someone die right before my eyes. I have seen the exact moment when death seeps in like a flood of dark water under a locked door. I had to look away from the frozen eyes staring at me as I choked back the coffee that was turning sour in my stomach.
At this moment, I sit at a crossroad. What I had envisioned as the biggest catastrophe in my life now seems almost delicate as I wait for the click of the intercom system that will signal the pilot is ready to speak again.
Please, tell us something, anything.
The big, warm hand grips mine again. He tells me for the hundredth time that everything will be fine and we will make it out of this. How is it that I have met this perfect creature on what could be the final day of my life? Is fate that cruel that it would give me mere hours with the one person who just might be able to scale my impossibly high walls?
His face is the only thing I can focus on as I nod back with a shaky smile that feels more like a grimace. He puts his head back on the seat and looks me square in the eye.
“Ella,” he says. “Trust me. We will live.”
God, I hope so. This could be really good.
Just then, I hear the intercom click.
The pilot is about to speak.
Chapter One: Ella
Don’t ever let anyone tell you Irony isn’t an evil bitch. The day my life hit the skids should have been murky and overcast with a pelting rain and icy chill. Instead, it was postcard perfect. Everything went down the crapper on a brilliant early fall afternoon with gently blowing air that felt as soft as a cotton ball. The sun had reached that spot high enough in the sky to make you sweat in the long sleeves you threw on that morning when old man winter felt like he was tucked into the bed right beside you. In the moments just before my cell phone rang, I focused on drawing the air deep into my lungs in a lame attempt to flush out the fear that felt like quick sand.
I closed my eyes against the sparkling blue sky. The warm breeze felt like the tiny hairs of a paintbrush, feather light strokes that tickled my cheeks, my forehead, and my chin. I wished I could stay in that moment forever. With my eyes closed, hair blowing in the wind, no one wanting anything from me. Right that second, I felt healthy and strong. I wanted to hold onto that for as long as I could.
And…time’s up.
My cell pulsed in my right hand. The foreboding almost so powerful it felt paralyzing. I braced my body for the words that would crush my spirit like a hammer on a walnut. The pieces smashed into such tiny particles there would be virtually no hope of putting them back together again.
No one knew what was happening. Not a single person was aware of my personal crisis unfolding right there on a ridiculously tiny patch of grass in mid-town Manhattan. Sounds strange, I realize, and my explanation for not sharing is relatively simple. I’m just not very good at being the center of attention. I get all flustered and uncomfortable, and start to scan the room for a wall to hide myself behind. Sure, I have an interesting worldview, and I can easily weigh in on lots of topics, just as long as none of them is about me. I understand basic human nature, I get that most people need constant validation. I’m here to give it to them.
I can deliver the belly laugh at the end of what is supposed to be a rip-roaring hysterical story with flawless timing. I’m a master of the wide-eyed “wow” as I properly celebrate someone’s latest accomplishment or bemoan their ultimate betrayal. I add the exclamation point at the end of someone else’s paragraph, and I am just fine with that.
So having the starring role in my own drama was particularly unappealing. None of it made any sense. At twenty-eight, I assumed I was in a grace period of sorts for something like this. My lifestyle was clean, my habits boring, and I could think of nothing I had done to support the potential revolt happening inside me right now.
The incessant buzz of my cell reinforced the tingle in my fingers and the teeth-rattling shudder of my heart. It did not matter that I was sitting there all alone, with no awaiting hand to close around mine, or a shoulder turning toward my falling chin. I needed to answer the phone; the news would not wait.
For once, it had to be all about me because my life depended on it.
My finger pressed the button.
“Hello,” I said, trying to pretend my voice wasn’t quivering. “Hi, Ella, it’s Doctor Sturgis. Are you free to talk?” Oh sure.
Free and clear, and ready for you to swoop right in and attack my life as I knew it.
I had attempted to steady my voice again before I replied, even though it felt like I had just taken a karate chop to the larynx. I had already made my doctor promise that no matter what the tests revealed, I would get the news over the phone. I explained that it would be easier for me that way. I simply could not take his sympathetic eyes planted on me in anticipation of my emotional breakdown. If there were to be any kind of breakdown, it would happen about as far away from the consult room of a doctor’s office as I could get.
“Yes, Dr. Sturgis. Free and clear, so just lay it on me.” Please, be gentle.
“Okay, Ella.” Long pause. Just that alone told me all I needed to know.
“Unfortunately, the tests revealed a malignancy. You do indeed have breast cancer.”
I guess the very first thing I realized is that you don’t actually drop dead right then and there. You’re still among the living, even though everything about you is suddenly different. Somehow, I managed to get through that phone call, pick myself up off the grass that had begun to feel like thumbtacks in my rear, and go back to work. It may be a blur of events, but no one referred me to the psychiatric unit that day so I must have managed to keep up some sort of charade that everything was fine and dandy.
I am a few days into my cancer diagnosis and this new life still feels surreal. Even when you have a sense of yourself, and how you react to certain situations, this is different. No matter how prepared you think you are it still feels like a backhand across the jaw, a leveling blow that catches you off guard and takes you down before you even know what hit you.
Now I know exactly what has hit me. It is a formidable opponent with potentially deadly intentions. My doctor and I have begun to map out my treatment plan but it is so daunting I think half my brain checks out during these conversations. I guess that’s a typical reaction because Dr. Sturgis keeps asking if I need any anti-anxiety medications, or sleeping pills. I have denied all of it; I need to stay lucid and clear-headed. There is a lot at stake here after all, not just my health but also the pristine image of my family. For any other woman there would be that whole force field of patient confidentiality and medical privacy rights keeping word of her deteriorating health on the down low.
I, on the other hand, do not have that kind of luxury.
My diagnosis may very well be front-page news in the near future, the lead story at six. Every person I confide in brings me one step closer to the big reveal. Ready or not, I will soon become the topic of discussion at dinner tables across America.
Across the world, even.
Everyone is about to find out the vice president’s daughter is sick. It’s just not right. My mother would rip a man’s balls clean off if she caught him leering at her own breasts. Now she’ll have no choice but to discuss mine.
Thanks again, Irony, you little witch.
