She continued looking at herself.
“It looks awful right now,” she whispered.
Linda gave her a small smile.
“You just had surgery. You’re allowed to look awful.”
A tiny laugh escaped Mom.
Then tears began sliding down her cheeks.
“I look like her.”
Linda immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“You look like Cindy two days after surgery.”
Mom slowly lowered the mirror.
“I’ve spent my entire life wondering.”
I moved closer.
“Wondering what?”
“If I would get it too.”
That surprised me more than anything else.
Mom had never talked about being afraid of breast cancer.
She attended her screenings.
Treated them like routine appointments.
Apparently, fear didn’t always look frightened.
Dad crouched in front of her.
“When the surgeon said the word ‘mass,’ all I could see was your mother.”
Mom nodded.
“So could I.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“You can’t protect me from being afraid.”
“I know.”
“No.”
She took his hand.
“Be afraid with me.”
“Don’t be afraid for me and decide what I’m capable of handling.”
Dad looked down at their joined hands.
Eventually, he nodded.
The following morning, Mom asked him to repeat exactly what the surgeon had told him.
He couldn’t.
He remembered the important parts.
But everything else became:
“I think…”
“I’m pretty sure…”
“I believe he said…”
Mom stopped him.
“Give me the number.”
She called the surgical office herself.
I sat beside her with a notepad while she asked question after question.
What exactly had the surgeon found?
Was the suspicious area already inside tissue that had been removed?
What would happen once pathology returned?
Then she asked the question nobody wanted to hear.
“What happens if it’s malignant?”
She listened carefully.
Never interrupted.
When she finally ended the call, she looked exhausted.
But calmer.
“What did they say?” I asked.
“That we wait.”
“If it’s benign, we discuss whether any follow-up is necessary.”
“If it isn’t, then we talk about the next step.”
Dad stood in the doorway.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Mom closed the notebook.
“I would rather know exactly what I don’t know than have everyone whispering around me.”
That afternoon, Aunt Linda found me making soup.
She was holding the old photograph.
“I remember this day.”
I looked at Grandma smiling between her daughters.
“Was it soon after her surgery?”
“Several months afterward.”
Linda smiled faintly.
“She almost refused to take the picture.”
“Because of the mastectomy?”
