Posted: Jun 20, 08 8:36am
It wasn't until she woke back home, in the dark, that she finally understood; they were gone forever. Gone bye-bye, as Brianna used to say when she was a toddler and learning the difference between peek-a-boo and down the drain. Ana lay still, huddled on her side of the new California king, and tried not to weep.
She began to count the things that didn't hurt: Brianna's graduation and Teddy's new job, her newly marbled kitchen counters, the golden mutt snuffling near by. The television downstairs muttered and she heard Joe rummaging in the fridge. He wouldn't be asking for mac and cheese or brownies for awhile; the neighbors had been generous while she was gone.
"Breathe deeply," she heard the therapist say, "It'll help." "Help what?" had been Ana's response.
She gasped and coughed as the shiv struck, inside out, hot and hard.
Boo-boo had been Teddy's favorite word. "Look, mama," he'd say, pointing at the pillow dense sky, "Boo-boos!" She'd laugh and fling him high so he could touch the clouds, his squeals filling the air.
The vacant space outside her ribs throbbed. Big boo-boos, her missing breasts, down the drain.
