Em worked as a
pathologist, which meant she knew exactly what was happening, from the time she
found the lump in her left breast, right up to the end. At first, she was
upbeat, submitting to the mastectomy almost gleefully. “For God’s sake, Peter.
It’s only a tit. It isn’t as though I haven’t got another one for you to kiss.”
The day before
the operation, we made love in the morning, and she insisted I pay particular
attention to the breast that she was about to lose. “Say goodbye to it nicely.
It’ll miss you.” She rode on top, too, in what she described as ‘cowgirl’. “I
know you like it, and I won’t be able to do it for a while after the op.”
Because she wasn’t supposed to eat anything after five o’clock, we lay around
in bed and went out for a late lunch together. I had lasagne, but with her
typical sense of humour, Em chose a dish of chicken breasts with mozzarella and
pesto, saying, “I need all the breasts I can get.” While she was eating, a
splash of oil landed on her blouse, not quite where the lump was, but close
enough to make me think it was like a mark on a map. She rubbed at it with the
edge of her napkin, but it had soaked into the pale fabric, and all she did was
smear it a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment