a correlation, but not always. Let’s not be hasty.”
I nodded, and he told me he needed to do a biopsy, but as he called in the nurse and laid out the tools on the tray, he neglected to tell me that it would hurt like hell. That it would feel like I was being excavated, drilled for oil. Drilled for cancer.
When I’d called Theo to tell him, the first question he’d asked was, “Which one.” Which one! As if he had a favorite breast; as if he was rooting for one over the other, army vs. navy. Imagine uttering that after hearing the word “biopsy.” I suppose he was so distracted with his damned new shopping mall he didn’t remember all the times I’d complained about the right one being sore. He forgot, the same way I forget which client he’s meeting with, who is building the shopping court as opposed to the corporate plaza.
When he is in the office, he doesn’t think about the mess at home, just as I don’t think about the war and all the bodies in Vietnam unless I turn on the television.
Really, Theo, I’d replied, what does it matter which one? And he said he wondered if it was the same one that had been sore, or the other one. Well. At least there was a reasonable explanation. At least he’d remembered something. But as always, I wanted more. I wanted him to feel bad that he hadn’t come to the appointment with me. I wanted him to read my mind. I wanted him to come home. I told him the test would be back in a week, and he asked what the prognosis was, and I told him it was either cancer or it wasn’t. In a week, I said, I’ll either have one breast or two. And he swallowed hard—I could hear it through the phone—and said we’d cross that bridge when we came to it. Yes, I said. I don’t want you to worry until you need to worry, he said.
The baby cooed, as if sensing my mind had wandered away, and I smiled back, out of some kind of automatic, electric obligation, and we stood there together, all gums and teeth, pink and white and gleaming. And for a moment, the same moment, all the world would have believed we were both happy. Is that all good mothering is? Synchronicity?
I carried him over to the window to look out at the sun peeking over Luddington Park. Just a few months before, we’d petitioned to save it, Betsy and I and the other mothers in the neighborhood. We fought the rezoning for office space, and we won when it turned out the mayor’s wife had always loved it, had played leapfrog there as a child. There was talk of naming it after her: Elinor Park. Betsy and I laughed at this idea, threatened to carve our own names in the sign. General Luddington was a decorated war hero; Elinor Parker was a college dropout who married a civil servant.
I pointed out the window and the baby’s face turned serious again, studious, as if he felt our struggle over the land. His face looked as if I were his teacher, not his mother, and the moment was gone. Sun turned to cloud. He grabbed a lock of my hair and I held his bouncing fist, trying to keep it away from the bandage and the stitches underneath.
I suppose the baby’s lack of smiling is my fault for not cajoling him more, not tickling him enough or sweet-talking him like a pet. I always think I don’t have the time, but the truth is, I haven’t the energy. Haven’t felt up to cooing over anyone or anything, not since he was born. I was like this with Emma, too, I remember. Just do what needs to be done. Just get through the day and try to get some sleep. I’ve never had those warm feelings running through me like syrup, the way other women do; I have to conjure them up.
And Theo—he’s like a third child waiting patiently until I’m done with the others, waiting to ask me for what he needs. Could I look at his new drawings? Could he invite the Lehmans over for fondue? Could I recommend a hairdresser for his new client’s wife, the one with the Jackie Kennedy bob who just moved here from Memphis? And the way he looked at his dinner plate last night—staring at the