Three Weeks in Spring

Epilogue

A Friday night, six weeks to the day since she discovered the first hint of breast cancer, Joan said to Ace, “Don’t think this is going to be fun, because it isn’t. But it’s time to resume sexual activity.”

“You sensuous bitch,” he said.

“I mean it. Don’t think of this as a fun time. Think of this as a sort of experiment. We very carefully try it out and see if it’s okay yet. It’s not going to be a big treat.”

“It’s probably won’t be much worse than the cold showers I’ve been taking.”

“Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll pretend we’re very old people and we’ll do the whole thing very gingerly. Very carefully.”

“Tough, but oh so gentle,” Ace said.

“Maybe,” Joan said. “But the weight. The two hundred twenty pounds tends to worry me.”

“I can take most of it on my arms,” Ace said. “Like doing a push-up... Or a push-in, as the case may be.”

“Cute,” Joan said. “That’s very cute, Bob. You keep being cute while I go and suit up as we say.”

Joan went into the bathroom. “Suit up?” Ace said after her.

I’ll have to wear my bra, she thought. What else? Anything? How much of the bod do I show? How about my robe? To be naked with just a bra seems somehow too naked or too seductive, when I am in fact unseductive. Or maybe I am unseductive because I have but one boob. A naked woman in a bra tends to emphasize the bra. That’s why all those bra ads are like that. I don’t want that. I’ll go with the robe. She emerged from the bathroom, wearing her green terry-cloth robe with the vertical rainbow stripes.

“Terry cloth is nice,” Ace said, “but actually I’m more into leather, and maybe some silver chains.”

“Shut up,” she said. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. This is it.”

“Well, it’s better than on our wedding night when you wore the goddamned hairnet.”

“If you’ll recall,” she said, “it was called a ravishing hairnet and it had little rosebuds on it.”

“Yeah.”

“First thing we do,” she said, “is, we practice.”

“Oh hell, Joan, I’m not that rusty.”

“Never mind, we practice. I am very protective of my left side and you are very big and active.”

“Remember the time just before we got married when you’d been fitted for a diaphragm and you were afraid that you wouldn’t be able to put it in right, so you wanted to practice?”

“Um-hm.”

“And you put it in on the floor in your mother’s living room and I had to wait in the den in case it got stuck and you couldn’t get it out?”

“Well, for crissake. The time I tried it in the doctor’s office it slipped out of my hand and flew up in the air and hit the ceiling.”

“Yeah, I guess you needed the practice. How’s this?” He supported his weight on his arms.

“That’s okay,” she said, “that’s good. But what about you? Is that comfortable?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me.”

“No, is it?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. You know how powerful I am. I could stay like this thirty or forty seconds with no problem.”

“Ace!”

“It’s fine. It really is.”

“Good. Now, no touching the chest.”

“Okay by me. I tend to forget which side is which and I’d feel like a real jerk getting off on a falsie.”

“Getting off on a falsie? That’s what I like about you, Bob, you’re so sensitive.”

He kissed her.

“How do you think it’s going so far?” he said.

“That wasn’t too bad,” she said.

Carefully, gently, thoughtfully, they made love. Part of Joan analyzed and recorded. That’s okay. That doesn’t hurt. This is all right. By Christ, we’re doing okay... I wonder if he minds. I wonder if he can tell that one boob is a falsie? Does he feel the difference? Is he fantasizing some zoftig two-boobed lovely? A complete woman? I hope not. I don’t blame him hut I hope he isn’t.

“You okay?” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

He’s concentrating on what’s left. She thought. Not what’s gone.

Afterward they were quiet in the dark, lying side by side on their backs, holding hands. Upstairs the boys were asleep. From his place under the drape the dog made his sleeping sounds. They were home. They were in the good place. And they would be there tomorrow.

“What do you think?” she said. “What do you think about the one boob?”

He raised one eyebrow in the dark and sucked his cheeks in and said, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”