I knew she hadn’t told any of her family in France about what was happening. All weekend, I toyed with the idea of calling Uncle Alain, but then I thought that if she hadn’t done it, she wouldn’t want me to do it. Maybe it would alarm people unnecessarily. On Sunday night, she went through some of the details for things she was leaving for me to do around the house and with some of our accounts. None of it was very critical, but I could see that it helped her to think of other things, and she was deliberately looking for activities that would keep me busy, too. Before she went up to bed, she pinned a list of important telephone numbers on the wall in the kitchen.
I was sure neither of us slept much. I played a little game with myself, a game Papa had taught me when I was very young. He told me that it was guaranteed to keep you from being afraid. As soon as something terrible began to come into your mind, you were supposed to count backward from one hundred, and with each number, you were supposed to think of one happy thought, one happy memory, or one thing you loved, such as chocolate marshmallow ice cream. The effort at association eventually exhausted you, and the creeping nightmares ran out of steam. He told me that these were the sort of mental games soldiers freezing on guard duty or captured soldiers might play.
I don’t think Papa ever gave up on the idea that there was always some sort of a war going on, whether with real bombs in Bosnia, the Middle East, or Asia or in everyday life. One way or another, we were always in training, always thinking about defenses, and always planting our flags of victory on some hill, whether the hill was real or in our imaginations.
I was sure that Mama would be the first to admit that she was in a battle. As we headed for the hospital that morning, we were like two soldiers in some army. Maybe we were Greeks marching to Philippi, Americans in landing craft approaching Normandy, or Englishmen getting ready to face the Spanish Armada. Later, no one who survived would seem credible claiming that he was not terrified. Honest ones would admit to it but be proud of how well they kept fear chained down. In my mind, fear was like an aggressive dog barking and lunging at us.
Staying with Mama did help her face the day
, because she had to keep courageous as much for my benefit as for her own. She didn’t utter a single syllable of self-pity. She never shed a tear. She smiled at all those who were there to help her. She treated it all as if she had done it hundreds of times and kept herself looking bright and hopeful. One of the nurses whispered to me not to look so sad and worried. It wasn’t good for Mama. I tried hard to be as brave as she was.
“Be your father’s daughter,” I muttered under my breath.
I kissed her and wished her good luck before they took her to preop, and then I retreated to the waiting area. One of the nurses promised to keep me informed about how things were going. She said they had direct communication with the staff in the operating room. I got myself something to drink and went to sit and distract myself with magazines. Although there was a lot of activity going on around me, including the small children of other patients complaining because they were bored and restless, people gathering to comfort one another, hugging and kissing, and medical personnel going to and fro, I managed to shut it all out by crawling into my own protective shell. I even lost my sense of time. At one point, I closed my eyes and sat back and dozed until I felt the weight of a shadow, someone looking down at me. I opened my eyes.
Roxy stared at me. “What’s happening?” she asked.
She was wearing very little makeup and had her hair pinned in the back and flowing just the way I had seen it that day I spied on her with Chastity. Although I would never call anything she wore conservative, she was dressed in a pretty but ordinary light blue jacket and an ankle-length skirt with a dark blue blouse. For a moment, I just stared up at her, digesting that she was actually there.
“Well?” she demanded.
I sat up quickly and looked at my watch. “She went in about two hours ago, I think. I mean, I don’t know exactly when they took her into surgery, but . . .”
She blew some air of impatience out through her lips and went to the desk manned by two nurses. I watched her get their attention. After she spoke, one moved quickly to a phone. There was something about the way Roxy carried herself, the air of authority she displayed, and obviously the way she spoke that impressed them. The nurse listened on the phone and then spoke to her. Roxy nodded and started back to me. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to me that even the restless children paused to look at her.
“What exactly did she tell you about her condition, the reason for this surgery today?” she asked, whipping and snapping her consonants and vowels.
“I told you. She said she had a small cyst and had to have a hysterectomy and . . .”
“C’mon,” she said, jerking her head toward the hospital entrance. “There’s a little coffee shop just down the street. This is going to take some time yet, maybe a lot more time.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
She glanced at me as if I had asked a stupid question and started out. I leaped up to follow.
“What did those nurses tell you?” I asked, catching up to her at the door.
“You were right to be suspicious. It is more serious than she’s told you. She’s having a radical hysterectomy, M.” She paused. “I know a little too much about it. One of my regulars just happens to be a surgeon, not working here in the city but a surgeon nevertheless.”
“What does that mean? What are you saying?”
She kept walking. I was practically jogging to keep up with her.
“What are you saying?”
She paused. “She doesn’t simply have a precancerous cyst or something. She has cervical cancer. The operation in a radical hysterectomy is quite a bit more involved. Let’s go in here,” she said, nodding at a coffee shop. As soon as we entered, she asked me what I wanted.
“Nothing,” I said, impatient to hear more.
“I’m having a latte. Nonfat. I’ll get you one, too,” she said, and ordered at the counter. Then she led me to a table.
“What does this mean?”
“They remove the uterus, the cervix, the top part of the vagina, ovaries, fallopian tubes, lymph nodes, lymph channels, and tissues in the pelvic cavity that surrounds the cervix. That’s why I said she’ll be in there a while.”
“A doctor client told you all this?”
“After I asked him. Someone I knew had contracted cervical cancer, too, and he described what was going to be done. At the time, it was a lot more information than I wanted, but he was not a very emotional man. He treated everything like an operation, and I mean everything,” she added, raising her eyebrows in an obvious reference to sex. “Anyway, I was close to this friend, so I wanted to know what to expect.”