Clearly, Eddie was the villain.
Like many men, however, the ability to look at one’s sexist and abusive behavior and see anything wrong with it eluded Eddie. And yet, being a man, there had to be a winner and a loser. Since he could not be the loser, he had to try to be the winner. Which meant Ess must be demonized. Ess must be shown that it was all her fault.
Eddie hired an attack-dog superlawyer and put him on to Ess. The superlawyer claimed that he’d heard Ess was telling people that Eddie was a bully, an abuser, and alcoholic, and now Eddie was going to sue her for slander on top of sectionorcing her.
This new and unpleasant chest-thumping male in Ess’s life caused her very high levels of stress and anxiety. Each communication put her into a red-level fight-or-flight mode. She was practically bursting with cortisol.
In fact, all that stress might have caused what happened next: one of Ess’s breast implants exploded.
Tilda Tia pointed out that this wasn’t actually surprising. She said that breast implants often went wrong, and they didn’t last forever, although they usually didn’t tell you that before they put them in.
And so, in the middle of this terrible sectionorce, Ess went into the hospital for the first of a two-part operation to remove the implant. When she awoke her chest was covered with slightly bloody crisscrossed bandages.
She didn’t feel terrible t
hough. Not terrible enough to resist tempting fate by laughing at her situation and asking, “What else can go wrong, right?”
If Ess were in any other time phase, this would have been a rhetorical question. But because Ess was in a MAM cycle, the answer to “what else can go wrong?” was “just you wait.”
* * *
On the third day of her recovery, Ess got a phone call from her brother informing her that her eighty-seven-year-old father had been out driving and hit a tree. He’d been taken to the hospital and pronounced dead fifteen minutes before.
And as far as her brothers and her mother were concerned, it was all Ess’s fault.
Ess had taken on the responsibility of her parents, checking in on them regularly and driving her father to the store or wherever else he wanted to go—often to the local diner—where they’d order bad-for-you sandwiches piled with processed meats and cheeses. But that ended when Ess became embroiled in her sectionorce and her medical emergency. Which was also her fault. She’d finally found a rich man, someone who could take care of her. And now she’d blown it. Couldn’t she do anything right?
Ess began having bad MAM thoughts.
Bad MAM Moments
There are psychic moments in MAM that will make you want to scream. When you’ll stare in the mirror and see no reason for going on, when you’ll have a day that’s just like a black hole.
Thoughts are like little feet. They start making a path that then becomes a trough of self-doubt and despair. What did I do to deserve this? Where did I go wrong? And: Is this really my life?
That began to happen to Ess. Now, when she woke up, she started to think that maybe it would be better—for herself and everyone else—if she didn’t.
But then she’d realize she was being silly and self-indulgent. She had her sons to think about. And the second operation to look forward to.
And here, lady luck had finally tapped her magic wand. Because the implant had exploded, insurance would also cover the reconstruction, requiring liposuction and a small tummy tuck. In short, Ess’s body would be surgically reshaped.
Ess took care in packing for the operation. She knew what to expect from her last visit. The constant beeping. The hazy, twilight sleep. The polyester hospital linens. The nice people on staff who were, when she thought about it, the only people who had been nice to her in the last six weeks. Who at least bothered to pretend to care and therefore perhaps did?
Was such a thing possible?
As Ess drove herself to the hospital, she realized she was looking forward to her stay.
* * *
The next morning, wrapped like a mummy in a tight girdle, support bra, and a gel sports wrap that was the latest technology in bandages, Ess returned home.
She went through the heavy front door, through the double-height foyer—a requirement in the homes of the affluent, as if there is no greater sign of money than needless headspace—and went up one of the double staircases and into the master suite with its walk-in closet and hall of mirrors. She held out her cell phone. She took a picture.
She sent it to five of her friends. Then she got into bed and slept for sixteen hours.
One of those friends was Tilda Tia. She reported that the operation was a huge success and you couldn’t believe how amazing Ess looked.
She showed us the most recent photos. Wearing black athletic wear over the support garments, Ess appeared to have shed half her body weight.