Sitting in the waiting room,

twenty-four years ago, 

shivering,

not because I was in a hospital gown

2 sizes too small, 

naked underneath from the waist up.

It must have been adrenaline.

Or does that cause sweatiness?

I was freezing, I was never freezing.

Maybe it was the fear that made me cold,

It started as soon as they told me to have a seat and wait, 

just one other woman and me. 

She kept looking at her magazine,

I never saw her turn a page.

A nurse came out and asked me,

in a voice dripping with empathy,

if anyone was with me.

That was when the first tear fell.

That was when I knew.

The lady stopped not reading,

she looked up and said, 

“It will be alright honey”

“But I have a five-year-old” I responded.

She went back to not reading.

I have thought of her many times in these 24 years, 

wondered if she ever read the article she was staring at,

wondered if she snuck it in her handbag,

wondered if she saw a surgeon the next day,

if she was told her breast needed to be removed.

Wondered if they opened her up to cut it off,

then changed their minds,

when they found out they were wrong, 

that it wasn’t cancer.

I have wondered if she still has her breast, 

Wondered if it was alright for her,

Wondered if she is still alive. 

Like me.

Sherri Walker for the Poplar Grove Muse