What's Worth Keeping

by Kaya McLaren

  “Cute dog,” Amy said.

  The woman who held the leash had neat, short white hair and soulful brown eyes, and her expression reminded Amy that she did not look the way she normally did.

  Her husband was tall and bald, with blue eyes that sparkled. “We found this dog on the streets, starving, and we saved her. But then a couple years later, I got cancer, and I felt like she saved us. She was just such a comfort, you know?”

  Amy felt she could use a little comfort, so she asked, “Can I pet her?” And with permission, she bent down and let her fingers travel through the dog’s soft gray curls. The dog looked into her eyes, and Amy knew it was ridiculous to project this much onto a dog, but it seemed to her that the dog understood something she couldn’t quite name—something other humans couldn’t understand. When she stood, there were tears in her eyes.

  “Are you okay, honey?” asked the woman.

  “I survived it this year,” she replied.

  “It shakes you up, doesn’t it,” the man said.

  Amy nodded and then said softly, “I didn’t know I was going to feel this way after it was all over.”

  “Yep. It shakes you up.” And then, before she could ask him how to handle it, he patted her on the shoulder and said, “We’ve got today,” and then, looking at his wife, he said, “And today is pretty good, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is,” his wife agreed.

  * * *

  The next day, Amy drove to Crystal Mountain Resort. Needing a shower and a place to call Aunt Rae, she decided to splurge on a hotel room there.

  “Could I check in early?” she asked, thinking that since it was off-season and there was plenty of vacancy, the clerk might say yes.

  “Sure,” replied the clerk. “ID and credit card, please.”

  Amy fished both out of her wallet and laid them on the counter. The clerk picked up her driver’s license and took longer than normal to look at it.

  “I went through chemo last winter,” she explained. “That’s why I don’t look like my picture. I was bald two months ago.”

  Even though the clerk was young, she had the sense to look Amy in the eye and ask, “Are you all good now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Me, too.”

  These moments were so many things. A reminder of a time she wanted to forget. An invasion of her privacy, because her medical history was not a clerk’s business. But they were also moments to be human with a stranger—just be human and accept the good wishes of someone that didn’t have to care about her and yet still did.

  * * *

  After dropping her things next to the door as it shut behind her, Amy stood in the doorway of the bathroom. It had such a large mirror. And no wrapping paper on the bottom of it.

  There had been a counselor who came around to check in on people during their first chemo infusion and ask them whether they wanted to talk. He was a resident, which mattered only because he was young enough that Amy made assumptions about the life experience he had not had, which may not have been fair or accurate. Or it may have. She didn’t know. It surprised her to have him say something that was helpful then—something about the parts of who she was that would stay the same even though she was having a transformative experience.

  Almost three weeks after her mastectomy, she had simply wanted to know when most women felt better. She figured he could likely tell her that. He didn’t immediately answer her question, though. First, he looked through her answers on the questionnaire that was on her intake form, then said, “It looks like you’re having a hard time.”

  “Some days I can handle it. And some days I just … I just look at the ceiling from the moment I take off my shirt to the moment I get out of the shower. I just don’t want to see what has happened to me. I just don’t want to see what I’ve been through.”

  “I find that people who have this avoidance behavior take longer to come to acceptance,” he said.

  Amy wondered what was the chicken and what was the egg. Maybe he had it backward. Maybe people who took longer to come to acceptance needed to adopt avoidance behavior.

  And she wondered where a young man got off telling a middle-aged woman about how she should handle the trauma of cancer diagnosis, chemo, and losing her breasts. What did he know about any of it?

  “I had a massage two days ago,” she told him. “It was so wonderful to feel all the parts of me that had not changed … it was such a blessed relief to feel everything that was still the same that I cried.”

  “That’s great,” he said, “but you don’t need a massage to do that. You can do that for yourself simply by bringing your awareness to all of those other body parts.”

  This was where she lost respect for him. Massage soothed her nervous system. Clearly, her nervous system needed to be soothed. And she had done her part to endure a lot, so what was wrong with getting help with this? Why was it better to do this herself? What was this obsession with independence in the culture?

  They talked for a while, he offering to teach her mindful techniques to bring her more into the present moment and she telling him she’d already learned some of those in yoga classes … he trying to engage her in an exercise where he asked, “Why do you believe that?” after everything she said to lead her down a path to examining the roots of her beliefs, and she insisting she just wanted to know when most people felt better.

  “Three months after the last surgery,” he finally said.

  She took a big breath. “Three months. Okay.”

  “If you don’t feel better by July, come back and see me.”

  She thanked him, shook his hand, and left. July.

  And until her second surgery, she really tried. She looked in the mirror and chanted, “I love my body, I love my body, I love my body. Heal, heal, heal,” over and over at least once a day, and she said those words when she washed her chest in the shower—even if she was looking up.

  But when the second surgery knocked her down again, she felt as if the noise in her own mind from trying to process all of these events was just too much. She just couldn’t do it all at once. Enduring the physical discomfort of another recovery and trying to reach a deeper level of acceptance about the loss of her breasts at the same time was just too much. As she covered the bottom half of her bathroom mirror, she wondered whether she had made the right choice about not having reconstruction. Would having reconstructed breasts make her feel less of a loss—even if they had no nipples, even if she couldn’t feel them, and even if the perky reconstructed breasts looked nothing like her original saggy ones? Or would the discomfort of the expanders under her chest muscles weaken her even more as they stretched out her muscles a little more each month for five months until they were finally stretched out enough to hold a silicone implant? She just didn’t see how she still wouldn’t feel profound loss even with reconstructed breasts, and she just couldn’t imagine not wanting those uncomfortable objects out of her body. She had been through enough. Enough surgeries. Enough pain and discomfort. Enough. Just, enough.

  When Amy had looked at her reflection in the top half of the mirror for the first time after the bottom half was safely covered with floral wrapping paper, what she saw were mostly the things that were the same—her face, her neck, her shoulders. Grateful, she exhaled. She no longer needed to look at the war zone. She no longer needed to look at the evidence of an experience she wanted to forget. On the wrapping paper, she taped positive affirmations she had cut out from the get well cards her friends had sent her. In one way, it was perhaps ironic to have any words about acceptance on the wrapping paper, but she didn’t see it like that. She saw the wrapping paper as an act of kindness to herself that broke down the task of acceptance into more manageable pieces. Step one: Just see someone she recognized in the mirror. Just look at her own eyes and think, I know you. I remember you. We’re going to be okay. Step two: Notice the parts of herself that were still very beautiful—her shoulders, her cheekbones, her ears. She d
idn’t know what step three was yet, and she didn’t know what step taking another look at all that had changed would be.

  Now, in her motel room, she stripped off her clothes next to the main door out of view of the mirror and walked sideways into the bathroom with her back turned to the mirror, turned the water on, and stepped into the shower. One day, she told herself. But not today.

  * * *

  Promptly at six, Amy called Aunt Rae. Aunt Rae answered after just one ring.

  “She’s out feeding horses, so we have maybe ten minutes,” Aunt Rae began. “First of all, how are you?”

  “Getting better every day,” Amy said. “You?”

  “Glad to hear it. I’m fine. Your girl is fine too. Settling in. Even enjoying herself sometimes. She’s a good worker.”

  “Thank you so much for doing this, Aunt Rae.”

  “My pleasure. So, what’s this I hear about you taking off?”

  “I know it looks strange. I thought I just wanted to return to a place that would make me feel more like me, but now that I’m here, I think I wanted to be in a place where I have so many memories of Mom.”

  “I understand. Paul was trying not to show it, but I could see he was concerned.”

  Amy deliberated and then spilled the beans about finding the divorce papers, ending the story by saying, “So, I left on the day he had planned to give them to me before he could just in case he actually went through with it. Just seemed smart to lose some attachment and see how the world felt out on my own.” She thought her aunt would be outraged but was surprised to find she wasn’t.

  “I don’t know whether you remember me talking about Sam, the young man I loved.”

  “Oh … yes, a little bit.”

  “Well, when he came home from the Vietnam War, I couldn’t reach him. I mean, he could be in my arms and still I couldn’t reach him. And then…” She didn’t finish. “I don’t know. I just know that ever since the bombing of the federal building, Paul’s eyes have reminded me of Sam’s when Sam came back from Vietnam. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think it’s personal, Amy. I think he just couldn’t be reached. What did he say when you confronted him about it?”

  “I didn’t. I needed him. I couldn’t afford to rock the boat.”

  “Well, he stayed, you know? He saw you through it. That’s better than a lot of men can do.”

  “So, no advice? You always have advice!”

  “You can’t make chicken soup out of chicken poop. Some things are bigger than us, kid.”

  Amy was quiet for a moment.

  “Maybe he’s had a change of heart,” Aunt Rae said tenderly.

  “Maybe it’s me now that can’t be reached.”

  In the background, Amy heard the door and Aunt Rae say, “Just a sec,” before redirecting her attention. “All fed?… Good job. Thank you.… Okay. Okay. Have a good bath.” When Carly had gone upstairs, Rae spoke again. “Did you want to talk to her? I just thought it would be better to give her a little more time.”

  “I trust your judgment,” Amy said, feeling the rejection and disappointment in her heart, even though she hadn’t been foolish enough to actually believe her daughter would want to talk to her. The situation was just so sad.

  “Don’t worry, kid. I got this. It’s going to be fine.”

  “Thank you so much,” Amy said. “And thank you for always being there for me, Aunt Rae.”

  “Well, I sure love you, kid.”

  “I sure love you, too.”

  “Okay then, same time next week.”

  “Roger that. Good night.”

  A dial tone replaced her aunt’s voice, and Amy felt pangs of loneliness, but when she imagined Paul in the room with her, she didn’t feel any better.

  There was still plenty of light out, so she walked outdoors to the large gravel parking lot. Walking up even the slightest hill hurt her abdomen, so the flat surface the parking lot offered was appealing. Along the perimeter she walked, listening to the sound of wind in the trees, breathing in the crisp scent of alpine fir, listening to a great horned owl call to another somewhere in the distance. She felt the wind on her face and on her hands and listened to the gravel crunch under her feet. Her walk was slow, so much slower than normal, but she was moving forward. That was the thing. She was moving forward.

  Paul

  Paul woke on Saturday with a desperate desire to go back in time, back to when he was happy, back before bombs and cancer. The best he could do was drive to Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.

  He parked his car on Elm Street near Eskimo Joe’s, where he had every intention of eating lunch later, and then walked to campus. It felt strange to him to do this backward. All those years ago, he would meet Amy at Bartlett Hall, the arts building, and walk from there to Eskimo Joe’s. They usually walked through the small business district near campus on their way home, prolonging their sense of nightlife and of being grown-up enough to participate in it.

  As he crossed Knoblock Street and stepped onto campus, a sense of overwhelming nostalgia hit him. The actual memories were a blur. It was a feeling, and the feeling was hope, the kind of hope that inflates a young man’s chest like a hot-air balloon ready to lift off, the kind of hope that makes him feel bigger. When was the last time he had walked this path without holding Amy’s hand? It seemed strange to walk here without the sensation of her hand in his. He remembered sitting under that tree right over there with her, holding her palm open, tracing the lines in it with the finger of his other hand, buying time by pretending to be a fortune-teller so he could admire the sheer femininity of it a little longer. Occasionally glancing up, he saw the muscles under her eyes twitch just a little when it tickled. What he mostly remembered was the excitement of the banter combined with the sexual tension. Yeah, she had laughed and scoffed at every outrageous thing he had said, but all in good spirit, of course. After all, everything Amy said and did was in good spirit. He recalled saying, “You will marry a very handsome man.… Oh! Look here! He’s a musician. He will serenade you for the rest of your life! You’re a very lucky girl.”

  Now, sadness hit him like a punch in the chest. He hadn’t serenaded her the rest of her life—not even close. And he couldn’t honestly say she had been a lucky girl either.

  Wondering whether he might remember more if he sat under that tree, he walked over and did so, leaning back against the trunk. Sure enough, another memory fragment came to him and a big close-lipped smile spread across his face. It was a simple one—no words. Just him sitting right there like that, reading a history book, and Amy’s head on his lap, eyes closed, sleeping, her abandoned textbook facedown next to her. He had looked down at her sweet face and thought, That’s the face I want to fall asleep and wake up next to for the rest of my life. He had thought it with a level of certainty he’d never had about anything before.

  Curious about what else he might remember, he walked on to the spot outside the window of the classroom where she used to paint.

  “Keep that up and I’m going to fall in love with you!” she had called out to him one day right after he had finished a song that he had composed just for her. He hadn’t told her that he had written it or that it was for her. He had been too shy for that. Could he even remember how it went now? The song could easily be lost forever. He wanted to look into the window and see her again, that Amy, the one he knew when he was that Paul, but he didn’t want to scare anyone who might be in that classroom, so he didn’t. He did, however, walk from that spot to the door where he used to enter, his heart racing with anticipation, conditioned. Perhaps because it was summer, it was locked.

  Continuing to walk the route backward, as if tracing his steps for something he had lost, he found himself at Theta Pond.

  During the day, Amy had always been with him when he had gone to Theta Pond, but after getting a job with campus security in the evenings and early night, he had walked there alone. It was interesting to consider the duality of his experiences even then. In one life, he
strolled in the sunshine with Amy, watching her as she delighted in something as simple as feeding ducks bits of old bread. He had amused himself by imagining her feeding their future children like that—throwing bits of bread at them in a swimming pool. And then there was this other life, the one where it was dark and he was without her. One where his apprehension ran high, anticipating a bad guy behind every tree, wondering what might happen and what might be demanded of him.

  Looking back now, Paul tried to remember what he had been thinking when he went into law enforcement. He supposed he had been thinking about how best to support a family. It wasn’t as if there were a ton of jobs out there for someone with a B.A. in history. And he supposed he had been thinking that this career choice would prove to his dad that he was, in fact, a man—a real man, as his dad defined it. Paul couldn’t imagine how he would have done it differently if given a chance to do it again knowing what he knew now. There was no point in that kind of thinking, anyway. It was done.

  Sitting on a bench, Paul remembered imagining a pool full of children, mouths open, catching bread. Then, the imaginary children disappeared and Carly was left alone in the pool. He hadn’t wanted to bring more children into this world after the blast. This world, it had seemed to him then and maybe still did, was no place for children. And he had known then that he could no longer be the dad he had imagined he would be. But now, as he held this image in his head of Carly, sulking alone in the pool, back turned to Amy, who had just a fraction of an inch of hair all over her head, he wondered whether he had made a mistake back then, whether Carly might be different today if she’d had a sibling to commiserate with, a sibling to understand.

  He picked up his phone and called John, who lived in Portland, Oregon, now. John answered on the second ring. “Paul? Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. I was just thinking about that time I brought Amy home to meet the parents and when we left, how I could see how desperately you wanted me to take you with us, and I just wanted to say how sorry I am that I wasn’t able to do better in that moment. I mean, I know Mom would have been devastated if you’d left with me, but I still feel so bad for leaving you alone in all of that. I think about it sometimes.”