“I thought maybe it would buy you a little time. You’re already sore and bruised. I didn’t want you seeing your body and immediately believing you were going through what your mother went through.”
Mom stared at him for several seconds.
Then she turned to Linda.
“When did he tell you?”
“This morning.”
“So you knew before I did.”
“Cindy, he was scared.”
Mom looked back at Dad.
“You called my sister.”
“You found a photograph of Mom after her mastectomy.”
“You removed every mirror in the bedroom.”
“And I was supposed to come home and take a nap?”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“After you settled in.”
Mom’s eyes filled with tears.
“That’s exactly what everyone did when Mom got sick.”
Linda lowered her head.
I sat beside Mom.
“What do you mean?”
She ran her thumb across the edge of the old photograph.
“I was seventeen when she had the mastectomy.”
“Nobody explained anything to us.”
“Dad said she was having an operation and everything would be fine.”
“Relatives would gather in the kitchen and whisper.”
“Whenever Linda or I walked in, they changed the subject.”
She looked at me.
“I learned what had actually happened because I walked into her bedroom while she was changing.”
My stomach twisted.
“Nobody had told you?”
“No.”
Dad leaned forward.
“Cindy, I wasn’t trying to do that to you.”
Mom turned toward the empty dresser wall.
“Then bring me my mirror.”
Dad blinked.
“No.”
Mom snapped her head toward him.
“Excuse me?”
“Not today. You’re only two days out of surgery.”
“Bring me the little mirror.”
“Cindy, you’re swollen. Bruised. Bandaged. And you just learned they’re testing tissue for cancer.”
“Exactly.”
“You don’t need to see this right now.”
Mom’s expression changed.
“That’s what everyone said when my mother was sick.”
“Don’t look.”
“Don’t ask questions.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Let somebody else handle it.”
Nobody spoke.
Mom wiped a tear from her cheek.
“I am seventy years old, Brad.”
“Bring me my mirror.”
Dad finally left the room.
When he returned, he was holding Mom’s small oval vanity mirror.
Its silver frame had darkened with age.
One corner was chipped.
I had seen it sitting on her dresser my entire life.
Dad held it toward her.
Mom took it.
Linda and I helped her adjust her robe carefully so she could see what she wanted to see without disturbing the dressings.
Then Mom looked.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Even through the postoperative dressings, the difference was visible.
One side was still swollen.
The other looked smaller.
Dad stepped closer.
“You’re still beautiful.”
Mom raised one hand.
“Please don’t.”
He stopped.
