A Touch of Passion (boxed set romance bundle)

by Uvi Poznansky

  During medical leave, daily life changed in addition to what having cancer had imposed upon Harley. The children were back in school again, including Devon in pre-kindergarten. Fran came by the first few days to help out, but by Wednesday, five days post-op, Harley wanted to take over. The house was empty for five hours each morning, longer than it had been in the years since Devon was born. Fran hesitated about taking time off.

  “You’ll be stuck here soon enough when I go back to work,” Harley said. “Enjoy your freedom while you can.”

  There were still rounds of chemotherapy to look forward to, as well as daily radiation. When Harley felt well enough, her sister Melissa came by with electric clippers, taking care of Harley’s hair problem in one maneuver.

  “There,” Harley said, satisfied. “No more hair all over my bed and clogging the drain.” She rubbed her hand over her scalp, afraid to look in the mirror. “How do I look?”

  Melissa critiqued her sister, hands folded over her pregnant belly. “Like a cross between a high fashion model and a starvation victim. How much weight have you lost, anyway?” Harley moved to the scale, kicking off her shoes and got on, Melissa peering over her shoulder.

  “Yikes,” Harley said, frowning. “One fifteen.”

  “You’ve lost ten pounds? What the hell? Has your husband said anything?” Melissa said, shocked. Her sister, normally on the thin side couldn’t afford to lose more weight. “Have you had much nausea with the chemo? Because I’ve never heard you complain.”

  “Not really,” she answered. “I don’t think he notices. It’s because I’m not eating. Nothing appeals to me.”

  “Well, you need to knock it off. I’m telling Fran to force feed you.”

  Harley laughed. “Oh, God, don’t do that,” she replied. “I’ll be more conscientious about eating.”

  The last thing she wanted; her lack of appetite to be general conversation among Jason’s relatives.

  Communication between Jason and Harley had changed, too. Their background in nursing should have prepared the couple for the upheaval in their lives the diagnosis triggered, but expertise in their patient’s lives didn’t necessarily mean they could apply it to their own. He was exhausted from working, but she was rested from being at home, healing. She didn’t notice it when she was working, but now his inattention was obvious. Because of the potential loss of income if she had to stay out longer than her sick time and short term disability covered, he was logging in more overtime, planning for the eventuality that she might not be able to work. It was a tough scenario, but a realistic one. And it wasn’t something they openly discussed, Jason wanting her to heal in an atmosphere of tranquility.

  As far as Harley was concerned, she wanted to focus on a cure, but didn’t know what more she could do besides have her breast removed and the chemo and radiation. She had a healthy lifestyle before the diagnosis. Holistic treatments suggested raw, vegan diets, or colon cleansings, elixirs and concoctions mixed by naturalists, all things she was leery of undertaking, especially with her weight a potential issue.

  By the end of the first week after surgery, the family was ready to hole up in the house with the doors locked. Fran, Melissa and neighbors had provided meals; a new movie the girls wanted to see came out in DVD. The weather even cooperated, rainy and cool. Fall was on its way.

  Together on the oversized couch, Devon and Tina curled up in one recliner while everyone else had their own. It was like old times, a normal weekend activity. Jason was soon snoring in his recliner, and by midnight, the girls slept, too. Only Harley was awake, the volume down so low she had to strain to hear it. Looking over her family, the nebulous notion she’d built up of their security teetered on the brink of collapse. How long did she have? The computer said on average, three years. Would she be alive for Angie’s high school graduation in less than three years? Or would she be fighting for her life and only last until spring?

  The people she’d encountered on her weekly medical visits repeated the same, vague factoids she could get on the internet. Three years survival rate for eighty-two percent. Three years screamed volumes. She wanted more than three years. Devon would only be seven in three years. Remembering that age in the other girls, seven was a year of boogeymen. Losing a parent at seven, especially a mother might be insurmountable. Growing up in a household with a father in a wheelchair had its own brand of issues for Harley. She would try to emulate the strength and the normalcy her parents provided for the children but she wanted more than three years to do so.

  At her next oncology appointment, she asked Dr. Michaels how long she had. He squirmed a little, fussing with imaginary items on the counter behind him.

  “Great, that answers my question,” she replied petulantly. He turned to her quickly with a frown.

  “I just want to get it right, Harley. We have pat answers for patients who are too fragile to hear the truth. I don’t want to give you a pat answer. All I have are statistics, percentages and years and numbers, which mean nothing, because you could be on the high end of a range of numbers.”

  “Look, I know all that. I know the cancer is in my liver and how it lowers my chances for survival. What’s the worst case scenario?”

  “I’m not going there,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not fair to you. You could walk out onto Broad Street and get slammed by a cab.”

  “I’ve read the average lifespan with stage IV is three years,” she said, looking him in the eye. Dr. Michaels kept his face neutral while silently cursing the computer.

  “I’d say for you, as quickly as you acted and your general health, three years is a good minimum.” Sighing, Harley could see her chance of surviving cancer was a crapshoot, like all of life.

  “Look. Take one day at a time as we should all be doing. Enjoy your family and if you feel up to it, go back to work. Get rid of the clutter in your life, both animate and inanimate.” She’d started decluttering since that fateful night when Jason touched her breast and this whole ordeal began.

  “I can think of a few people I don’t need to keep around,” she said. He nodded, understanding.

  “Me, too,” he said. Taking her hand, he looked her straight in the eye this time. “Harley, you have my word, I’ll be honest with you. Right now there’s every reason to think you have good odds.”

  “So hope for the best and plan for the worst,” she said.

  “Plan smart,” he replied, correcting her. “You probably already have things in place in case you and your husband were to meet a tragic end, right?”

  “Yep. Ever since the first kid was born.”

  “Well, there you go. You’re planning for the future.” She nodded her head, hoping he was right.

  That night, she was going to look at her chest for the first time. It had been almost two weeks since surgery. She’d gone back to Andy’s office for a dressing change and more recently, to have the drain removed. Both instances, she asked Jason to wait outside in the waiting room. She wasn’t ready for him to see her wound with an audience, objectively like a patient on the OR table. This was her body. Her breasts had played a role in their intimate life all these years. The demise of one of them deserved his full attention, alone, in privacy.

  After dinner, she excused herself to take a shower. Jason came up to her before she could get away.

  “Do you need any help?” he asked, sweetly. But she shook her head.

  “I need to do this alone,” she answered. He understood what was going to happen. She’d been bathing in the tub to keep the dressings dry, a large rectangle of plastic wrap spread over it. Removing her dressing without looking, she wanted it at least clean the first time she looked. The area was numb, nerves cut along with tissue both good and diseased. Averting her eyes, she stepped into the shower after allowing the water to run. Turning it down to a sprinkle, she was afraid the driving stream would be painful, but it didn’t feel like anything, a prickly feeling like a limb having gone to sleep about as annoying as it got.

  Lat
hering up a washcloth, she didn’t think she could tolerate feeling the area with her bare hands, like discovering a new body part. Remembering the first post-partum shower, she did the same thing, not touching her body, afraid the foreign shaved parts would be grotesque.

  “You’re a nurse,” she said softly. “Get over with the weirdness.” But she couldn’t help it. Reaching very slowly up to the missing breast with the washcloth, she touched her skin and the same, part numb, part prickly sensation arose. There was nothing there. For the first time, she felt sorry for herself. It wasn’t bad enough that she was going to die long before her time, but she’d die maimed, too. It’s just a breast, her inner voice said. What’s the sudden big deal? It was never just a breast to her though. As a thirteen-year-old, the other girls in her class were wearing bras, little stretchy garments that didn’t provide much but a sense of pride. They were growing up. Harley ran home the first time she saw one of the bras and begged Maryanne to buy her own.

  “You don’t need one,” Maryanne said caustically. “You’ll have plenty of time to wear a bra and then you’ll hate it.”

  But she never did. The first thing Harley did in the morning was put on a bra and the last thing she did at night, even after brushing her teeth, was take it off. Harley bowed her head and wept. Her breasts were useful; a source of food for four babies, the balancing commodity for her large rear-end. “You’re proportioned,” her sisters used to say. “Harley’s thin, but she’s got that booty.” Her breasts were part of her, like her small, pointed nose and her tiny hands, her red hair.

  “Get over it,” she repeated, turning in the shower to allow the water to rinse soap suds off. She reached to turn the faucet off with her right hand and automatically her left hand came up to her absent breast to protect it, a force of habit developed over the past two weeks. But in the shower there wasn’t the padding of the dressing, and the unfamiliar flatness, with a ridge of scar tissue surprised her. Quickly pulling it away, she reached for her towel. All things in due time, she said to herself. Minute by minute, as determination overcame fear, she would make decisions.

  Avoiding the mirror, she dried off and put underpants and a t-shirt on. The knit cotton was soft, washed many times, but against her absent breast, she felt the same numb prickliness.

  “Can I come in?” It was Jason, standing on the other side of the door. She put the towel around her bald head and reached for the knob.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Just checking on you,” he said, looking at her t-shirt, the absence of a dressing obvious on the affected side, which was now flat.

  “I’m okay,” she replied. Both holding back from the other, she wondered how long it would take before someone broke the ice. She was afraid to be the one to do it because it was taking everything she had to keep it together. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she reached up to do a maneuver Jason watched her do for years; bend at the waist to towel dry her hair. But when she put her hands up to the towel, she remembered there was nothing to dry. He watched her, holding his breath.

  “Oops,” she said, pulling the towel off, her bald head jarring after getting used to a bandana worn Carmen Miranda style. The towel on the floor between her feet, her face and body spoke defeat loud and clear. Jason searched for just the right words to say, settling on silence after all. He sat on the edge of the bed next to her and took her hand, waiting. Sighing, Harley bit her lip, determined not to cry.

  “I’m afraid,” she said softly. “Afraid of getting sick, afraid of my altered body. I’m afraid of dying.” He put his arm around her, hugging her, but trying not to smoother her.

  “What’s your biggest worry, right now?”

  “Leaving you and the girls,” Harley said without hesitation.

  “I can’t tell you not to think about it yet. It’s probably terrifying for you. But if it happens, it won’t be overnight.” Harley looked up at him, putting her fingers to the corner of her eye where a tear threatened to leak out.

  “True,” she said.

  “What’s the next worry?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid to look at my chest,” she admitted. “I’ve seen hundreds of mastectomies.”

  “Can I look at it?” Jason asked. “Maybe showing me will take some of the fear out of it for you.”

  Folding her arms over her chest, Harley popped up off the bed, shaking her head. “No, Jason. I can’t do this.” She put her hands over her face and started to cry, unable to control it. She felt silly and childish, and justified, all in one.

  “Take your time, Harley,” he said, pulling her to him. “You never have to look if you don’t want to.” He knew that was a lie, that if they were going to have any kind of intimate relationship she was going to have to deal with her fear.

  “Don’t go to work now and tell all your buddies about this,” she said. “‘My wife won’t show me her surgery. She’s acting like a child.’”

  “Harley, I would never repeat this to anyone. You have to believe me.” She twisted away from him, unreasonable anger toward him surfacing. Recognizing there might be something else at play, she tried to speak rationally.

  “Jason, maybe the chemo is doing a number on me, or maybe it’s just having cancer that is freaking me out. Right now, I just want to be left alone. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt your feelings.” Releasing her, now it was his turn to give in to defeat, and she saw it, but was powerless to go to him.

  “What can I do?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said, sighing. “It’s something I need to work out on my own.”

  She wished he’d fall to his knees and cry out I can’t live without you! Don’t push me away. It was clear she didn’t know what she wanted.

  “No, there is something,” she replied. “Don’t give up on me.” Pulling her over again, he reached up to caress her bald head, liking the picky sensation of new hair growing in already.

  “Never,” he promised.

  Chapter 7

  With the four girls in school, there wasn’t much to do around the house. Harley could go back to work the following week, but she was glad she was home now, savoring every second, acting as her daughters’ dressing room aide, ironing tops, and braiding hair. Even little Devon got into the act, asking to wear specific clothing, emulating Tina.

  “Tina looks like a princess,” she said. “I want to look just like her.”

  “I’ll remember that the next time we shop for your clothes,” Harley said, combing her long hair into a ponytail.

  Jumping up and down Devon was excited about the prospect of shopping, easy for her mother to see whom she was taking after. “I want to go shopping after school!” Harley remembered the other three after a day of nursery school. They came into the house making, a beeline for the couch exhausted, often falling asleep until dinner.

  “We’ll see how you feel when I pick you up after school.” She was going to drive them; banishing guilt because she’d worked.

  That first week of school, Devon’s foray into pre-kindergarten tolerated and enjoyed, was the beginning of a new chapter in Harley’s life. Instead of taking it for granted that her daughters would always have her doing what made their lives easier, she would begin teaching them to accomplish it themselves. One morning after she returned from dropping them off at three different schools, she had one goal in mind; make a list of the things she felt were most important for them to be able to do on their own and for each other.

  The issues that she harped on included drinking enough water, taking care of their skin, good hygiene, flossing; all the stuff mothers bugged their kids about. But if there was a possibility she wouldn’t be there to remind them, the next best thing would be to put it writing. Harley wrote a journal of sorts to each girl, using bound books with blank pages. Worries included Devon starting her period without her mother there to help her. She’d ask the older girls if they would help Devon, prefacing the message with, Just in case I’m gone when it happens, I hope you’ll help Devon with the same help
you received. Remind her to do yoga to sooth cramps. When she wrote that sentence, she laughed, deliberately not spelling out Downward Facing Dog, which was the position most helpful for cramps, because she understood it might spark irreverent humor and she wanted her girls to take the suggestions seriously. When Bennie suffered from bad cramps just a few months before Harley’s surgery, Harley led an impromptu yoga class in the family room that little Devon participated in. She’d do it again soon and have Jason take pictures for the journals.

  Returning to work part-time was difficult simply because of having to leave her daughters again, even though Fran would be there in the morning to get them off and in the afternoon to greet them getting off the bus. The first day, she was grateful her nurse manager had her come in later in the morning so she wasn’t bombarded with well-wishers. It was going to be difficult enough with eyes looking at her chest. A rubbery breast prosthesis pinned in her bra worked, weighing about the same at her natural breast, so there was something in the cup to balance her body. It felt natural. But the looks were still there.

  Jason had conveyed the daily hellos colleagues sent her when she was still at home. The same nurses sought her out to welcome her back to work. A new dilemma confronted her as she tried to keep her focus on what was happening in the recovery room; the temptation to spy on Jason in the OR would be overwhelming if she let it take root. They’d worked together for years, why would it be different now. Well, dummy, for one thing because he might be a free man soon. The train of thought was addictive. If she died, whom would Jason end up with? He wouldn’t be single for long, she was sure of it; he was handsome and hot, successful and kind. But there wasn’t one single woman in the OR that she’d want for a stepmother to her girls.

  Going back to work was good for her; it would be foolish to take a man like Jason for granted with young, single nurses swirling around him like bees, vying for his attention right under her nose, wouldn’t it? One in particular caught her eye, an attractive twenty-something whose assignment was in the same room Jason worked in on her first day back.