What Women Talk About When They Talk About Breasts

I went to see her the day before she went to the hospital to have her mastectomy. Even though she knew I was coming over she greeted me in a bathrobe, her long hair hanging down uncombed. Besides the robe and the messy hair she looked the same. I thought there would be fear in her face, but she was calm. She talked in her usual way, animated, with her hands moving this way and that. As she was always so modest I was surprised when her robe worked its way open, her breasts came out and she continued talking and pointing at things only she could see. Her breasts were beautiful, a pale white with the lightest pink nipples; they looked as if they had never been seen by the hot eyes of the sun. I felt as if I shouldn’t have even seen them, but there they were, and there I was, and why do we hide our beautiful bodies anyway.

It was only later, after she had dressed, that she mentioned her surgery. She asked me if I thought her vain because she wanted to have implants. I didn’t hesitate before saying that I felt she should do whatever she wanted to with her body, whatever made her comfortable. “At my age!” she said, and snorted out a laugh, “Imagine.”
I smiled.

Her breasts had felt the touch of her lovers; her breasts had nursed her babies. That day she spent saying goodbye to a part of her own body, and she spent part of that time drinking tea with me. She offered me cookies, no longer concerned with every calorie she ate. I ate them and couldn’t help wondering if I would be so calm, so strong, if the roles were reversed. The doctors had already told her that her prognosis wasn’t good. She said, “I might not make it”, shrugged, and reached for another cookie. I took another one myself and we sat there together, the room filled with the fragrance of the flowers she had cut and placed on the dining room table. We both used our free hand to catch the crumbs as they fell from our lips and gazed silently at the flowers in bloom outside the window.