Read the book: «A Year of Second Chances»

To Tom,

The love of my life

Chapter 1

I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to die, that the radiologist simply wanted to double-check my right breast to make sure it was as benign as the left. Nothing more than a big ball of size 36C fat. But the C word kept popping up like that irritating “unexpected item in the bagging area” message I always seem to get after scanning every third item at self-checkout.

I called Shonna on my way to the imaging center. I’d already talked to my bestie the night before and she’d calmed me down, but I needed her reassurance again.

“I think I’m going to die,” I blurted into the phone.

I could hear Shonna turn on the faucet.

“Are you listening to me? I said I think I’m going to die.”

“Now stop it. We talked about this last night. Don’t jump to conclusions. Even if they find something it doesn’t mean you’ll die. They probably just saw something suspicious and want to take a closer look. I’ve had other friends who’ve had mammogram callbacks and they turned out to be nothing.”

“But what if it’s something?” I pushed.

“Then we’ll deal with it, but remember, ninety-nine percent of the things we worry about never happen.”

“I know you’re right but I can’t help thinking the worst. I’ve never received a callback before.”

“Deep breaths, Scarlett. One step at a time. For now they simply want to get a closer look.”

By the time I arrived at the imaging center, my heart felt like it was going to pop out of my chest. I tried to calm myself by taking deep breaths. My anxiety was surely even greater because my boss’s mother had had breast cancer and died, so of course that’s all I could think about.

The imaging center was busier than during my previous visit but I found a seat in the back facing the wall. I didn’t feel like exchanging small pleasantries with anyone. I just wanted to get the scanning over with and find out if I had the big C. Would I divide my life BC/AC, Before Cancer/After Cancer, I wondered.

Finally, I was called back by a technician who introduced herself as Linda. She looked to be about my age. I changed into a pink floral top that snapped down the front and followed Linda into a room with a huge white machine standing in the middle of it.

“Please, sit down,” she said. “Do you know the date of your last period?”

I reached inside my purse and pulled out my monthly pocket calendar. I noted when I got my period by writing a P in the tiny date boxes, a habit that had carried over from my teen years when there really was a chance I could get pregnant because I actually did have sex. “April 20.”

“Are you sexually active?”

I shook my head.

“I’m sorry, is that a no?”

Yes, it’s a no. I haven’t had anything hard in five years!

“Yes. I mean no, I haven’t had sexual relations with anyone for quite some time.”

Linda furrowed her brows. “Oh, okay.”

She thinks I’m weird. Should I explain I want to have sex but there’s no one special in my life and I’m not into hooking up?

No, let it go. I can’t be the only forty-nine-year-old who’s wasting the prime years of her life on a purple rabbit vibrator I nicknamed Jack.

Linda nodded toward the machine. “Stand in front and slip your right arm out of your top.”

I stood and walked over to the machine and did what she said. She peeled off a little sticker with a tiny bead in the middle of it. “I’m going to mark your nipple. It helps the radiologist who reads the mammogram. We wouldn’t want him to mistake it for an abnormality.”

How can a nipple be mistaken for an abnormality?

“If the nipple rolls during compression the area might look suspicious.”

She read my mind.

“Think of your nipple like the North Star,” she continued. “It’s a point of reference for the radiologist and helps him read the mammogram.”

Visualizing my nipple lighting up the north sky made me giggle.

She thinks my nipple is big. It is big. Big and probably cancerous. Mike always liked my nipples. Screw Mike. Stop it, Scarlett.

I stepped toward the machine, placing my hand where Linda had instructed. I winced as she positioned my breast against the cold support plate and compressed it, flattening it out like she was prepping a piece of chicken to coat with bread crumbs and seasoning and bake.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded. Just take the damn picture.

Linda dashed to the console behind a see-through barrier to take the image. “Don’t breathe, don’t move.”

I held my breath and exhaled seconds later when the compression plate retreated.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I nodded. “We women know how to take pressure!”

She laughed and proceeded to take additional photos of my right breast from different angles.

“We’re done,” Linda finally said. “You can have a seat in the waiting area while the radiologist checks these films. Don’t get dressed until I tell you to in case he wants additional images.”

I grabbed my purse and headed to the waiting room, which was packed. It was much smaller than the other waiting area so I had no choice but to sit next to someone. And it was just my luck she was a talker.

“Is this your first time getting a mammogram?” asked the woman, a petite brunette who looked to be thirty-something.

I shook my head.

“It’s mine. I’m only thirty-four but my doctor felt a lump during my annual exam.”

I nodded.

“Did you ever have a lump?”

I shifted in my seat. “No.”

“I hope it’s not cancer.”

I wasn’t sure what to say so I said something really stupid. “I hope so, too.”

I should’ve told her that eighty percent of breast lumps aren’t cancerous and that they often turn out to be harmless cysts, but I didn’t have time. The nurse returned and told her she could get dressed. The radiologist was ready to see her.

I picked up a magazine and started reading an article about the First Lady when Linda popped in to tell me I could get dressed. I took it as a good sign that the radiologist didn’t need any more views.

Five minutes later, I was in his office staring at images on the screens.

Dr. Johnson sat in front of two monitors and pointed to the images on the left one. “These are the images taken last Friday. See this area here? I wanted to double-check that.”

He then pointed to images on the other monitor. “These images, taken today from other angles, give me a better look at that site. Do you see these fine white specks?”

I nodded.

“They are calcium deposits within the breast tissue.”

My heart started to race. “Are they cancerous?”

“Calcifications are usually noncancerous, but I’d like to send you to a surgeon to have a breast biopsy to be sure.”

I’m dying. I knew it. Oh, stop, Scarlett.

“You said calcifications are usually noncancerous. What do they look like when they are?”

Dr. Johnson opened his desk drawer and pulled out a laminated sheet showing two types of calcifications. He pointed to the top image. “These are macro calcifications. They are large, round and well-defined and are more likely to be benign.” He then pointed to the bottom image. “These are micro calcifications, or tight clusters of tiny, irregularly shaped calcifications. Certain patterns might indicate cancer.”

I looked at the image on the laminated sheet of paper and then at the image on the computer screen. “Mine look like the bottom photo.” I started to tremble. I knew it. I had cancer.

“That’s why I’d like you to see a surgeon. Just to make sure they’re benign.”

I tried to stop the tears from coming, but it was no use. My face felt like it was on fire. All I could think about was dying.

Dr. Johnson handed me a tissue.

“So who do you recommend I see?”

“Dr. Edwards. He’s excellent and it’s who I’d want my wife to see if this was her mammogram.”

The next ten minutes were a blur. The nurse returned and asked me to come with her. We went into a small room and I sat while she called the surgeon’s office to schedule an appointment.

“You don’t have anything sooner?” I heard her ask. The nurse looked at me, covering the receiver with her hand. “The soonest they have is next Friday.”

I sighed. “But that’s a whole week away.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Ask them if they’ll call if someone cancels.”

I heard the nurse ask and then confirm the Friday appointment. She hung up and handed me a slip of paper with the doctor’s address on it. “Dr. Edwards is the best. You’ll be in good hands. Good luck.”

Good luck? It’s not like I’m going to play tennis with him! I don’t need luck; I need prayers. “Thanks”

The nurse showed me to the exit and as soon as I crawled into my car I broke down, the tears coming as fast as a waterfall that crashes onto jagged rocks below.

I called Shonna and in between sobs managed to mumble breast, biopsy and cancer.

“Calm down,” Shonna said. “We need to take this one step at a time. It might not be anything.”

“But it probably is. I’m probably dying. I’ll never get to see my kids marry or play with my grandchildren.”

“Scarlett, stop it. Stop it right now. I’m not trying to minimize this, but a lot of people have breast calcifications and they’re usually benign.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been like most people.”

We talked some more and I drove to Mom and Dad’s, wondering how I was going to keep a happy face the rest of the day. I wasn’t going to tell Mom and Dad. I didn’t want to worry them and feared they’d let it slip to the kids. I’d tell David and Tory if I needed to.

I’d already arranged to take the day off when I got the callback. My parents were moving to a retirement community and Mom had asked me to sort through boxes in the basement to see if there was anything I wanted to keep. I couldn’t imagine finding anything of value, but I promised Mom I’d look anyway.

Chapter 2

I stared at the list I’d written when I was seventeen. Thirty-two years had passed since I scribbled my hopes and dreams on the white napkin and tucked it inside my high-school yearbook. A knot formed in my throat as I scanned the items. Marry Jake. Take a road trip with my bestie. Live in a big city. Overcome my fear of heights. Buy a sports car. Make lots of money. Own a boutique. I must’ve listed twenty things. My dreams had sparkled like bright stars in the night sky, waiting to be plucked one at time. What happened? Some stars had faded; others had long been forgotten, swallowed by life and its twists and turns. The things you never see coming when you’re seventeen.

A tear slid down my cheek, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand. I suppose there comes a time in everyone’s life when you realize you have fewer years ahead than behind you. And suddenly it becomes important to make sure that, when winter comes, you’ve lived the best life you could. Facing the possibility of having breast cancer only intensified my feelings and need to grasp hold of whatever time I had left.

And that’s when I decided I had to make some changes in my life. The kids were grown and each night I went to bed lonely in a house I’d once shared with Tory and David and their dad. Mike gave me the house as part of the divorce settlement along with the mini-van. We’d been married nineteen years and the last five were riddled with insults and angry outbursts. We fought all the time about everything and nothing. The kids. Work. Money. Even where we should go on vacation. The year we turned forty-two, we’d decided to call it quits. We both wanted to end our marriage before we hated each other. So, I got the house and the mini-van (he, by the way, had a sports car!) and he moved to a condo across town. We’re both still single and, to be honest, I haven’t met anyone in the past seven years who’s made me feel the way Mike once did.

I heard Mom’s voice but, from the musty corner of her basement, I couldn’t make out what she’d yelled. I walked over to the steps leading to the first floor. “Sorry, Mom. I couldn’t understand you.”

“I asked if you were hungry.”

I rubbed my stomach. “I’m starving.”

“Good. I made one of your favorites. Chicken corn soup.”

I smiled. “Just let me finish packing this box and I’ll be right up.”

I returned to the cardboard box with “Scarlett’s Stuff” scribbled on the top in black magic marker. I’d apparently stashed it down here when I was still in love with Jake, my high-school sweetheart. Besides the list, the box held other treasures from my high-school years. A program from my senior class play. The roses Jake gave me for our first Valentine’s Day (now a crisp bundle of tan petals tipped in Pepto-Bismol pink). My honor society certificate, encased in a black frame chipped at the corner. A photo of my best friend Shonna and I posing in our puffy-sleeved prom dresses. We couldn’t have looked more different. She was six foot and I was barely five. She had long chestnut hair and mine was long and strawberry blonde. She had brown eyes and I had green. And yet our friendship had lasted and, like fine wine, gotten better with age.

Besides the high-school mementos, I found a shoebox filled with items I’d made for Scarlett’s Shop. I laughed, remembering my pop-up store. I’d sell my homemade items at school, at home, anywhere I could display them and make money. Popsicle-stick picture frames. Painted rocks with magnets on the back. Clothespin caterpillars (think colorful pom-poms glued to a clothespin with googly eyes). I picked up a bookmark I’d made from a Christmas card Mom had saved. A wave of memories washed over me. I’d always wanted to own a boutique. It was another dream never realized.

I put all the items back in the dusty box and carried it upstairs.

Dad looked up from reading the newspaper. “I see you found something you wanted to keep.”

I placed the box in the corner of the dining room. “Yeah. I came across some stuff from high school. And my store, remember that?”

“Oh, my, yes,” Mom said. “You were always making stuff for that shop of yours. For a while there I was driving you to the craft store every week to buy supplies.”

I laughed.

“I still have the trophy you made me for Mother’s Day.” Mom opened the cabinet above the refrigerator. That’s where she kept vases and special dishes, things she didn’t use every day. She retrieved the trophy and turned around, holding it high for Dad and me to see.

I rolled my eyes. “I can’t believe you still have that.”

“And I always will,” Mom said. “It’s one of those things you never toss out.”

I’d wrapped a baby food jar in aluminum foil and pasted a pink construction paper circle on the front with the words: World’s Best Mom.

I sat in the chair across from Dad, the same chair I’d always sat in growing up. Funny how your spot at the family dinner table never changes no matter how old you are. Just like the pew you sit in at church or that special seat you sink into when binge-watching a favorite TV show.

Mom sat a bowl of soup in front of me. I could’ve gotten it myself, but I knew she liked being able to do things for me, her “little girl.”

“You were the prettiest gal in your high-school class,” Mom said. “Wasn’t she, Howard?”

Dad winked. “Still is. Of course, she takes after her mother.”

Mom patted Dad on the shoulder. They’d been married fifty-five years and still seemed so in love. I wondered what their secret was. They’d always made it seem so easy. Not that they never fought, but they always seemed to weather the tough times and come out better.

“The soup’s delicious, Mom.”

“I put a lot of hardboiled eggs in it because I know that’s how you like it.”

Moms never forget. Dads sometimes do. But moms, they remember everything, even the things you wished they’d forget. Like coming home late from a date or borrowing an expensive piece of jewelry and losing it.

Mom sat down across from me. At seventy-seven, she was still the most beautiful woman I knew. Like Dad, she had white hair, which she wore in a stylish bob. Her blueberry eyes seemed to bounce like rubber balls when she talked. “Did you get through all the boxes?”

“I think so. I had no idea you had so much stuff packed in the basement.”

“I’ve been telling her to get rid of it for years,” Dad said. “But you know your mother. She’s a pack rat.”

Mom shook her head.

“You’re just as bad, Dad.”

Dad’s wiry eyebrows jumped to the top of his forehead. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Have you been in the garage lately?”

Dad tucked his chin into his broad chest.

I playfully shook my finger at him. “No, you haven’t been in the garage because you can’t get in the garage.”

“She has a point, Howard.”

Dad waved his hand. “Two against one. No fair.”

I picked up my water glass. “Bottom line, guys. You have a lot of stuff that has to go. Now that I’ve been through the boxes in the basement and Tommy has, I think the next step is calling someone to haul away what you can’t take with you.”

My brother, Tommy, and I knew moving into a retirement community out of state was a big step for our parents. After living in a four-bedroom, two-story house, moving into an apartment would be an adjustment. So would living so far away from Tommy and me. But after their best friends had moved from Pennsylvania to Florida, they’d decided to join them. Last winter’s northeaster, which dumped more than twenty inches of snow, had sealed the deal.

Before leaving, I called movers and arranged for them to haul the items Mom and Dad wanted to take to their new place. Then I called an auctioneer to take what was left.

I picked up the box I’d stashed in the dining room. Mom and Dad followed me outside and waited as I put it on the backseat of the car. I turned and hugged them.

“Tell the kids to call,” Mom said. “I haven’t talked to either of them in weeks.”

“I will.” I kissed Mom and Dad and climbed into the car.

I pulled out of the driveway, past the mailbox I’d hit when I was learning to drive Dad’s Chevy Malibu, a metallic bronze boat. Driving through the old neighborhood was bittersweet. An avalanche of memories buried me in emotions, heavy and wet with tears.

It seemed like only yesterday Shonna and I had roamed these streets. Funny how time changes with age. When you’re young, an hour is forever. With age comes wisdom and the realization there’s no present, only past and future. Every moment is either one or the other. It’s like going to the ocean and watching the waves crash on the beach. There appears to be a line separating the two, but there isn’t. There is only water and sand.

I knew what my past held and that I had the power to change the future. But did I have the courage? I had the list I’d found. Maybe that was a start. Maybe my future lay in visiting the past and realizing some of those teenage dreams. Maybe it wasn’t too late to find myself again. At the very least, I owed it to myself to try.