Divorce

I woke up Sunday morning knowing I needed a divorce. Thirty years in, I doubted Mike and I could survive an equal number of years. At two weeks, the bruising loitered under my clothes, a handspan of mottled green and yellow invisible to the world. We both knew it was there.

I’d been cutting away at the steri strip on my breast, begging time to truly heal this wound. Surrendering to the application of soap, water, and time, the strip finally fell off on Friday. Obsessed, I found the tiny scar from the 14 gauge needle every time I changed my clothes. Each time I showered, I peered into my mirror of discontent. I wondered if I popped it open like a zit, could I squeeze the cancer out?

In August, I’d strolled into my Sonobello appointment ignorant and nonchalant, trusting my body to handle what came next. Wanting to believe the commercials, the smiling women drew me forward in time towards a sculpted me. My ill-considered dream for my college reunion a manifestation of the foolish girl living in my heart. I couldn’t afford to be wrong again, so I pour over research, studying the minutiae of estrogen and progesterone receptor positive, HER2 low invasive ductal carcinomas.

On the way to Sunday Family Breakfast, I cried as I told my husband. My fears and feelings spilled out like an over easy egg during the short trip to IHOP. The membrane pierced; containment failed. His hand on top of mine, I confessed I wasn’t strong enough to cut him loose. There’s no way to save him the pain of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy. He said he wouldn’t have it any other way.