Elora had been dreading her follow-up to the ultrasound of her neck. Several years ago, her neck had been the site of an invading cancer. Her surgeon had performed a miracle surgery of her thyroid, leaving only a faint line, as if it were a midlife wrinkle.
The Women’s Center was a new experience: near downtown, luxuriously appointed, a good place to receive any news—for good or ill. Even the phlebotomist’s office would have been a desirable place to linger with a coffee and a good book: The ceiling was vaulted, the windows immense, the light pristine.
She had made acquaintances with the receptionist and the nurse, a good practice in her experience. Today she was surprised to see a patient out of sorts. The elder lady was impatient within five-minutes’ waiting, scooting to the front on her walker to demand how much time is “a little while?” Fifteen minutes? Thirty minutes? Most of the waiters assumed their stay would be however long, but Elora recognized something in it—the sense of powerlessness, the loss of control, the invisibility. The woman wore a knitted beanie of white and green shamrocks for St. Patty’s. Elora had complimented the woman for her hat but had been unable to discern the response.
Elora sat, waiting. She worried. She hadn’t been sure she would come in today. She hadn’t slept well for a week, ever since the ultrasound technician hovered long seconds over certain areas of her neck, the pressing yielding a dull ache. She had to have her wits about her to navigate the traffic, but she finally fell asleep for two hours before leaving home. It was enough.
Only a month ago, her new doctor had been a pristine presentation of professionalism yet sympathy, that unique combination that was so reassuring. A petite Hispanic woman, she had been as flawless in her appearance as in her manner—beautifully dressed and coiffed. Although she was far along in her pregnancy, her protruding belly fit her slight, feminine frame.
Things had changed in just a month. For them both. Elora was actually worried. And not for herself. There was a graying at her doctor’s temple, a dishevelment in her overall appearance, a weariness in her eyes. She was closing things down with her patients while she readied herself for her coming hiatus. And she was struggling with her three-year-old. Do you have children? she said, though as much for a sense of camaraderie as a question.
Together, they looked at the film of her neck, at what nodes seemed normal and which ones may be suspicious. The radiologist had not rendered an opinion, so these were only speculations her doctor said. The wisest doctors Elora had ever had brought her along at certain stages, letting her see numbers and tests and reasoning through them with her, as if she had the powers of medical discernment.
Outside, and on the way home, she thought: It was like looking at the craters on the moon, those pictures of the inside of my neck. And, she thought: How can I send my doctor a baby gift? And then she imagined what a challenge it was for her doctor to balance what she did so well professionally with what was so unknown and unchartered for any woman at home with children. And at night, laying on her pillow, there were familiar tears of fright, an old friend now, but just a few tears she indulged: I don’t want to die. Followed quickly by another thought: Until informed otherwise, results are inconclusive. And with this, she fell asleep.
There was a radiating pain that traveled from the right side of her neck and shoulder to her fingertips. A breast and thyroid cancer survivor, it terrified her. Months before, a couple of months before the outbreak of the pandemic, she declared her own freedom from a drug that would have prevented relapse. The drug had hobbled her and she was tired of feeling old in midlife, of making excuses for her immobility, of being embarrassed because she did not look old enough to be moving that way. It had been worse than chemotherapy, especially because no one had told her this would happen. People rang a bell on their chemo ward last day of treatment, people sang and clapped. There were no more bells for this interminable, solitary journey. She would have had to stay on the drug for five years. Although she had grown her hair back, she was moving like she was one hundred and if she was moving, she was in pain.
Now there was this new thing she couldn’t face, this new pain she couldn’t pay for. A nurse for her oncologist had said over the phone it sounded like muscular pain and so she went to a chiropractor. He was able to get her to the point of mobility but he also pressed on the radiated flesh of her right side in a way that broke her down again though not completely. And she couldn’t afford him after a while. And she was avoiding doctors again like she did when her right breast flared with cancer, but now it felt like there was a valid reason: the pandemic.
The pain almost kept her mentally alive some days, she was on a routine of over the counter meds and CBD oil. Every several hours, there was something new to take. Every few weeks, she researched and dug for help. Her fear could be killed with an occasional television series streaming binge or a belt of alcohol, a glass of wine, just enough to keep her going until the next day.
She couldn’t find a job. She had plenty of education, but much less job experience. There was pressure now in her family that she find a job. When she was married and later when she had a son, no one wanted her to do anything but keep a house. Even writing was discouraged. Now that she was middle aged with no work experience, almost zero, as well as juggling pain and anxiety, family could only seem to be happy when they thought she might work.
She was the husk of a used body, the kind you might throw onto a pile of other used bodies on the outskirts of a city, bodies whose sole function might be fuel in the burning or at least nurture for the soil for they were useless otherwise by society’s standards. She was so angry some days she thought she might already be producing fuel but really it was just a bit of noxious gas, dissipating and aimless. The desire she felt to go toward a direction was often thwarted by anxiety, either that or its seeming opposite – despondency.
She was able to see the tops of a tall stand of pines from her apartment window. It reminded her or her girlhood in South Carolina. How beautiful was the wind through a pine forest, its swishing like the sifting of dry grain, the needles glistening in the sun. One day she may lie at their feet and fall asleep and not get up. If she cannot afford the rent increase in a pandemic, if the pain gets worse, if she is squeezed by despair or hunger. She would never have advocated giving up, having fought so hard during years of suicidal ideation, divorce, cancer, diabetes. And yet how many pressures add up to the end? She knew this is one thing that perhaps she had never put seriously to herself until now. Pandemics, she was finding out, may turn out to be the final pressure vise.
But she was pretty sure that even if homeless and ill in her sunny climate, she would not give up. She could see herself as the crazy singing patron who came into the public library thirty years ago and sang her reference requests or the coupon lady with tons of flyers cutting and cutting all day at one of the tables.
She had been a librarian at the time, a time before her marriage. Such patrons and other lost souls, many of them homeless, many of them unwashed and mentally ill, were legendary among the staff. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t stop living by her own hand, no matter what. Even if no one would claim her, even if she could barely claim herself, she imagined she would go on, she imagined she would sing and sing and sing, alone and to trees, to her aged dog, to the dirty streets, to God.
We always went to Sanford, but it was never quite right. At the last brewery, the waitress actually said their stout was better than Guinness. That is actually what she said. It was water. She had a sizable figure though, something I watched you take in while you spoke to her, about on the edge of a conversation, though remembering my expressed hurt of this kind of thing, you pulled back. Almost a full conversation. The outside metal umbrella table rocked slightly on the brick. A bit like me, off center. Promise to myself, a plan, that if I sit alone while you talk I will call a car service and leave you. Delicious fantasy.
Last year was better at Christmastime in Sanford. We hit a downtown restaurant and brewery on a Saturday. It was just past the time I had been strongly suspecting Saturdays were your nights for other dates. That night, I drank a holiday spiced milk stout. You marveled I like such deep brews when you only liked lighter ales. You were probably laughing. When we went back to the car, you made fun of a bike bedecked with Christmas lights. I had made note of how great it was. It was so Florida I said. You said nothing. You held my hand.
That Christmas, last year, I could not get you to meet me out for rides by Full Sail. Or watch the choirs who sang beside Tiffany windows in Winter Park. I could not get you to go with me to see the opera Hansel and Gretel. You could make me laugh but you are staid. Maybe I laugh because you are staid and not like me. You are Greek and your face reminds me of an icon, eyes lined, down turned slightly at the edges, a calm, disinterested expression. And yet you laugh and smile too. That had been the chemistry: The light breaking through the godlike impassivity.
The watered down stout was hard to take this year, a year worn down by what you say you cannot give to me. I only thought an icon was a passage to something, not the finality of an object without transformative potential.
I feel only the coldness of being in Sanford on a Sunday this Christmas season night when almost all of the pubs and restaurants are closed at an ungenerous hour. The ones that are open mock the good times of Fridays and Saturdays, their doors hanging open like open maws, rock spewing forth, Third Eye Blind from one, Ozzy from another, songs I like except when something like death lingers. Down the street is a dark lake we don’t visit. And a bar I half suspect you’ve taken another woman for beers you prefer, Belgian.
And there is no garishly bedecked bicycle. I am no longer foolishly believing we will be holding hands at an opera or tipping over the apex of a ferris wheel, University of Central Florida below as well as waitresses and future diners and bars.
That last Christmastime night in Sanford, I feel my body aching from the drug I take to prevent cancer recurrence. You don’t hold my hand like you did before though I could break apart now more than ever. I had done something to annoy you. Gods and their punishments. Even to death. That night I did not have you inside my home but made up some excuse, I became a backslider. I kissed you only like a nominal orthodox kisses an icon. I said in my heart my beliefs are not giving back to me and I thanked you for my evening. I stepped into my home alone, a nominal Presbyterian.