She was alone in her room when Sam arrived at five o'clock, carrying a big bunch of red roses. And he hesitated in the doorway when he saw her. The look on her face was one of such despair that he didn't even know what to say to her. She'd been sitting there, contemplating her fate and her future. And for just an instant, he had remembered a terrifying image of his dying mother, and wanted to run out of the room, screaming.
“Hi, how are you feeling?” he asked, trying to sound casual, as he set the flowers down, and she only shrugged and didn't answer. How would he feel? But she didn't see that he was shaking.
“I'm okay.” She sounded anything but convincing. Her chest was throbbing a little bit, and the drain annoyed her, but that was to be expected. “Thanks for the flowers.” She tried to sound enthused, but didn't quite make it. “Dr. Herman says I can go back to work after next week.” That was something anyway. And Sam smiled when he heard it, and felt better.
“Well, that ought to cheer you up. When are you coming home?”
“Maybe Friday.” She sounded anything but pleased, and she was worrying about taking care of Annabelle, and what she would tell her about the dressing. “Will you ask Carmen to spend the weekend? I know she needs a day off, but I don't think I can manage yet without her.”
“Sure. And I can take care of Annabelle. She's no problem.” Alex nodded, missing her terribly, and then she looked up at Sam, wondering what their life would be like now. They had spent so much time and energy trying to have another child, and making love on schedule, what would life be like now without that? What would it be like without a breast? How would he look at her? What would it look like? Dr. Herman had showed her photographs so she would be prepared, and they had terrified her. It was just a clean flat slab of flesh, with no nipple, and a diagonal scar where the breast had been. She couldn't even imagine how Sam would react to that when they finally took off her dressing. Dr. Herman had told her she could shower once the drain was removed. The sutures would take longer to dissolve, and after that, she would be left with the same flat, scarred chest she had seen in the pictures.
“Why don't we do something this weekend?” Sam suggested casually, and she stared at him. He was acting as though nothing had happened. “Why don't we call someone and have dinner with friends, or go to a movie, if we have Carmen.” Alex stared at him in disbelief. How could he?
“I don't want to see anyone. What would I say? Gee, I just lost my breast so we thought we'd go out to dinner to celebrate, before I start chemotherapy? For chrissake, Sam, have a little sensitivity. This isn't easy.”
“I'm sure it's not, but you don't have to sit around feeling sorry for yourself either after this. There is life after breasts, you know. You weren't that big anyway, for heaven's sake, so what's the big deal?” He tried to joke with her, but it was a very big deal to her. She had lost a part of her self-image and her self-confidence, and her life was at stake now. That was about as big a deal as you get, no matter how small your breasts were. She hadn't wanted to lose one.
“How are you going to feel about me now?” she asked him honestly, facing him from across the small room. She wanted to hear it, since he had never reassured her about it before the operation. But he felt that the fact that he was there told her everything. To Alex, it didn't. He was passing through once a day for an hour, between office and home, and the rest of his busy life. That was a little too easy.
“What does that mean?” He looked annoyed at the question.
“I'm asking you if it's going to gross you out to see me the way I am now.” She hadn't even seen it herself yet, so she wasn't sure what she was talking about, but she was desperate for reassurance.
“How do I know what I'm going to feel? I can't imagine it makes that much difference. Why don't we cross that bridge when we come to it?”
“Like when? Next week? Tomorrow? Now?” There were tears in her eyes again, he wasn't saying what she needed to hear, or what she wanted. And he looked faintly panicked by her question. “Do you want me to show it to you, or would you rather see a picture first, so you're forewarned? Dr. Herman has some great ones, very clear, very graphic. It just looks like a flat piece of meat with no nipple.” Alex saw him go pale and he looked suddenly angry.
“Why are you doing this? Do you want to scare me, or just turn me off before we even start? What's the deal here, Al? Are you mad at me, or just pissed off at life? Maybe you better reconstruct your attitude, before you start worrying about getting your breast back.”
“Who said I was trying to get my breast back?” She looked surprised at what he'd said to her.
“Dr. Herman said you could have reconstructive surgery in a few months, if you were up to it. That sounds like a good idea to me.”
“Would you rather I stay hidden till then?” she asked nastily, and he threw up his hands in obvious irritation.
“You're being a real bitch about this. I'm sorry you lost your breast. I'm sorry you've been ‘disfigured.' I don't know how I'm going to feel when I see it. Okay? I'll let you know. All right?”
“Be sure you do that.” But he had said none of the right things for her. There was no reassurance that it didn't matter to him, that she was beautiful anyway. He just wanted to go on with their life, and pretend it hadn't happened. Dinner and a movie with friends sounded fine to him. He refused to realize how distraught she was over what had happened. And she was making no effort yet to get out of her depression, and he certainly wasn't helping.
“Why don't you just concentrate on getting your strength back and getting home? You'll feel a lot better once you're home with Annabelle, and you can go back to work, and get your life back to normal.”
“How normal do you think it's going to be while I'm on chemotherapy, Sam?” she asked him bluntly.
“As normal as you're willing to let it be,” he said brutally, but not really understanding what was in store for her either. “You don't have to make such a big deal of this, you don't have to punish us too. It's going to be hard on Annabelle if you stay angry like this. You're going to have to make your peace with what happened.” It had only been a day though. “I'm not even sure anymore I know how to help you.”
“Apparently not,” she said unhappily, “you seem to be a little too busy with your own life to be inconvenienced by all this, from what I can tell. You seem to be awfully busy at the moment with Simon and his new clients.”
“I have a busy professional life, so do you. If this were happening to me, you wouldn't be staying home from work, or canceling trials or meetings with your clients either. Try to be realistic. The whole world didn't come to a shrieking stop yesterday because of what happened to you.”
“That's reassuring.”
“I'm sorry,” he said unhappily. “I feel like everything I say just makes you madder.”
“You could try saying it doesn't matter to you, that you love me anyway, with one breast or two, if that's the case. And if not, then I guess you're saying what's true for you. Maybe that's all that matters.”
“How do I know what I'm going to feel? How do you? Maybe you'll never want to have sex with me again after this. What the hell do I know?” He was being painfully honest with her and she wasn't ready for it. Her doctor could have told him that, or any therapist, or even Alex herself, but he wouldn't have listened. He was telling her the truth, as he knew it. And she didn't want to hear it.
“I know that I would love you, no matter what happened to you, no matter how disfigured you were, even if you lost your face, or your balls, or your hair, or had to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair.”
“That's very noble of you,” he said coolly, “but it's also a lot of bullshit. How do you know what you would feel if something like that happened to me? You don't know zip until you get there. It's very easy for you to pretend it wouldn't affect you, but maybe it would. Maybe it would turn you off, even if that wasn't the politically correct thing for you to be feeling.”