asked herself repeatedly. Bess flashed way back in time, to before she was married, before kids, when she was single and selfish, her first three years in college. Those days were defined by novelty. Meeting new people. Trying new things. She’d had fun, in the collegiate tradition of having a lot of casual sex and experimenting with recreational drugs. Twenty years later, Bess vowed to find that feeling of fun again, but not, obviously, the same way. Borden supported the idea that the kids should do more for themselves and around the house, and that Bess should have “me time.” But he didn’t like the “nothing matters” rants.
Four of a Kind Page 14
