I recognized Grandma immediately. She was much younger than I remembered, standing between Mom and Linda. One side of her blouse lay flat against her chest.
Grandma had survived breast cancer and a mastectomy, but I’d never seen that photograph.
Mom stared at it.
“Why are you showing me this?”
Dad finally told her.
“During the reduction, the surgeon found a firm mass in the tissue being removed from your left breast. It’s been sent to pathology.”
Mom went completely still.
“To find out if it’s cancer?”
Dad nodded.
They wouldn’t know for several days.
Mom looked toward the empty wall.
“And the mirrors?”
Dad rubbed his face.
“The surgeon said more tissue came from that side. He warned me one breast might look noticeably smaller while you’re healing. I didn’t want you to come home, see yourself, and panic.”
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“So you removed every mirror?”
“I thought it might give you some time.”
Mom looked at the photograph.
“When I was 17, nobody told me what happened to Mom. Relatives whispered in the kitchen. I found out because I walked into her bedroom while she was changing.”
She looked at Dad.
“That’s what you were doing to me.”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“Then bring me my mirror.”
“Not today. You’re two days out of surgery.”
“Bring me the little mirror.”
Dad tried again. “You’re bruised, swollen, bandaged, and you’ve just found out they’re testing something for cancer.”
“Exactly.”
He finally brought it.
Mom looked at herself for several seconds.
“It’s ugly right now,” she whispered.
“It’s surgery,” Linda said gently. “It’s allowed to look awful.”
Mom laughed through her tears.
Then she looked at the photograph again.
“I look like her.”
“No,” Linda said. “You look like Cindy two days after surgery.”
Mom lowered the mirror.
“I’ve spent my whole life wondering if I’d get it too.”
Dad crouched in front of her.
“When the surgeon said ‘mass,’ all I could see was your mother.”
