The ringmaster holds my right hand as we stroll. A clown galumphs on my left. We parade down the hospital corridor following the double, yellow-taped lines to operating theater three. No urgency today. No gurney or wheelchair either. Because, they tell me, this is a standard outpatient procedure.
The questionnaire asked: Have you ever breastfed?
I checked No.
A voice in my head judged me: No wonder there’s poison in your milk ducts.
The questionnaire asked: Have you ever been pregnant?
I hesitated, then checked No.
The voice disapproved: Tsk Tsk.
The ringmaster sports gold sneakers and violet scrubs and chatters nonstop. She’s shorter than me, teensy in fact, which instills neither confidence nor a sense of her competence with forceps and blade, though she comes highly recommended. Her hair is Strawberry Shortcake red shredded to a pixie. She is a surfeit of bubbling cheer, which disarms me.
Welcome to our little corner of the world, she says as we enter the operating room. Her childlike hand whooshes across the tableau. You’re our guest of honor. The clowns and arcade attendants clap. My cheeks sizzle. It’s all I can do not to turn and bolt.
Don’t worry, darlin’. Dolly Parton soothes me in her breathy trill. You’re gonna be just fine. Dolly always knows what to say.
The magician appears in front of me. May I? he asks, whisking open my gauzelike gown. I stand there, exposed, no Venus rising from the sea, just a woman about to be revised. He marks my chest with a Sharpie while his assistants assemble to witness the spectacle. They nod, confer. Looking good, he says. No babies plus no breastfeeding means no sagging, no distended nipples. And hooray: they’re small. He swipes smileys beneath each breast as if to underscore his joy. Later, he will fill the empty flaps with saline-filled sacs and netting. For a fleeting moment I am rapt by this inferred wizardry.
Store bought is fine. I imagine Ina Garten assuring me as she slips slices of truffles and garlic and rosemary between my skin and implants. She massages my newly trussed breasts with extra virgin and a lavish of salt.
How I wish I’d gone topless on Isola Bella last summer.
The ride attendant asks my name and birth date. What procedure I’m about the have. When I hear myself say nipple-sparing mastectomy, suddenly all I can think of is that old SNL skit of Dan Aykroyd parodying Julia Child shouting, Save the liver! I laugh, a swell of tears plopping to the floor. And now you will need a very sharp knife, the comedian continues. I laugh so hard I think I might pee. The attendant steps aside, grinning, pats the operating table. Hop on and let’s buckle you in.
If I’d had a child, maybe I’d have breast fed them.
Maybe their genes would have led them to this same place.
The ringmaster flips a switch. The room purrs to life. I hear plinks of calliope music on a band organ and catch myself looking for the merry-go-round.
My partner and I joked that I’d get double Ds implanted where 34Bs now live.
We kidded that I’d wear a huge blond Dolly Parton wig once the pin-straight chestnut falls out. Sometimes we duetted Islands in the Stream à la Dolly and Kenny Rogers while getting ready for work or emptying the dishwasher. Sometimes it even cracked us up. Sometimes we danced, slow, our heads tucked into each other’s neck, and in that moment, I believed I would survive.
A clown face pops over mine—anesthesia mask flopping from his blue-gloved hand—to tell me the main event will begin shortly and to ask what he can do to make me more comfortable while they prepare—a blanket perhaps?
I answer: Play Jolene.
Catherine Chiarella Domonkos’ short fiction appears or is forthcoming in JMWW, X-R-A-Y, The Citron Review, and Bending Genres among other literary places. It has been selected for Best Small Fictions, nominated for Best Microfiction and longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50. For more, please visit www.catherinechiarelladomonkos.com.
The Disappointed Housewife 