La Vie en Rose {Life in Pink}

  “No cancer?” he gasped, afraid to accept the surreal diagnosis.

  The doctor smiled. “No cancer.”

  “Oh, my God.” Emma gasped as he dropped into the chair.

  No cancer.

  As they digested this incredible news, the doctor advised about soreness and aftercare. It was all just noise. No cancer. Remission.

  Once alone again, they stared at each other, an inexplicable emotion volleying between their smiles. No cancer. It was gone.

  All the things he’d ever been grateful for paled in comparison to this. She was whole. She was healthy. She was alive. She was cancer free.

  ****

  Rarity found him in the food court and he immediately panicked. “Why aren’t you with Emma?”

  “Relax,” his sister said, taking up the seat across from him. “Her parents are here. I gave them some time alone.”

  He settled back into his seat. Rarity raised an eyebrow and jutted her chin toward his phone. “What’chya doin’?”

  His face heated as he swiped the image on the screen away. “Nothing.”

  Her mouth hooked into a half grin. “Liar. You have a I got caught looking at porn face. What are you looking at?”

  He swallowed. Maybe he should tell her. “I was looking up mastectomy scars, but not for any perverted reasons. It just occurred to me that eventually Emma’s going to remove her bandages and I’m probably going to be there. More than her scars, she’s going to see my reaction and I want to be prepared.”

  His sister smiled and, in a strangely affectionate manner, brushed a hand down his arm. “You really are an amazing guy, Riley.” She scooted her chair close to his. “Well, let me see so I know what to expect too. I don’t want to give her any complexes either.”

  They thumbed through numerous images, each one different from the one before. Some pictures were dated and the advancements were evident. There were so many variations, unilateral, bilateral, reconstruction, tattoos, nipple sparing, MRM, and more.

  His sister made an unexpected sound and he stilled. “Rare?”

  “Sorry,” she quickly apologized and wiped her eyes.

  He frowned. “Are you crying?” Rarity didn’t cry.

  “No.” She continued to wipe away her obvious tears. “God, I’m so stupid. I shouldn’t be crying. I should be celebrating that my best friend’s alive and in remission. Don’t look at me. I’m an asshole.”

  He put down his phone and grabbed her shoulders. “Hey, you are not an asshole. We cry. It’s fucking sad. There’d be something seriously wrong with a person if they made it through all this and didn’t cry.”

  Her mouth tightened as she dragged in a deep breath. “How is she doing this, Riley? When did sweet little Emma become the bravest person I know?”

  He smiled, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, but they were tears of happiness, tears of pride. “I think she was secretly saving up her strength.”

  Rarity let out a watery laugh and rested her head on his shoulder. “She’s my hero.”

  Drawing in a deep breath, he admitted, “Mine too.”

  ****

  Riley exited the elevators and dug out his keys. It was time to take his cupcake home.

  “Riley.” He jerked to a stop and turned as Emma’s father came out of the adjacent elevator. “Just a minute,” he called and jogged after him.

  A sense of doom filled him as if it had been waiting on standby since he’d been working to accept she was okay. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah... I... uh...” He twisted and seemed to count nearby chairs. “Let’s sit down for a second.”

  “Okay,” Riley apprehensively agreed, following him to an open cubicle of seating. He waited several minutes for him to say whatever was on his mind.

  Mr. Sanders let out a long breath. “I... I want to say thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he immediately replied, but the man waved off his response.

  “Give me a minute.” He rubbed his head.

  “Take all the time you need, sir.”

  “What you did, for my Emmy...” His work-roughened hands curled into fists. “You’re a good man, Riley.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, sir. I love your daughter very much.”

  He laughed, but the sound was sad. “I love her too.” He shook his head. “There’s a moment, I expect you’ll know it soon enough, when you hold your child in your arms and promise to never let anything bad happen to them. Feels like yesterday I held Emmy like that.”

  It was quite a struggle for him to get his words out without shedding a tear, but Riley patiently let him finish.

  “When we heard what was happening, I didn’t get it. Then I saw what it looked like, each week, my baby girl getting ripped to shreds by probably the most underestimated evil in the world. I... I couldn’t do it. She had to, but I couldn’t. I hate that some days I was too weak to face what she was up against. I broke that promise I made when she was born.”

  “No one can keep a promise like that, sir.”

  “I see that now,” he agreed. “But you, son, you promised to stay by her side and you did, no matter how horrible it got. You’re a good man, Riley and I know you’re gonna be a good husband to my daughter.”

  Understanding dawned. “Ah...about that, I was gonna ask—”

  “No need. Sarah and I want you to know we’d be honored to have you as our son-in-law.” A flush colored the leathered skin at his neck, creased by age and time. “We can’t offer much, but if there’s anything you need that we can—”

  “Walk her down the aisle,” he quickly said. “That’s all she wants, her dad to walk her down the aisle.”

  Grinning with relief, he nodded. “Done.”

  Part III

  Tiny pearls, pinned in a row...

  With enough patience,

  A speck of grit can become a pearl,

  exquisitely changed by tears and time.

  Life is dirty.

  Live hard and count your scars as pearls.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Emma breathed through her nose, tightness, having nothing to do with her procedure, constricting her chest. Riley jotted down the measurement as she kept her eyes locked tight. It was her body and she couldn’t even look. “Done?”

  “Almost.” He was so stoic, always following the doctors’ orders and keeping a precise record for her next appointment. The satchel she’d been wearing for days zipped closed. “Done.”

  She let out a harsh breath. “I don’t know how you do that.”

  He shrugged, carrying some things to the kitchen sink where he washed his hands. “I can’t believe—after everything else you’ve gone through—that this is the part you can’t handle.”

  “The drains make me queasy.”

  His teasing didn’t bother her. She liked that they were handling her recovery in a light, joking manner.

  “After throwing up so much in the last few months, I hate anything that makes me nauseated. I’d be the happiest girl in the world if I never vomited again.”

  “The meds probably aren’t making your stomach any better.”

  She gagged and rolled her eyes. She was so sick of feeling sick. But hey, she was alive. “I can’t wait for the general wooziness to go away.”

  “Well, your numbers are going down so they might actually remove the drains tomorrow.”

  She hoped so. “I feel like I have a bomb strapped to me and I could detonate at any second.”

  He chuckled. “Here, take these.”

  Mmm... more medicine.

  She accepted the pills and water, wincing as her arms struggled to lift the bottle. She was still quite weak.

  “How about I help you in the shower and we get you cleaned up?”

  Her stomach locked as everything inside of her protested. The idea of warm water rejuvenating her skin and cleaning her body was tempting, but the experience was tainted. Despite the awkwardness of sitting on a chair lacking the strength to wash her own
body, there was the dominating fear of seeing her body uncovered.

  It wasn’t hers.

  Still, she needed to bathe and she needed to accept that this was what she had. Swallowing, she nodded. After days of sleeping awkwardly on the couch, accidentally dribbling soup on her pajamas, sweating, and all sorts of other stuff that made her want to shower, she put her dignity aside and braced herself.

  Riley carefully helped her rise and held her elbow as she shuffled to the bathroom at a crippled turtle’s pace.

  “Come on, slow poke,” she joked and he laughed. “Meep! Meep! I’m like the roadrunner.” They continued shuffling down the hall.

  “A snail knocks on a door,” he said, providing entertainment for their long ten-foot journey. “A guy opens it, sees the snail, and yells get out of here as he kicks the snail to the other side of the fence.” He paused as they turned into the bathroom. “A year later the snail knocks again and says, what was that about?”

  She snorted and giggled at his corny joke as he carefully lowered her to the toilet seat so she could catch her breath. She was absolutely exhausted. “I’m just gonna nap here while you get the water going.”

  Shutting her eyes, she clung to the light mood, knowing the moment her shirt came off she’d be devastated all over again. Deep breaths still hurt, even with the pain meds, and getting upset would do her no favors.

  The pipes hissed as water sprayed into the shower. Riley disappeared for a second as the bathroom slowly clouded with steam. He returned a moment later in a pair of shorts.

  “Okay, let’s get this shirt off.” He was so incredible, so helpful. She watched as he carefully unbuttoned her shirt, gentle and mindful of all the tubes.

  “Up you go.” She carefully stood and he removed her pants and panties, sliding a towel on the toilet seat before she lowered her body again, sitting in only her compression bra.

  Now for the hardest part.

  The Velcro peeled apart like a scrape of pride ripping away. Her eyes closed as she braced herself once more. Each time it got a little easier, but at the same time her body remained so alien the process of viewing the changes ranked as excruciating.

  The straps unhooked over the shoulder and the tight bra fell away. There was absolutely no sensation where the breast tissue had been removed.

  “These look good I think,” he whispered, gently peeling back one of the butterfly bandages. For all his gentle care, she couldn’t feel his touch—a disarming realization every time.

  She told herself not to look and though her head remained straight, her eyes wandered. Slowly, her chin tilted and there was her chest, vacant and battered. She saw a bit of her incisions through the bandages, but not much.

  Her head turned away. Still not ready.

  Riley slipped a lanyard over her neck and hooked it to her tubes for support. He did everything she needed done in order to bathe. Once she was sitting in her trusty plastic chair, he climbed in behind her and helped her get clean.

  This is what normal couples do, right?

  She suddenly laughed and laughed some more.

  I have no hair, no breasts, no eyelashes, no nipples...

  The laughter twisted sharply in her chest and escaped as a silent sob. Fuck. She didn’t want to cry.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded, keeping her head down and eyes shut tight.

  Rinsing off the remaining suds, he shut off the water. A towel draped over her shoulders. Either he didn’t realize she was crying or he respected that sometimes she just needed to cry.

  How was he dealing with this? She knew he loved her. She loved him too, and if he were sick she’d figure out a way to manage her limits in order to help him. But how was he doing everything so well and not obliterating whatever attraction was still left? She was mangled, yet every chance he got he told her she was beautiful. How?

  Her hair would eventually grow back and the scars would fade. The expanders in her chest would gradually get filled with saline and eventually be replaced with implants. She wouldn’t look like this forever, but how much of her raw self would have to be exposed before all the allure was gone?

  Riley wasn’t a superficial person, but he was human. It was unnatural for a man to deal with all of this. She couldn’t remember the last time they had sex and at present the idea of sex was debilitating. What if they never had sex again?

  Her chest ached as she breathed deeply. All the pretty promises in the world couldn’t prepare a woman for this level of acceptance. She was still a woman, but she’d been defeminized to an unrecognizable point and she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel pretty again—no matter how many times he told her otherwise.

  Her tears fell in silence as he dried and dressed her like a broken doll. She frowned when he massaged something slimy into her arms. “What is that?”

  “Coconut oil.”

  She sniffled. Didn’t he know she was on the verge of mental collapse? “Are you making me into a daiquiri?”

  Wagging his brows, he shot her a cocky grin. “I could drink you up, but you’re not ready for my parasol yet.”

  She giggled and the pain in her heart eased. “Why am I getting a coconut rub down?”

  “It’s good for your skin. I threw all your lotions away.”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “They’re all filled with bullshit like sodium laurel sulfate, parabens, formaldehyde, and crap that’s bad for you.”

  “Ew, formaldehyde? Like, what they use to embalm dead people?”

  “Yup.” He pushed up her pajama pants and rubbed down her leg.

  “That’s disgusting.”

  He gave a dry laugh. “The one with the most crap in it had a pink ribbon on the label. That’s disgusting.”

  She continued to frown as he greased her up like a Thanksgiving turkey. When had he become so educated on this stuff? She didn’t even know what a laurel sulf-whatever was. She supposed he had a lot of free time watching her sleep over the past one hundred days. He might have skimmed an article or two.

  The more she thought about the lotion with the pink ribbon—she knew exactly which one he was talking about, because she picked it up right before she found the lump—the more pissed off she became. “That should be illegal.”

  “Yeah, it should.” He dried his hands on a towel. “Good as new.”

  Hardly. She smiled. “Thank you. I smell like the beach.”

  Pampered and clean, he helped her lurch back to the couch where he freshened the pillows and blankets and they settled in for a movie marathon. She didn’t make it through the opening credits.

  ****

  “I can’t believe this weather,” Emma announced, breathing in the sunshine as it warmed her shoulders through her sweatshirt. Reclined in a beach chair on the roof, she worked on upping her vitamin D.

  Rarity grinned as she mixed together a bin of horseshit, which was infringing on the fresh air. “I’m so glad to see this winter end.”

  The breeze tickled her nose as the unpleasant aroma wafted over to her. “Now, tell me again, why are you playing in poo?”

  “Not just poo. Good, certified organic poo I had shipped from a farm in Pennsylvania. I’m going to mix it with compost and use it to start our garden. Next year we’ll use our own compost. I’m collecting it over there in that bin.”

  Again, the gaps in Emma’s memory were brought to her attention. “You’re going to grow food in the poo and garbage?”

  “It’s the best fertilizer there is. Would you rather buy food that was treated with carcinogenic pesticides and herbicides? This stuff’s as clean as it gets.”

  Emma laughed. “Poop?”

  “Organic poop,” Rarity corrected. “What good’s a vegetable if it’s been treated with chemicals that make us sick. Everything we grow will be clean and one hundred percent natural.”

  “What are you talking about?” Vegetables were good. They regenerated cells. Doody was dirty.

  “Trust me. I’ve read up on it. The things they’re p
utting on our produce is the same shit the government uses in chemical warfare. It’s disgusting and I refuse to give up my veggies, so I’m growing our own. Then we don’t have to worry.”

  “That can’t be true.” The FDA would never let farmers get away with such a thing. And why wasn’t it on the news if their food was being poisoned?

  Rarity snorted. “Don’t underestimate the power of greed. GMOs are making farmers tons of money. No one cares that they’re messing with the natural cycle of nature and possibly costing people their lives.”

  Two months ago she’d never thought twice about a GMO. To be honest, she wasn’t sure if they were something she should be buying or shouldn’t. They lived in a world where technology was good, so genetically modifying an organism just sounded like a great advance in science.

  “So GMOs are bad?”

  “Depends who you talk to, but in my personal opinion, there’s nothing good about chemical agriculture.”

  “What was wrong with regular vegetables? They didn’t always put stuff like that on them.”

  “The chemicals keep the bugs away. More crops equal more money,” Rarity hissed, a look of disgust clear on her face. “Forget that they’re stripping the minerals out of our food, minerals our bodies need to survive. The term cide as in pesticide, literally means kill. If it’s under our kitchen sink you wouldn’t drink it, right? Well, we’ve been ingesting those lethal toxins for years, toxins that have been linked to birth defects, nerve damage, and cancer, all by eating supposedly healthy foods.”

  “Who’s letting them do that?”

  “Most people don’t realize it’s being done. They think organic living is just some hay brained hippie thing, but it’s the only way to guarantee food hasn’t been tainted.”

  Emma frowned as anger filled her. Not only was she among the ignorant population that wasn’t aware of this, she might have actually been affected by it. “All non-organic produce is chemically treated?” That couldn’t be right.

  “Not all, but until they change the laws and make farmers label their produce with warnings, it’s anyone’s guess. Food’s supposed to be medicine, but they’ve turned it into poison. It’s sick—literally—which is why I’m growing our own.”