“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.
