NASREEN IS A LITTLE early for her appointment. She sits uncomfortably in a plastic chair in the makeshift waiting area just outside her therapist’s office listening to the muffled sounds of voices on the other side of the door. She flips through an old issue of Ms. magazine, reading a review of a book about breast cancer. She checks her watch, uncrosses her legs and crosses them again. She knows she shouldn’t read stuff like this. She has read countless articles about women and cancer, tales of hope and resilience, about new treatments and future cures. Ultimately, these stories bring her back to a familiar one.
Zainab Bastawala was neither a smoker nor a drinker. She exercised regularly, ate carefully. She had a good marriage, and a generally happy life. Her cancer got diagnosed in the winter of 1999 and it swiftly moved through her, leaving neither her nor her family with enough time to adjust to its ugly presence. It lodged in her right breast, claiming the tissue there as its residence, threatening to spread further west and annex whatever flesh lay in its ravenous path. It resisted treatment, defying all efforts to be surgically or chemically killed off, and it extinguished all hope the Bastawala family had for recovery. By the autumn of the next year, it had claimed victory.
Nasreen continues to read the magazine in her lap, unconsciously rubbing her left earlobe, her thumb and index finger massaging the soft flesh. She squeezes the hard centre where the tiny hole resides. She hasn’t worn any earrings since she lost her small silver teardrop.
“Happy Birthday, Beti. I hope you like them,” her mother beamed. She handed over the small jeweller’s box with a slight tremor in her hand caused by the fatigue of a recent round of radiation and chemotherapy.
“Oh, they’re pretty,” Nasreen said, showing them to Connie.
“Try them on,” Connie said, taking them out of the box. Nasreen did, and she almost never took them off after that.
“They look great. Nice choice, Mrs. Bastawala.”
“Connie, come on, call her Zainab,” Bashir, said, smiling at his daughter’s girlfriend.
“Yes. I don’t call you Miss Parker, do I?” Zainab laughed. Connie blushed, and Nasreen felt grateful for her family that day, a family that included Connie.
Nasreen closes Ms. and reaches for Glamour. She considers what to talk about with her therapist today. Her mother? Connie? She resents Connie for giving her something else to grieve, another loss to process in therapy at eighty dollars an hour. And not only that, but Connie’s leaving has been bringing up memories in strange Connie-Mother combinations all the time these days. First a thought about Connie, then one about her mother, or vice versa. Last night she reflected on how she met Connie just a few months before her mother’s diagnosis. She was in bed, enjoying a blissful afterglow in Connie’s strong arms when the call came. The answering machine beeped and then her father’s voice, slightly higher pitched than usual and breathless, called out from the living room.
“Beti, it’s your father calling. Can you give us a call? We’re just back from the hospital and we have some news to tell you. I’m afraid it is bad news, so please call us –” She had launched herself out of bed and was at the phone before he could finish.
“Hold on Dad. Let me turn the machine off.” There was an electronic squeal and then she listened in silence while her father told her about breast cancer, treatment options, prognoses. Later, her mother picked up the extension.
“Listen Bashir, don’t scare her. The doctor told us that we still have some time to go before we know everything. I’ll start treatment next Monday and then they will have to see where things stand.” Her mother seemed her invariably calm self, while her husband and daughter imagined various worst-case scenarios. Nasreen hung up the phone, promising to call back the next day. Connie draped her bathrobe over her naked body and she cried for the first time in Connie’s presence that day. Her embrace was Nasreen’s only reassurance that night and in the months that followed.
And this is how her relationship with Connie became intractably tied to her mother’s death. They moved in together when her mother’s chemo treatments started because they were spending so much time together anyway. And, Connie reasoned, Nasreen could borrow her car more easily with it parked right outside the apartment.
They gave each other silver rings, gifts of commitment, a day after the funeral. Nasreen was too numb to question the timing, and was grateful for Connie’s steadfast company. It was as though the crises of illness and death and later, grief, became the glue that kept Connie and Nasreen together in a heady attachment. And it was only when those forces absented themselves from the relationship that Connie seemed able to reverse the process, slowly coming home later and later at night, pulling away from Nasreen.
The office door opens, releasing a woman with a pink, tear-streaked face. She glances at Nasreen, and their eyes meet, two strangers acknowledging their shared experience of being at the same therapy office at the same time.
“Bye, Carmen. Hi, Nasreen, come on in.”
Nasreen settles herself on the couch, still imprinted with and warm from Carmen’s body. She gazes at the long-familiar setting; the couch with its many cushions, the South American rug, the obese-goddess statue by the window. Her therapist wears magenta-coloured denim pants and a thin lavender sweater. Nasreen has become used to her therapist’s penchant for wearing many shades of purple.
“You haven’t been here for a little while, Nas. What has it been, a month or so?”
“Yeah, sorry for cancelling the last appointment. And I’ve meant to call to re-schedule but things have been really busy.” Nasreen fidgets in her seat. She props a mauve cushion behind her back.
“The last time you were here we were talking about Connie and the dynamics in your relationship.” Therapist has a knack for remembering the content from one session to another, thinks Nasreen. Perhaps she just takes good notes. Nasreen both likes and hates this quality in her therapist.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I was supposed to think about whether she is part of a pattern among my choices in women,” Nasreen says, feeling self-conscious.
“And were you able to do some journalling or thinking about that?”
“No I never did get there,” avoiding Therapist’s eyes.
“And is that why you didn’t get here too?” Therapist doesn’t waste any time. At least, thinks Nasreen, I get my money’s worth. She begins to calculate what she has spent on therapy this year. At eighty dollars per session, and if I’ve come here an average of twice a month … she looks up to see Therapist watching her expectantly.
“Sorry, can you say that again? I seem to have wandered off,” she says, and Therapist complies, repeating her question.