Three Weeks in Spring

Chapter 26

It took perhaps two weeks for her to come to terms with the feelings of loss. After everything is said, she thought, nobody really gets all that stirred up over your big problems. She was driving now. She still moved her left arm a little carefully, but she was in control of the little Vega and the ride was pleasant. You reach the same level of comfortable social exchange that you had before. It’s not up to other people to do that for you. I have to do that. I have to act as if everything were the same. I can’t wallow and revel in my sadness and my loss. It’s my problem. I better get on with my life. It was given back to me, and I better use it.

After class, on a Wednesday in mid-May, Joan went to have lunch with Marie Rawlings. It was still a women’s time for her, and the friends continued to gather.

As they sipped a glass of white wine and looked at the menu, Marie said, “I really dreaded seeing you, you know.”

“I can see why you might,” Joan said.

“I was afraid you might not still be Joan. If you weren’t Joan I wouldn’t want to see you anymore. I couldn’t bear it.”

“But...?”

“But you’re still Joan,” Marie said.

“Yes, I am.”

“And it comes across. I wondered if you’d start going with the jackets so as not to draw attention to your breasts.”

Joan smiled. “I thought of that. I thought maybe people will be grossed out seeing me in a sweater or a blouse that outlines and defines the breast.”

Marie shook her head.

Joan said, “That’s right. That’s what I decided. If people didn’t like it that was their problem. If they wanted to run around saying, ‘Jesus why doesn’t she wear a jacket,’ they would have to deal with that. I’m going to wear what I always wore. If the world wants to figure out which side is the falsie then it can go ahead.”

“There’s no way to tell,” Marie said.

“That’s right. I like the way I look when I dress like this, and Ace likes it and I am still me. I’ll dress like me.”

“Yes, you are,” Marie said. “And it is such a relief. And if you keep it up, if you keep acting like Joan and wearing the clothes that Joan wears, and you make people see that you are still you and you have not been humbled, and you’re not apologetic over what’s happened to you, it will be the same.”

Joan drank her wine. “It’s almost the same,” she said. “In some ways it’s better. I feel a new power in me of what I can take. Of what I can survive.”

Marie said, “Let’s order.” And they did.

That night in bed Joan said to Ace, “There are three things left to do.”

“What are the other two?” he said.

“Getting a little randy, are we?” Joan said.

“It has now been five weeks and two days, but who counts?”

“Okay, there’s that. Pretty soon, I’ll be okay for that. I also have to get a prosthesis and I have to show you the incision.”

“How ’bout we go to a store, make out in the fitting room, and get the whole thing done at once.”

“I think we better do the incision first,” she said. “You want to look?”

“Only if you want me to,” he said. “I don’t mind looking. I think probably we ought not to have something we don’t share. But I don’t want to force anything on you that will hurt.”

“No, it’s okay, I want you to see it. I think you should. I think we should both know what this looks like. I don’t want to be worrying about it. I don’t want to have to be afraid you’ll catch me with my bra off.”

She got up and dropped her robe from her shoulders. From the waist up she wore only a bra. She unsnapped the bra behind and removed it. The scar was a bit more puckered than he had imagined. There were still some stitches.

“What do you think?” she said.

He shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s not an asset but it’s not gross. Dan’s appendix scar looks a lot worse.”

“What about the imbalance?” she said.

“It’s an imbalance. You got one boob and one no-boob. But it’s not gross, it’s just imbalanced.”

“How would you feel about it when we make love?”

“It doesn’t make a lot of difference. If it’s up to me I think you look better with the bra on, but it isn’t very significant either way.”

I think I’d rather he found me just as appealing with the bra off. But who can blame him, and it isn’t much, either way. There’s no way you can say, ‘Isn’t that attractive?’ I mean one boob on and one boob off. It is what it is. It certainly isn’t much of a change in our relationship, and it’s hardly worth thinking about.

She slid the bra back on and put the small piece of sponge rubber she was using, back in place. “It’s better on, isn’t it. Then it looks like two boobs.”

“Yeah,” he said. “There’s no way to bullshit around that. Two boobs are better than one. But you are exactly what you have always been to me. There is no way that can change.”

“I know that,” she said. And she meant it. “I really believe that you want me and enjoy me physically and enjoy looking at me just as you did before. But I also believe you are absolutely the only one.”

“Well, we’ve waltzed around that before,” he said. “As long as you know about me... ‘love, let us be true to one, another...’ ”

“Who said that?”

“Arnold, ‘Dover Beach’... The sea of faith was once, too, at the full.”

“Arghh,” she said.

“You’re not into verse?”

“No.”

They smiled, playing their game again, feeling the expanded time they had to play such games now, for the fun of the games and not to keep an upper lip stiff. It mattered so much, she thought. Slowly as I work this long thing out in my head, I am discovering how much it mattered, the knowledge that he wouldn’t change, that he would love me and want me and enjoy me just as he did before, and that for him I am exactly what I always was. I will be grateful for that till I die.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you might enjoy it if I were to recite the starting lineup of the nineteen forty-six Brooklyn Dodgers, including all eight guys that they tried at third base that year.”

“Perhaps you would just as soon forget forever about sexual activity,” she said.

It sustained me more, I think, than I knew. That and the knowledge that the boys would be the same. That sustains beyond all else, to the ones that mean the most, I am still me.

“Okay, never mind about the Brooklyn Dodgers. What’s next, the screw or the prosthesis?”

“Ugh,” she said. “I hate that word.”

“Which? Screw or prosthesis?”

“Prosthesis.”

“Whew.”

“I think of trusses and artificial limbs, and cumbersome contraptions done in black leather.”

“Ah, now you’re talking my language,” he said.

“Not that kind of contraption, weirdo.”

“Oh.”

“But anyway, to answer your question. The prosthesis is next. I saw an ad in the Globe today. For Jodi bras.”

“Yeah, I did too. I went over and checked it out. You just walk in. No appointment. They have someone who helps you get fitted.”

“You went and asked about it?”

“Yeah. I asked some saleslady who looked very concerned that the Jodi bra lady wasn’t there. So I said, ‘That’s okay, I don’t need her now anyway. It’s not for me, it’s for my wife’.” He began to giggle. “She looked at me quite strangely and went away quickly.”

“I bet they love you in stores,” she said, her face bright with laughter. “Anyway, I’m going over tomorrow and get one.”

“Want me to come?”

“No. Jude will go with me. I’m not completely comfortable with you seeing the incision again. And someone has to go in the fitting room and they might not let you in.”

“There would have to be a fair number of salesladies to keep me out.”

“Anyway, I’m completely comfortable with Jude. She’s seen the incision and all. I won’t be embarrassed with her. So tomorrow she and I will go.”

“Do they make them in black lace with cat faces over the nipples?” he said.

“Animal.”