Three Weeks in Spring

Chapter 22

Saturday, April 26

And the visitors came. I need this, Joan thought. My decision to be brave rather than alluring needs an audience. I need feedback to make it work. Every visit was, for Joan, a performance. Everyone who came had to be put quickly at ease. Yes, I lost a couple of ounces of boob over there, but I’m still what I was and you needn’t worry.

Charlotte Tannheimer came. One of the first visitors outside the family. She came into the room with a great rosebush. She was a very small woman and she had brought a very large rosebush and Joan was able to imagine for a moment that the rosebush had brought Charlotte.

She stood at the foot of Joan’s bed with the rosebush and she couldn’t speak. Tears ran down her face.

“Easy come, easy go, Char,” Joan said. “I’m fine and the news is good.”

“Oh, Joan,” Charlotte said.

“Charlotte, that is the biggest goddamned enormous huge rosebush I’ve even seen.”

“How are you, Joan?”

“Terrific. I’m fine and I feel wonderful about the rest of my life. Now put down that christly grotesque tree and sit in the chair and tell me gossip about Endicott.”

Charlotte was all right then. She put the rosebush on the windowsill and sat by the bed and talked with Joan for an hour. The pattern of the visits was established and it would vary little for the remainder of her stay. For Joan it was wearying in some ways, but simultaneously she was center stage and she loved it. The turnout of visitors was an enormous ego booster. She found that people cared about her. She had always known that she had friends, but she had never experienced such an outpouring of affection, particularly female affection. The women cared very deeply.

Sunday, April 27

Eileen Ganem drove up from Plymouth her first day home from New York. She came into the room tentatively, as everyone did the first time, on tiptoe, and burst into tears. They had been friends since before the children.

“Easy come, easy go, Ei,” Joan said. “I’m fine, I really am. All the news is good, and I had so little to lose.” She did the little patter that had become smoother and more effective with practice. There was no insincerity in it. She meant it each time, but it was a technique she was mastering and it worked. In a few minutes Eileen was all right. How much she cares, Joan thought. Christ, she came in crying. I knew she’d care, hut how much, isn’t it wonderful how much. Eileen had brought makeup and nail polish and shampoo. She helped Joan wash her hair, helped her set it. She put nail polish on for Joan, and helped her with the makeup. I can wear polish. My nails weren’t going to turn blue.

Monday, April 28

Embeth Nagy came and June Crumrine, who had seen them check in and wondered silently why. Eileen took on the chores Ace wasn’t good at. She was there almost daily with eye shadow, a new kind of blusher, a new robe. The room filled with flowers and get-well cards. Extra chairs had to be moved in. There was a celebratory atmosphere, a kind of continuing party, in which people came and went, but the music continued.

“It’s like a goddamned carnival,” Ace said. “How about tomorrow I bring in a couple of six packs and a record player and we have a sock hop.” He resented it sometimes. He would have liked a little less company occasionally, but he enjoyed it too. It was fun to go and see who would be visiting and it was fun to watch Joan work. Her color was high, and with company she was very animated. Sitting up in bed, her eyes shiny with excitement, she talked and laughed and gestured elegantly and he watched in a luxury of pleasure. I could watch her forever, he thought. Absolutely forever.

Nurses came and went. One always seemed to be there. The boys were there afternoons and evenings. They enjoyed the social occasions too. Especially Dan, who was particularly stimulated by grownup conversation. Except for Ace and the boys, most of the men who came seemed a little subdued. They were not apparently bothered by the operation, but they were vaguely out of place. It was a female celebration, a gathering of women, at which men were welcome but not central. Judy Marsh was there. To Joan it seemed she was always there, as if they had done this together. Dr. Barry came in each morning, not simply to look at her chart and smile encouragingly, but to talk. To talk about children and colleges and teaching, about the practice of medicine, about ideas and things that had happened.

Tuesday, April 29

When Ace came in that morning he was the first. Visiting hours had not yet begun.

“You have to get out,” Joan said.

“My presence is making you lustful, and you’re afraid you won’t be able to contain yourself.”

“Wrong. The Reach to Recovery lady is coming and she wants to talk with me alone.”

“She can’t talk in front of me?”

“No. I mean she will probably want to show me her incision and things. It would be awkward for you to be there.”

“You’re not just making that up because you’re ashamed of your libidinous impulses, are you?”

“If they were directed at you I’d be ashamed of them. Now get out for a half hour or so, she’s going to be here any minute.”

“Balls,” he said. There was a small tap on the partially open door. Ace made a face at Joan and opened the door fully. A short plump youngish woman stood there.

Ace said, “Hi, come on in. I’m on my way out.”

“Thank you.” The woman came in uneasily, as if unsure where to stand.

Ace said, “I’ll be back, Snooky,” and went out.

“Hi,” Joan said. “I’m Joan Parker, won’t you sit down.”

The Reach to Recovery Program is sponsored by the American Cancer Society. Its goal is to help women to adjust to mastectomy by bringing them into contact with women who have undergone mastectomy. Joan thought it a fine idea. She wanted to talk with someone who had faced mastectomy, who had weathered and coped and triumphed and recovered.

The Reach to Recovery lady sat. She held in her hand some pamphlets. She didn’t look at Joan and she seemed to have trouble getting under way. Joan waited a moment and then realized the woman was not going to lead.

“I’m feeling really super,” Joan said to her. “There is no node involvement, I feel fine, and I’m not very depressed about losing a breast.”

“Gee, that’s swell,” the Reach to Recovery lady said. “I had mine about five years ago, and it was just awful. I was so depressed.”

“Well, I can understand how that could happen,” Joan said.

“Would you believe I only weighed a hundred and eight pounds when I went in for my surgery?”

Joan smiled. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I went into such a depression that I just ate and ate.”

“Well, I’m doing fine,” Joan said. “My husband and my boys are really supportive, and we’re all doing very well so far.”

“Wow, that’s great. My husband wasn’t very supportive. You’re really lucky.”

“But,” Joan said, “you’ve been able to put that all behind you now. Put your life back together.”

“I guess so.”

“And this work must be rewarding. Helping people, being able to support them and help them work through their problems.”

“Well, I’m still awfully new at it.”

“Is that so? You certainly are doing well at it.”

Ace sat on a window ledge at the other end of the hall where he could see Joan’s door. The Reach to Recovery lady stayed a long time. He whistled “Take the A Train” to himself and played drums on the tops of his thighs. It was a Four Freshmen arrangement he was whistling, and in his head he could hear the Freshmen singing it. He watched one of the nurses walk down the corridor away from him, her skirt tight over her buttocks. Damn nurses’ uniforms simply are not flattering. I think it’s the white stockings. Nice ass though. ‘The fastest, the quickest way to get to Harlem.’ What a great name, Billy Strayhorn. ‘You’ll get where you’re going in a hurry.’ The young nurse with the tight skirt came back down the corridor, walking toward him, her hips swinging. It’s like looking at art. It’s not really lecherous, it’s merely the pleasures of an aesthetic configuration. I can do it now, I can look lecherously and without obligation at women. I don’t have to wonder if soon I’ll he looking in earnest. Looking in earnest would suck.

The Reach to Recovery lady came out and walked down the corridor toward him. He started up the corridor to Joan’s room. He smiled at her as they passed. She didn’t say anything.

“Oh, the poor thing. She’s in much worse shape than I am.”

“She’s in much worse shape than I am.”

“No, I mean emotionally. I was cheering her up.”

“She tell you anything about prosthesis?”

“She said she’d go with me when I got out of the hospital and show me the best place to go and help me get fitted. She’s really very sweet. But...” Joan shrugged. “It’s difficult for her. Too bad. The idea is a good one. You know it would be really helpful to any woman to have someone to talk to. I don’t need to so much because I have you and everyone is so supportive. The boys are good, and Jude and Eileen and everyone. But for some women, like this poor lady today, it’s a shattering and lonely experience.”

“You’ve got you, too,” he said.

“Yes, that’s true. I know that I have good resources of my own. But it would be much harder if you and the boys were, say, repulsed by the whole thing.”

“I didn’t marry you for your boobs, babe.”

“Anyway, I’ve got other people to talk with. Mrs. Bacheldor has a friend she says I should talk to who’s had a mastectomy, and one of the operating room nurses has had one and maybe I’ll talk with her.”

“What’s Eliopoulos say about Reach to Recovery?”

“I think he has reservations. He doesn’t mind them coming around and offering help, but he doesn’t want anyone giving me an exercise program but him. He said he doesn’t want his terrific incision screwed up.”

“I’d listen to him,” Ace said.

“Yes, I will. But I am really hot to exercise. I want the full use of the arm and the old bod.”

“Me too.”

“I thought you would,” she said.

“Ask him about weights,” Ace said. “Tell him I know something about that and maybe a little light stuff, some light reps would be a good thing when you’re ready. If what’s missing is pectoral muscle, that may be the easiest muscle in the body to build up. You can do some bench presses and things, if you want.”

“I’ll mention it to him,” she said.

“There’s also the full-body press.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s when a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound man lies on top of you and...”

“Never mind, Bob.”