“Cancer.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’ve got some early results saying the likelihood is slim. Slim to none!”
“Your thinking is that if she did—if you can find out that she does, then—”
“Yes! Then at least what they did won’t be for nothing. If they fucked up thinking she had it, maybe they fucked up thinking she doesn’t. You know, I play this game, this things could be worse game in my head, I’m trolling the Internet — that evil woman in Massachusetts who had an autistic son with non-Hodgkin’s. She wouldn’t give him his meds because she couldn’t stand caring for him anymore, she wanted him to die. And the housewife who got staph, one of those weird catastrophic infections, while she was in a coma the doctors told the husband she was going to die unless they chopped off her arms and legs & the husband had to decide right there. He finally said Yeah, you know, let’s do it. And when she woke up, she was so grateful, she said all she wanted was to watch their baby grow!
“Phoebe! That woman had kids, she’d been sexual. She’d given boys & babies & men her breasts. . she’d been suckled & felt up. Every girl remembers the first time she was felt up. Do you? Do you remember the first time you were felt up? Telma won’t. Telma won’t remember because Telma won’t ever have that experience — my baby’s never going to be felt up! She’ll never be able to put on a bikini in the summer, I don’t care what kind of fucking surgery they do, Phoebe, she will never be able to know what it’s like when you finally get tits & you walk across the sand & all the eyes are on you, the boys are looking, that time of your life when you catch yourself in the mirror and you love what you see… I used to get hickies on my tits, Phoebe! Do not talk to me about prosthetics & fucking skin flaps! It’s like fucking Auschwitz, like they’re experimenting——[crying now]——cutting into her again! It isn’t FAIR. It isn’t———[screams, then]——they went in there, Phoebe, I’ll never forget that day, they went in there &——took her little——took her little titties & all the lymph nodes… those assholes! Mutherfuckers! Making themselves saints, everyone kowtowing & worshipping, O God Bless you, doctor, you saved her life, you’re helping all the children—to live!… to live! To LIVE with the scars of your fucking sick torture—God Bless and may God fuck you and YOUR children, may God turn your babies into monsters—butchering my baby, it’s a fucking freakshow over there! O Phoebe! What a fool I am! I didn’t get a second opinion, why didn’t I, I should’ve gotten a second opinion——”
“Remember that word ‘should,’ you know we need to be careful when we use that word. When I hear should—”
“I’m sick of hearing that! Should should should should should! Everyone gets so fucking militant about should & should have, everyone wants to fucking punish you for using the word! Well should have is probably the single most important word or phrase or whatever in the English Language! I’m going to use it until I die! — I remember when they said she didn’t need chemo or radiation I was crying I was thanking them! What an idiot… [crying now for two full minutes, then] & they were right, Phoebe, they were right, she didn’t need chemo, she didn’t need radiation, she didn’t need anything! All of those dinners, those $500 a plate benefits, at the Hilton, at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Telma even performed, everyone on the medical team honored, one by one, year by year, the dinners & the standing ovations! The smug smiles of those high-flying butchers! That Michael Jackson Conrad doctor looks like fucking Dr. House next to those sick mutherfuckers! And it’s my fault this happened———don’t you try and tell me it isn’t, Phoebe! Don’t you dare! Because I should have just pulled her out of there. I’m not a mother, I’m as bad as them! I have no maternal instincts, if I had maternal instincts, I would never have let this happen! Never! I’m as sick and fucked as that woman who withheld the medicine from her son! To kill him! Do you want to know how fucked up I am? How selfish & fucked up? The last few days I’ve actually been worrying what people will think of me when this comes out, & you better believe it’s going to come out, I’ll make sure of that because I’m going to bring them down. I’ve actually been worrying that people will think I’m a terrible mother, I know how people are, they’ll go on the internet & blog about how it could have been prevented—if the parent—the MOM—had only done her homework… & they’ll be right! I’ve even been worrying what Telma is going to think of me too, you know, she’s going to HATE me——don’t you try & tell me she won’t, Phoebe, it’s her right, don’t take away her right——or worse, what if she goes into this whole resentment thing, which will be her right, but she never really mentions it because she’s that kind of kid, such a good, sweet kid, but it’s there, her mommy let her down, her mommy let them remove her breasts, her mommy let them steal her youth, her mommy stole her youth, the doctors & her mommy stole her beauty… you know what she’s being set up for? She’s being set up to be a drug addict. A maimed drug addict… at 18, the surgeries begin… how many surgeries will it take to make her whole again? How many, Phoebe! A million fucking surgeries will never make her whole———don’t ask me how I know, Phoebe, don’t you ask me that! And there she is, with the skin graphs not taking, or maybe infections—‘complications’—whatever—& she’s angry, angry at me as she should be, angry at the world, they give her pain pills for the surgeries, she’s depressed anyway, she’s being set up, these stories do not end well—”
Gwen had exhausted herself, & Phoebe called for her to be calm. She told Gwen she was glad she had cried, but now she wanted her to take some deep breaths. Which Gwen did.
“You know, I don’t see Telma as an addict.” It was the only thing Phoebe could grab hold of; the rest was just too big. “I’ve worked with many, many children, & I don’t see that for Telma.”
“You don’t know what can happen, you don’t know, how could you, no one knows… O! Did I tell you what the woman said when they handed her the urn with her kid’s ashes? She said, ‘God is good.’ God is good. That’s what she said, Phoebe.”