“Up now, Jacquelyn. No more sleeping, it’s morning.”
“No.” Clinging to the soft darkness of sleep, Jacquelyn tried to turn onto her side. But a weight fell onto her arm, the pressure of something foreign, heavy and…not her.
Bandages. Pressure. A dull, aching pain in the tissues over her chest and under her arm.
Jacquelyn’s eyes flew open. The white hospital ceiling was above her head, broken only by the stern, broad expanse of a nurse’s face. “Nice of you to join us,” the nurse said, her shiny eyes as determined as a whirlwind. “Time to wake up. I need you to get out of bed and use the restroom.”
Get out of bed? For an instant the suggestion seemed unspeakably cruel, then Jacquelyn remembered that the sooner a patient got up, the sooner she could go home. She put her hand on the railing and struggled to lift her head. “Give me a minute,” she said, blinking at the unexpected brightness of the room. White stripes from the rising sun had penetrated the slits of the window blinds and lit the walls. On a small stand in the corner, a brilliant bouquet of white daisies and pink roses bloomed.
The corner of her mouth crooked in a half smile. “Wow, flowers,” she whispered, accepting the nurse’s freckled arm around her shoulders as the woman pulled her to a sitting position. She had no strength whatsoever on her left side; her left arm might as well have been amputated. But strength and feeling would come in time. She looked again at the gorgeous bouquet. “Who sent those?”
“There’s a card,” the nurse answered, releasing Jacquelyn’s shoulders. In an instant, she had efficiently lowered the bed rail. “Want me to fetch it for you?”
Jacquelyn nodded.
“Tough luck.” The nurse stepped back and folded her arms, grinning. “I’m not a retriever. If you want to know who sent the flowers, you’ll have to walk over there and find out for yourself. Now, swing those legs around and let’s get you out of bed.”
Jacquelyn groaned, but inwardly she admired the nurse’s pluck. She’d often used similar tactics with her own patients: Let’s just get through today’s chemo, shall we? Would you like to watch a movie while you’re here? We’ve got all kinds, but you’ll have to sit still so the medicine can drip into your veins….
“My dad wouldn’t have sent them,” she mused aloud, obediently swinging her legs toward the side of the bed. Her head swam for a moment, but she focused her thoughts and kept moving. “Maybe they’re from his wife. Or the girls at the office.”
The nurse made certain Jacquelyn’s bare feet were firmly planted on the floor, then she stood back with an arm extended in case Jacquelyn began to fall. “You’ll find out as soon as you make your way over there.”
“I’m okay, just a little woozy.” Jacquelyn took her first step with more confidence than she felt, and then hung on to the mattress with her right hand as her stomach did an unexpected flip-flop. “Uh-oh. Maybe—” She closed her eyes, waiting for the room to right itself, then gave the nurse a quavery smile. “I’m fine.”
“Prove it.”
Jacquelyn lifted her chin. Bracing herself against the bed, she took three small steps toward the bathroom—and the flowers. As she neared the bathroom, she paused to drink in the flowers’ aroma and peek at the florist’s card in the arrangement.
“From Bailey?” She sent the nurse a quizzical glance. “My dog sent me flowers?”
The nurse, who hovered a careful two steps away, laughed. “That’s some considerate dog.”
Jacquelyn moved gingerly into the bathroom. Who would have sent flowers in Bailey’s name? Stacy? That wasn’t likely, she hated the dog. Maybe Dad had done it out of shame about how he’d ignored her illness, or maybe this was Craig’s way of making up.
Momentarily confused, she double-checked her memory. Craig had come to see her, hadn’t he? She remembered a man by her bed, a masculine voice, someone brushing her hair…
“Nurse,” she said, gripping the edge of the sink to steady herself, “do you remember a man stopping by to see me yesterday? It would have been after I was brought up, probably late yesterday afternoon or even early evening—”
“I go home at four,” the nurse called. “It wouldn’t have been my shift. You’ll have to check with the night nurse.”
“Ouch.” Jacquelyn leaned against the sturdy sink and again felt the tug of the bandage on her chest. She’d look at it later, when she could bear the thought of—
We took the breast as well.
She sat down heavily upon the toilet seat as her mind burned with the memory.
“Nurse,” she called, staring fixedly at the floor. “My chart—exactly what happened in my surgery yesterday?”
She heard the swish of the nurse’s polyester slacks as she came closer. “Didn’t the doctor explain it to you?”
“I think so.” Jacquelyn struggled to focus her thoughts. “But you tell me—what does the chart say?”
The nurse paused outside the bathroom door. “Modified radical mastectomy, left breast,” she recited. A momentary look of discomfort crossed the woman’s sturdy face as she met Jacquelyn’s gaze. “Honey, weren’t you prepared for this?”
“Of course. I’m a nurse, I’m prepared for anything.”
We had to take the breast.
Surgical shorthand for the entire breast and the underarm lymph nodes, the lining over the chest muscles, and perhaps even the minor pectoral muscles. The major pectoral muscle would have been left intact, making it easier for Jacquelyn to flex and rotate her arm, easier to do the wearisome exercises that would be part of her life for the next several months.
The nurse moved away, and Jacquelyn sat in lonely silence as reality opened the door on a lot of memories she’d tried to bury. She’d seen her mother’s livid scars after the mastectomy, seen her pitiful shrunken chest. Of course surgery had advanced by leaps and bounds since those days and Jacquelyn’s surgeon had been one of the hospital’s best. But still—
Unbidden, her right hand rose to the protruding lump beneath her light cotton hospital gown. What lay beneath the layers of gauze? What didn’t lie beneath her bandages?
“Why?” she whispered, lifting her eyes to the ceiling, not knowing where else to turn. Why hadn’t she prepared herself for this? Jonah Martin had assured her that mastectomy was only a remote possibility. What had they discovered, an entirely cancerous breast? What in the world could have induced them to disfigure her like this? She had expected only to have the tumor cut out, but now she was left with nothing but—nothing.
Her mind withdrew to a safe, remote distance, filling in the clinical images her experience lacked. She knew what lay under the bandage—two drainage tubes, one of which would be removed before she left the hospital; the other would remain in place until all the swelling had gone down. The neat, dark line of surgical sutures would be absorbed into her body. The staples holding her flesh in place would come out during her follow-up visit to the surgeon’s office.
Why? An inner voice insisted on answers. Why hadn’t Dr. Wilder considered a partial mastectomy or why hadn’t he taken a chance and gone ahead with the lumpectomy? Given the unexpected size of the tumor, she’d have willingly gone through radiation therapy. She’d have even undergone chemo to avoid the scarring of a mastectomy.
What could have induced the surgeon to chop off her breast?
She felt herself trembling all over. She would never be healthy or whole, thanks to the arrogant attitudes of certain surgeons and doctors….
“You okay in there?”
The nurse’s ruddy face appeared again in the doorway. Her broad face cracked into a grin at the sight of Jacquelyn safely seated. “You’re doing good, we’ll have you out of here in no time. Within five or six days for sure, if you pass muster with the surgeon. Now come back to bed, and I’ll have your breakfast sent in.”
Jacquelyn clung to the edge of the toilet seat, grappling with her thoughts and feelings. She had to calm down. Anger would only cripple her recovery and weaken her defenses. She could put aside her misery and bitterness until she was stronger, then she’d confront Dr. Wilder and demand to know why he’d taken such an extreme step. For now, she had to concentrate on getting well.
More shaken than she cared to admit, she leaned forward and eased herself off the toilet, allowing the nurse to guide her back to the bed. She stretched out and lifted her whole, unwounded arm above her head, biting her lip to restrain the tears that bubbled just below the surface.
“Anything you need, hon?”
Jacquelyn felt a sudden chill. “A blanket would be nice.”
“That I can get you,” the nurse said, pulling a blanket from a compartment in the nightstand. With military precision she shook the blanket over the bed, then tucked in the edges and carefully folded it back so that none of the weight fell upon Jacquelyn’s chest. “Now you just hurry and get well, ’cause I’m sure there’s a world of folks who miss you.”
Jacquelyn bit her lip again and looked away. Apparently Bailey was the only one who missed her. The flowers were probably from the office; they knew she adored her puppy and signing the dog’s name had been easier than spelling out everyone else’s.
“Thank you,” Jacquelyn murmured, turning her face toward the window. As the nurse padded away on silent soles, Jacquelyn curled around the wounded place over her heart and tried to stanch the tears that flowed from the corners of her eyes into her hair.