It started like this: with nausea.  

The nausea, a side effect of the chemo. 

Then it was the hair loss. 

Dizziness. Morning sickness. 

There was a mass in my mammary glands. This was not a side effect of the chemo.  

It was a gift from my mother.  

1  

My mom told me I was cursed at birth. She whispered the fact into my ear when the nurses placed me in her arms. Because I was born into a family of women whose nipples entered a room twenty minutes before they did, I stood no chance. From the moment the nurses yanked me out of her womb and snipped my umbilical cord, I was forced to bear the fruit of my mother’s lineage as a mark on my chest.  

When I was younger, my mother always told me my breasts were my best feature. They grew in early. The left one slightly larger than the right. Lopsided. I wasn’t ready for the strain they placed on my back. or the way gravity fought against the metal holding me up, digging and scarring tender flesh. 

By the time I was in eighth grade, my bra was bigger than my head and the wolves at the gas station howled when I walked by. I learned quickly how to wield my flesh like a weapon. I became a hunter, not the hunted.  

When I was in ninth grade and my history teacher wanted to give me an F, I caught his wandering eye in a jar and shook out a B plus.  

When I was sixteen, my mom coached me through my first date. She bought me a new bra, one that was padded, which was strange because I had all the built-in padding I could have ever needed. My mother said it would encourage gravity to leave me alone, that the only thing that should tug my nipples tonight were his lips and his teeth. I barely even remembered the boy’s name anyway, but my mom promised me she’d take me to get my breasts pierced if the date went well.  

My mother said, “Be a good girl, let him touch you. You will enjoy it. This is how you learn.” The date went well, and when the sterilized needle sliced through my puckered nipple in the dark tattoo shop, I clung tight to my mother’s hand.

My breasts got me into college. My breasts got me kicked out of college. They admitted me on a theater scholarship. I felt where the weight of the judge’s gaze landed as I performed. Spoiler, we weren’t making eye contact. I was a seasoned veteran though, and continued through, used to the sharp, prickly feelings of eyes roaming below my neck.  

My mom wasn’t happy about the scholarship at all. She said I should focus on making a family, that acting was a pipe dream, that I wouldn’t make money going to school anyway. Any and all investments for my future were sitting on my chest. It didn’t matter that the thought of having a child sent me spiraling in ways I could not unpack. I just needed to bide my time and wait for someone to act. My first teacher agreed, especially during my one-on-one acting lessons. I skipped classes after that. When the college rescinded my scholarship citing “a lack of talent and dedication,” I accepted my fate and returned home.  

2 

I knew something was wrong when I smelled the oranges. I was allergic to most citrus fruit. They made the acid in my stomach race back up my esophagus, leaving a trail of fire behind. I never kept any in my house. But when I woke up one morning to the powdery, juicy, sweet scent of oranges, I was taken aback. The smell was in the carpets, in my sheets, and I could not find its source, until I looked down. My breasts were dimpled, darkened, and ripe. They felt hardened and rough underneath my fingers. I knew if I took a knife to the center, I’d find perfectly sized juice sacs. I knew if I squeezed hard enough my hands would become sticky from the sweetness forced out of my nipples. I thought I could even see the flavedo through my skin, but maybe that was only a trick of the light.  

I knew something was wrong when I missed my period. Even before my body filled out, my cycles were regular. I shed the lining of my uterus the third week of every month consistently since I was nine. I was an early bloomer in this area as well, so the lack of blood clots on my pad and the lack of an empty yawning ache in my womb told me something wasn’t right. I waited a month before going to the emergency room. I didn’t have insurance and couldn’t afford to lose my mind and empty my bank account over a potential fluke. Especially because my mom would hold any superfluous expenditures against me later. The nurses drew my blood, and a doctor came out and said that it was another C word. Cancer. Alright then.  

Like with everything else, my cancer diagnosis wasn’t about me. It was about my mother. It was about the future kids she probably would never get to dote on. I mean, no one ever even asked if I wanted kids. It was about my future husband who would never get to turn my chest into a pillow even though I hadn’t talked to a man since I was kicked out of college. It was about preserving our family name. Passing my mother and her mother’s DNA forward over and over.  

I thought maybe my cancer was a good thing. Finally, I had something to do, even if it was just being taken care of. Even if it was just clutching my mother’s hand as a nurse took an ultrasound wand to my breasts. My mother, who took me to get my nipples pierced when I was sixteen, now unscrewed the silver bells and pulled them through my skin so they would not interfere with the machines in the hospital. The nurse laughed slightly when she moved the wand through the cool, rapidly warming ultrasound gel on my chest. She searched for tumors and masses, anything that didn’t belong, and found it. The screen reflected a dark almost peanut shaped shadow. As if explaining her mirth, she said it looked almost like a fetus. I guess if I could not give my mother a child, I could at least give her this.  

My doctor told me to keep a list of my side effects, so I did. I was one of the lucky ones. My particular form of cancer was deadly and fast moving but they found it early. Inflammatory breast cancer, I was told. Stole many women away before they knew what was actually happening, I was told. One minute they’d be here, the next, they wouldn’t. Usually gone before the horrors of their diagnosis could properly sink in for them.  

I didn’t consider myself lucky. Never had.  

My first round of chemo went smoothly. I wasn’t too attached to my hair when I shaved it off, but my mother wept and cradled me to her trembling body. She asked if she could keep the hair. She wanted to plant it in her garden and have a piece of her daughter back home always, in the event this disease stole me away. When faced with my mother’s heartbreak, and under her gentle strokes to my newborn scalp, I couldn’t deny the request. Instead, I held my mother tight to me, her head cradled underneath my breast and rocked back and forth with her. The rhythm of my mom’s erratic heartbeat rattled through my bones; I felt the aftershocks for the rest of the week. 

The ammoniacal scent from my toilet was stronger than my nose was used to. The orange smell that filled my mother’s house was replaced now with something sharper and stickier. My piss never smelled like that before, but ever since I heard the C-word, it only grew more fragrant. Now it was enough to make my brain swell and my stomach lurch. The doctors tested my urine and said the bright lime shade meant things were going to be okay. That maybe there was a little more protein than usual, but the chemotherapy was doing its job, and my body was cleaning out the rest. I would need to deal with the ammonia smell until I was cured. It didn’t matter that stepping into the bathroom made me want to vomit up the food that I already couldn’t keep down. It was fine. My mother continued to make me soup and told me to hold my nose when I pissed.  

3  

I knew something was wrong when my breasts tripled in size. Already big, they grew firm and sensitive to the touch. They swelled like a hot air balloon in July. A very dense, very heavy hot air balloon. My left breast grew much larger than the right, though it attempted to keep pace. My mother gave me a pack of peas to keep on my chest. She said the cold would cause the swelling to go down. She said it was probably just a side effect. She said if I needed more help, she would do her duty as a mother and massage my breasts for me. The doctors told me to schedule an ultrasound if I was concerned, and I was, so I scheduled the ultrasound.  

I knew something was wrong when my lower back screamed at me. For a cancer focused on my chest, my lower spine and ribs took the brunt of the pain. The doctors warned me chemotherapy attacked every single cell in my body, but I didn’t expect my ankles to swell in tune with my chest. My mom did end up massaging my feet, since all the frozen goods were stuffed in my bra. 

I knew something was really wrong when my bra leaked profusely in the grocery store. My mother released me from under her watchful gaze, so I was taking my time in this place. I was only supposed to be there to buy more food to serve as soothers until my doctor’s appointment. Instead, my breasts ran like the engine of my car. Liquid poured in rivulets out of tiny holes surrounding my nipple, soaking through my bra and through my shirt and onto the floor. The feeling was like bleeding out from a cut artery but without the pain. Just a focused gush coming from my breasts. A continual gush of light tan, thick liquid. No smell.  

The men in the store all turned to stare in a different way than usual, than they had, replacing the typical desire that lurked in their eyes with horror. Perhaps there was also a mixture of the two. This horrified lust filled look was different. The sharp, prickly feeling I was used to from the weight of their gaze transformed into an itch that threatened to overwhelm. It was like I stepped on a red ant hill. Their eyes raked over my body and burned where they settled to watch the flood. It took thirty minutes for someone to finally decide to ask if I needed help. I needed my mom. The liquid was at my ankles at that point, but I calmed when the EMTs finally arrived and placed me on a gurney and took me to a hospital. I wondered how they would clean up the mess I left behind, if they would use their agape mouths and tongues as mops once I was gone.  

4  

I once told my doctor that I wanted to be awake for any surgeries I needed to have. I didn’t trust the anesthesiologist. I didn’t trust my doctor either. I didn’t trust my mother to watch them. My mother never watched the wolves or the middle school teachers or my college professors or . . . or . . . or . . . I wanted to watch their hands. I wanted to monitor any wandering parts of these people in white coats with sticky gloved fingers. So, when the EMTs brought me to the hospital and laid me out on the operating table like an offering, I was wide awake and bore witness.  

Before they could begin, an errant thought filtered its way into my mind. If I were to die under their scalpel, would someone tie my legs first? Fear like a wave crashed over me. Fear for my corpse. Who would take care of it? Who would make sure that in rigor mortis, I would finally have autonomy? I hoped that maybe the doctors would gift me a mastectomy in death, let science fondle me. I also thought about who would return my body to the ground? Would I be buried in my mother’s garden next to my shaved hair? Who would hold my mother when her tears came?  

There was a storm of doctors surrounding me on the table. When my breasts stopped leaking the nurses began touching me. One placed a stethoscope on the left side of my chest. Another laid ice-cold, gloveless hands on my neck. They gave each other concerned looks. I wanted to say something, but the words were caught in my throat. Instead, I watched as the doctors looked over to my mother instead. I didn’t even notice my mom’s arrival, but there she was, dressed in hospital robes and all. Taking up space. As always. Just like the curse I had inherited from her, her presence weighed on my chest, never far, never light. Always suffocating. 

“There is a double heartbeat.” That was what the doctors said to my mother, not to me, never to me.  

 “We need to cut into her.” My mother nodded her assent. Or rather, her consent.

Something started to move just under my skin as the doctors strapped me down to cut me open. “It’s breached.” 

5 

It ended like this: with a gift from my mother.  

Before the doctors cut into me, my left nipple began to pulsate and throb. One of the nurses stroked my hair, drawing my attention to the fact that I had been sweating profusely. The sweat descended from my brow, leaving a cool trail on my forehead and down to my nose. It dripped onto the top of my lip. I thought about licking it away. Maybe it would bring moisture to the desert that was my tongue, but my mom got to the droplet before I could. The feel of her tongue on me was like that of a cat, jagged, rough, and blunt. It distracted me from whatever the nurse said. I tried to focus, to catch whatever words the nurse attempted to whisper in my ear, but I couldn’t grasp them if I tried. I only caught tiny snatches of whatever information I should have retained.  

“. . . dilated . . . To breathe . . . Not enough time for an epidural.” 

I simply nodded as if I understood. As if I consented. My mother gave her approval too. 

So, they began their procedure. Or tried to.  

 A tiny bloody hand burst out of my throbbing nipple. It grasped around nothing. The doctor, with light force, cut through my dimpled flesh with the scalpel. Having been given localized anesthesia, they told me I should not have been able to feel anything. But I felt the sharp sting of the sterilized scalpel as it cut a blazing trail around my areola. I could do nothing but cling tight to my mother’s hand.  

“Let’s just help her out, you’re doing great mama.”  

The nurse kept whispering that I was fine. That the baby—there was a baby in me— would be okay. They could already count five fingers on one hand (and surely there were five fingers on the other) and ten total toes too in fact. I felt their hands underneath my skin when they yanked the thing out my left breast, the larger one, the lopsided one. What I first assumed to be a tumor was instead a different collection of growing cells. A baby girl. 

It was smaller than my hands, no bigger than my fist. My mother cut the umbilical cord as they laid the babe on my right breast, the one still unmarred, intact, and less swollen, as if my bosom was a casket. As if they would lower us both down into that hole in my mother’s garden, next to my hair. And in that moment, as I looked at this child and the child looked at me, this child with my mother’s face, I was sure I should have felt something beyond the empty weight of my deflated breast. I wondered if she knew that she too was cursed. I wondered if I should maybe whisper some word of warning into her. Instead, I leaned forward and stroked my tongue across the top of the child’s soft, downy scalp and down the center of her nose, to the bow of her lip.