Ginny writes: “It’s such bullshit that there are plenty of Joan Crawfords and assholes like my husband running around among us and your mom is not.”
She lost her dad a few years back—suicide. She knows what to say and what not to say. “We threw my sweet dad into the Beaufort River with three ospreys flying over (he loved ospreys because the daddies take care of the babies). There is something awesome about returning them to the earth.”
Her breast reconstruction has gone terribly wrong in the noncancer breast that they took off for good measure. An infection. The doctors have had to tear out the implant until things settle down and they can try again. For now we are both just two left boobs—mine real and hers fake.
“My mom’s death feels exactly like this wound on my chest,” I text her. “Sometimes I get confused about which pain I’m feeling.”
“I know,” she says. “Me, too.”