A Part Of Me:

by Karin Aharon

  “I’m literally counting the days until my due date. I can’t believe I have three months left,” I told her at lunch, while eating our usual order from our favorite restaurant.

  “How can you not like sushi, I don’t get it.” Sarah dipped her sushi in the sauce and swallowed it whole.

  “You know that in any case, I can’t have sushi during pregnancy, right?” The things she said would surprise me sometimes.

  “Of course I know.” She smiled and had a piece of seaweed stuck between her teeth. Sarah was one of those women who could eat whatever they wanted. She would probably look gorgeous even if she were pregnant with twins.

  “There are so many things that I don’t like. Not just sushi. I’m really fed up with that idiot, Nathan. He keeps commenting about my hours and giving me the stink-eye. He’s probably waiting for me to come back from my maternity leave and then he’ll fire me first chance he gets. If I could afford it, I wouldn’t even come back.” I signaled her to clean her teeth.

  “Time will fly, don’t worry.” Everything was simple for Sarah. “You’re a wonderful lawyer, the clients love you, he won’t fire you so easily.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I took a bite and felt my phone vibrating in my pocket.

  Mom called to tell me she had a checkup at the hospital.

  “What did they say?” I signaled Sarah that we would sit together later, and I walked quickly to my room. I closed the door behind me. If I needed to cry, it’s better having the door closed.

  “I took a genetic test, because they say that this type of cancer is mostly genetic.”

  “But no one in our family had ovarian cancer.”

  “True, but that gene also has to do with breast cancer, and my cousin has the gene and she had breast cancer.” I remembered her telling me that her cousin had breast cancer and was a carrier of the breast cancer gene. At the time, mom was nervous and asked her regular physician what she should do. He said it wasn’t carried on from the father’s side which is why she shouldn’t worry. However, mom made sure to get checked on a regular basis. She never skipped her annual mammography and made sure that all the women she knew got checked.

  “So, they took a blood sample and we’re waiting for the results,” she continued, because I didn’t reply.

  “OK.” I didn’t know what to say. I immediately thought about myself and the baby girl I was carrying. What does that mean for us?

  “If it’s positive you need to take the test too,” she said, as if she knew what I was thinking about.

  “OK, I’ll talk to you later, I need to finish some things if I want to get home on time.” I left the door closed and leaned on it. How did this happen? Did I pass on cancer genes to our daughter? I remembered hearing it could be genetic, but no one had said anything until now. I assumed it had nothing to do with us.

  The tears started pouring, and I felt that my room, which was small as it is, was closing in on me. I took a deep breath and dialed Michael’s number.

  “Hey, do you have a minute?” I asked quietly.

  “Five minutes and then I’m off to a hearing. What’s going on?”

  “Listen, I don’t know what to do.” I stopped for a second, took another breath, and for the first time understood what it meant to be chocked up with tears. I could barely speak. “Mom was at the hospital today, she had a checkup. They told her that ovarian cancer could sometimes be genetic.”

  “Is hers genetic?”

  “They don’t know yet, they took the sample today,” I said with a whisper. I felt my body was deflated like a balloon. I wanted to go home, get into bed and hide from the world.

  “When will she have the results?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So we’ll wait and hope for the best. There’s a chance it’s negative, right?”

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled, “but if she has it, I’m sure I have it too. I’m sure I’ll have cancer.” I felt how the universe was slowly marking my forehead with a small red circle, actually, marking my ovaries.

  “Aren’t you going too far? You don’t know if she even has it.”

  Michael wasn’t usually an optimist. He would repress. One of those people who never thought of trouble until it came, and even then, they would face it heroically, without pitying themselves. You could say our approaches were slightly different. I never thought of myself as a pessimist, but rather a realist. But to me, the moment they thought it was genetic, all possible and scary scenarios ran through my mind. I could see myself bald and hooked up to an IV.

  “I don’t need to wait for results. It’s surely genetic and I’m sure I have it.”

  “Let’s wait a bit, Shirley. You know that no matter what happens, we’ll handle it and everything will be fine.”

  “I don’t know what to do with myself.”

  “There’s nothing you can do. We’ll just have to wait.”

  “OK,” I replied and blew my nose, but the tears wouldn’t stop. I didn’t know how I’d survive the wait. It was like waiting for a verdict, only this time, it wasn’t about who was entitled for rent or owned the property, it was my life. And anyways, things were already bad, what else could go wrong?

  I heard Nathan shouting outside. “Where’s Shirley?”

  As usual, he ignored the fact that he could call my line rather than shout in the hall.

  “OK, we’ll talk later. Nathan is shouting.” I hung up without waiting for his response. In any case, there was nothing he could say that would cheer me up.

  I wiped my face with some left-over tissues I found in my bag. It’s a good thing I never wore makeup, otherwise I would have looked like a clown.

  When I felt I ran out of choices, I went to Nathan’s room. He was going over his emails. “We got a response on the ALUT case,” he said without lifting his gaze, “go over it and write a reference. They’re coming in tomorrow to go over it.”

  “Can’t we postpone the meeting? We have at least two weeks. Why does it have to be tomorrow?” I took the big white envelope from his table, and took the depositions out. Why is everything so urgent? Why is everything last minute here? Since Adam started daycare, I didn’t have Ida, so I had to leave the office on time.

  “Do what you think is best. You’re responsible for this case.”

  Some responsibility, I thought to myself. You even schedule my meetings for me, “I’ll take care of it.”

  I was at the door when Nathan surprised me and asked, “How’s your mother?”

  “Relatively OK,” I peeked in and he even looked at my direction. “She’s suffering from the chemo’s side effects. But she has three more rounds and that’s it.”

  “Good, send her my regards.”

  “Sure, thanks.” I smiled and walked away. I had already forgotten that he could be nice. He was actually pleasant during Adam’s pregnancy. He even sent me flowers and a card after I gave birth. His attitude changed when I came back and couldn’t work fourteen hours a day like I did before.

  I came back home exhausted. Again. I took the papers with me and couldn’t make much progress because I fell asleep a few minutes after Adam did. Again.

  Chapter 11

  Mom’s treatments were over and we felt as if everything was behind us. Two weeks after her last treatment, I was admitted for the second time at the hospital delivery room. I came for a check up and wasn’t even thinking I would go into labor. Since I didn’t bring my hospital bag with me, I had to send mom to bring my things from home. She joined me at the delivery room and made it fifteen minutes before Ariel was born. Luckily, Gabi’s flight back to Australia was that evening, so he got to see baby Ariel on his way to the airport.

  The first days were intense as it usually is when a new baby arrives. This time, we were home after two days. It was a healing experience after Adam’s birth.

  When Adam was born, the
y immediately took him to the E.R. and he was in NICU for a week. We were anxious and my heart literally hurt when I returned home without him. I sent Michael back to the hospital to be with Adam and I stayed at home depressed and nervous. We didn’t have the joy of having a newborn, only existential anxiety. Every morning we would drive to the hospital just to be with him at NICU until the evening. I lost all my pregnancy weight just from the stress, so there were some advantages to that situation.

  Things were different with Ariel. She also didn’t like to sleep much, but she was much easier to take care of. However, having the two of them together was too hard and I needed help during the afternoon. A lovely young babysitter named Natalie came over almost every afternoon and saved me from a definite meltdown.

  When Sarah came over, I told her about the labor like a man would tell of his experiences from the battlefield. “The moment the anesthesiologist came in, I felt I was in labor. He didn’t even give me the epidural and Ariel jumped out. It was insanely scary and hurt like hell, but then it all ended. Michael’s neck was all covered with scratches. Mom was so excited she kept filming the entire time; even things no one should see.”

  “It’s unbelievable you had a natural birth.” Ariel was laying in her crib in the living room and Sarah was caressing her hand.

  “Trust me, if I had time I would have taken the epidural. But the anesthesiologist wouldn’t give me anything at that point. Next time I’ll ask for the epidural the moment I get into the delivery room, just to be on the safe side.”

  Sarah laughed and Ariel flinched. “What big eyes she has,” Sarah said, as if this was the first baby she had ever seen.

  “You sound like little red riding hood. That’s how babies are, when they’re born, they’re cute and with time they grow out of it.”

  Ariel started crying and Adam (who suddenly seemed so big compared to her), covered his ears with his hands and walked away. Sarah picked up Ariel and tried calming her down.

  “He’s having a hard time with all this change,” I whispered to Sarah, “he keeps complaining that her screaming hurts his ears.”

  “She really is a screamer.” Sarah handed Ariel to me. “He’ll get used to her in no time. When my sister was born I almost threw her out the window. Good thing my parents were there.” Sarah spread on the sofa and sighed, “I’m completely exhausted.”

  “Don’t go there,” I told her when Ariel finally latched on. “I think Adam would have been happy if we took her back to the hospital. She’s a nuisance to him.”

  Sarah napped lazily on the sofa and I looked at her with envy. Not only because she was able to fall asleep in any situation, but also because she had an inner calmness that I could only dream of.

  Chapter 12

  When mom would come over to help, it was usually straight after work. The first thing she would do was take off her wig. She was OK during the winter but in the summer, she got really hot. On the other hand, she still didn’t feel comfortable going to work without it. I think she hid behind it, since it saved her from a lot of questions.

  Adam loved mom and when she came over, he wanted to be only with her. They had a special bond. He even made his first steps at 10 months when he was with her. He practically ran to her.

  One evening, when Ariel was still latched on and Adam was silently drinking his bottle, mom sat next to me and gently caressed Ariel’s head.

  “She’s so sweet this one,” she said, and then looked at me somewhat concerned. “I wonder who she will look like when she grows up.”

  “Right.” I looked at Ariel, who was focused on breastfeeding.

  “I wonder if I’ll be here to see her,” she mumbled, as if to herself. “We can’t tell.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. Her words pierced through my heart. The chemotherapy side effects were still visible on her face; it was still puffy and yellow. Every checkup we were praying and crossing our fingers, we didn’t know what to expect. Our lives had changed in a heartbeat and we didn’t know yet the results of the genetic tests. Although it was clear that ovarian cancer was lethal without having any genetic background, I was still anxious for mom, but also for myself and Ariel.

  “You’ll be fine,” I said and hoped for all of our sakes that I was right. “I can also see that your hair is growing back.” I tried changing the conversation to a more certain topic.

  “Yes,” mom caressed the fuzz growing on her bald head, “but it’ll take some time.” She yawned and got up to leave. I could see she was tired. “I think I’ll be going.”

  She kissed me and Ariel, Adam ran to hug her with his free arm, as she kissed him goodbye. When she opened the door Adam started shouting “Cathy, Cathy, hat” (she didn’t want to be called grandma just yet, she thought she was too young for that title). Mom turned around and Adam threw his bottle and ran to the dining table. He grabbed the wig and ran to her.

  “Thank you sweetie.” She leaned over and kissed him.

  When she closed the door behind her, Adam still stood there hoping she might come back.

  Chapter 13

  I was trying to get some sleep so I turned my phone off. When I gave up on my attempts at falling asleep, I saw I had five missed calls from mom.

  “What happened?” I asked the moment she picked up.

  Mom lingered a bit, and then said, almost whispering. “The test results came in, and they’re positive.”

  “Meaning you have that gene?”

  “Yes, and now you need to take the test.”

  “I’ll check with Dr. Gidron as to where I should take the test,” I replied after a few moments of silence. “I’m supposed to see him this Monday. Ariel woke up, we’ll talk later.” I remembered Gidron telling me he was a member of the genetic tests committee. I never thought I would meet him there.

  On my way to Ariel’s room, I dialed Michael, but after two rings I reached his voice mail. He texted me that he can’t talk. Ariel was screaming by the time I reached her bed. She received me with a smile and enthusiastic waves, but I had a hard time smiling back at her. I changed her diaper as if on autopilot. I tried taking in what mom had said, that it was my turn to be tested.

  I can’t run away from it any longer. I felt everything turning black, except for Ariel who was wiggling in my arms.

  The phone rang and Michael sounded more tired than usual. “What’s going on? I’m in the middle of a hearing and we only have a few minutes break.” Ariel kept us up all night and Michael didn’t have the privilege of napping during the day.

  “Mom got her test results today, and like I told you, she’s a carrier,” I said and started to cry in despair. Ariel stopped moving and gave me a weird look, because crying was supposed to be her thing.

  “It still doesn’t mean anything about you. There’s still a good chance that you aren’t a carrier of the gene,” Michael said, and it seemed the conversation woke him up a bit.

  “Of course it does! If she has the gene, then so do I.” Ariel really started going crazy in my arms so I sat with her on the bed.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I’m sure that I got it from her. We’re alike when it comes to these things, and don’t start to telling me about statistics and numbers. I hate statistics! When I die you can tell everybody all about the statistics.”

  “I realize that you’re stressed, but I have to get back to the courtroom. We’ll talk about it at home in the evening.” I heard a muffled sound of people growing louder.

  “Bye,” I replied and threw the phone on the bed, as if it was responsible for the bad news I got.

  I took Ariel to the living room and breastfed her. My hands were shaking a lot and I felt hot, but I couldn’t reach the AC remote control. I sat on the sofa crying and waited for her to finish breastfeeding. I sent Sarah a text not to come. I couldn’t see anyone, especially hearing another person telling me, ‘it’s going to
be fine.’

  I placed Ariel on her colorful activity mat and she rolled from side to side, happy she was able to reach the toys that were scattered around her. What are the chances that I don’t have this gene? Why should I be this lucky? Mom told me that when she was pregnant, a friend took her to a strange fortune-teller, who told her she would have a daughter and her daughter would have a good fortune in life. From the way things were going, it seemed she had it wrong, big time.

  We spoke every now and then about why mom got sick. It was this need we had, to find who or what to blame. But we hadn’t found anything yet. Mom thought it had to do with the pressure she was under these last few years. The test revealed the real cause. She was predestined for this fate. The target was marked around her from the moment she was born, actually, even before that.

  What really infuriated me were all these thoughts running through my head about how we could have prevented it. I wanted to find the idiot doctor who had told her it wasn’t genetic, and yell at him that it was all his fault. He was the person to blame because this fate could have been prevented. I was overwhelmed with anger. If she would have known she would have done something about it. I was mad that in one moment, without thinking, that doctor had condemned her.

  Ariel’s scream stopped me from writing my hypothetical complaint letter against that doctor in my head. I found her stuck under the table, after having reached the cool floor. It turns out she already knew how to roll over.

  Chapter 14

  By the time I was supposed to have my genetic consultation, it seemed that everything was back to normal. Gabi decided he was fed up with living alone in Australia, so he quit his job and returned to Israel. Adam was happy at Tammy’s daycare, and Ariel was with Ida the nanny, which allowed me to stay at the office a little longer.

  On the day of the consultation meeting, Natalie babysat Ariel and Adam and I drove straight from the office to the clinic. Dr. Gidron’s presence calmed me down a little and I was thankful that he was the one who introduced my family history. After the geneticist neatly drew my family tree, she said that in any case I needed to take the test because mom was a carrier.