Mending Petals
Mary Arguelles
The whole thing seemed rather clandestine—online ordering, unmarked manila envelope in the mail, blinds closed on our windows. They were only tattoos, after all. Practice tattoos.
My husband, Frank, and I emptied them onto the dining room table and lined them up from smallest to biggest: first the dragon, then the phoenix, then the bright peony.
“Well, Mary, which one do you want to try first?” Frank asked.
“I don’t know. The small one I guess.”
Frank picked up the stylized dragon and began trimming around the edges with a scissors. “I need a washcloth.”
“Here,” I said, handing him a moistened dish rag. The decorative bottles and the rocks from Iceland that normally graced our kitchen windowsill had been moved to the kitchen counter to facilitate the closing of the blinds. Something about that disarray proved strangely provocative, and I could feel my heart pounding as I pulled off my shirt.
“Take off the bra.”
I unhooked the back of the bra and let the straps fall from my shoulders. The left cup listed to one side from the prosthetic breast pocketed within before the whole affair dropped to the floor with a thud.
“In the center?”
“I guess.”
Frank placed the dragon vertically so that it bisected the horizontal mastectomy scar. He pressed hard with the washcloth and it hurt. Well, not exactly pain; more like hypersensitivity and maddening numbness.
“I don’t know about getting a real one,” I said, wincing.
“Up to you,” he said, removing the washcloth and peeling back the paper. “Why don’t you go check it out in the mirror.”
Naked from the waist up, I sized up the tattoo in the mirror. “Not enough impact,” I said. “I think the tattoo needs to challenge the right breast, not cower in its shadow.”
“Good point.”
Only Frank would say “good point” to a statement as crazy as that.
Ever since I declined reconstruction, I’ve pondered getting a tattoo. I’m not exactly the tattoo type—whatever that means. I teach Sunday School at the Episcopal Church. I was over 30 when I got my ears pierced and thought that was pretty daring.
The thing is, if I did get a tattoo, I’d like to be able to show it. I don’t know what our local city ordinances are but I have my doubts as to whether I could walk into town topless. Though I’m not sure I understand what the objection would be. The specter of a bare breast?
If I’d had a double, could I mow the grass shirtless like the fellows in the neighborhood? This is something I would really love to do, but probably couldn’t. It would probably be disturbing to people. Does the landscape of a leveled female chest fill us with longing for what once was? Is it like going to the old neighborhood where razed houses have given way to vacant lots? Remember when there were breasts there? Yeah, that was the time…
Maybe there’s some sort of impropriety about it. A grown woman is still a woman, regardless of the presence or absence of breasts and can’t just go around topless because…well…because men will imagine breasts. Two mounds will appear like mirages in the desert. A double is a walking provocative optical illusion.
What was that story in the Iceland guidebook? The arctic air makes you see things: He thought it was a waterfall, but it was really a walrus.
Frank is a history buff, and every time he hears the word reconstruction (which he’s heard a lot lately), he immediately thinks of the post-Civil War period.
“I can’t help it,” he said to me one time. “It’s just what the word means to me.”
I wonder if he imagines my left and right breast as the North and the South. My left breast has apparently seceded from the union. Maybe the best tattoo would be a rebel flag.
I don’t even know why I want a tattoo. Maybe to commemorate the missing breast. Maybe to re-define beauty. Maybe just to cover the scar. All I know is something about the space screams canvas. I want messages there. Graffiti even. My broken wrist years ago spoke to me with Nice Going, Mare and Tough Break every time I looked at my cast. A yellow and orange magic-markered daisy graced my thumb with the words: Sending Mending Petals Your Way.
Tough Break—I guess so. I don’t have any of the risk factors for breast cancer. You know the ones: children after the age of 30, late menopause, family history. I’m just a woman, growing older. That’s enough.
The dragon’s been on a week and it’s still good as new. I want to take it off, though, so I can move on to the next one—the phoenix—the one that I think will be a little better because it’s bigger.
I use baby oil to take it off as directed. It’s not working so well, but our baby oil is as old as our 36 year-old son, so that’s probably why. I start to wonder about where exactly these tattoos come from, and pray that they’re not toxic or, worse, carcinogenic. Now that would be ironic.
I finally get the dragon off after scrubbing my skin raw. The next morning we go for the phoenix. No drawing of the blinds this time; we’ve become pros. When Frank peels off the paper, we can see right away that this tattoo gives a much more balanced appearance.
I like the symbolism of the phoenix rising from the ashes, of course, but I’m actually more intrigued by the two Chinese characters that sit just under my collarbone. What do they mean? I ask my son who knows some Chinese.
“Mom, I can speak and understand some,” he says, “but characters are hard. There’s so many of them, and I can’t exactly Google them because how am I supposed to type them in?”
I’m disappointed by this news. I wanted him to know right away. I wanted the characters to be cryptic and mystical: This bird with burnt feathers flies higher than before, which roughly translated could mean, Don’t worry, kid, everything will come out all right.
Or maybe they mean something banal, because the artist knows we can’t read Chinese. Drink Bubble Tea. Or, Your Mother Wears Black Sneakers to Sunday School.
Or maybe they are just doodles and mean nothing at all.
A week goes by, and the phoenix is still solid, but I’m anxious to try the last of the three – the peony. Though my search for the meaning of the Chinese characters with the phoenix was unsuccessful, I did stumble across the many meanings of the peony in the tattoo realm: good fortune and beauty; devil-may-care risk-taking; the fleeting and fragile nature of existence. That’s a lot for one pink flower.
Frank and I go to the drug store to get some fresh baby oil. This is all we buy, and the check-out girl gives us a look that bothers me. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I just hope she thinks we’re going on a tanning spree and I don’t know why I care.
We’re standing in the kitchen again—our tattoo place. The peony is really quite large, and Frank is having a hard time making it cover the whole area without the paper buckling.
“How high do you want it? Should it climb onto your collar bone?”
“Yeah, I want it to show a little bit.”
“The part that’s hard is under your armpit here. There’s a kind of ravine under my arm where the surgeon took out 12 lymph nodes.
“Well, just do the best you can.”
“Here goes.” Frank rubs the damp cloth on it, then slowly pulls back the paper,
“This part’s tricky,” he says, carefully peeling the area underneath my armpit. Something about his tenderness strikes me, and I feel like crying. Certain parts of the body—the back of the neck, the underarm—are so vulnerable. My flat chest tells one story; the hollow in my armpit tells the rest.
“Wow!” he says, as he steps back to admire his handiwork. “Now that really pops!”
I dash to the mirror to check out the third installment. The peony almost looks three-dimensional, although I don’t know why or how. The scar seems to disappear in the petals. It sounds crazy, but this peony gives the missing breast a run for its money.
The next day I wear a lower cut shirt to church so that the peony will peek over the edge. Three of the other Sunday School teachers immediately gather round.
“Mary, did you get a tattoo?”
“That’s a lot of color. It must have taken a long time.”
They all think it’s real! I’m tempted to lie and make up a story about a well-muscled, bearded tattoo artist who transformed my mastectomy site into a masterpiece. As he worked, I’d told him my stories of chemo and hair loss, of numb feet and peeling palms. He’ listened intently, inking the tales into my flesh.
“It’s not real,” I cave. The peony has yet to make me daring. “Here, I’ll show you.”
All four of us women duck into the junior choir room. Something about the way the door clicks shut brings on that clandestine feeling again. I lean forward and tug down on the shirt and the top of my bra together so they can see the full view.
“Fabulous. Beautiful. Spectacular.” They all chime. All I keep thinking is: some Sunday School lesson.
Three more tattoos arrived in the mail: an even bolder peony; a smaller more delicate peony; and one more shot at the phoenix. For now, I’m committed to temporary tattoos.
“You don’t have to get a real one,” Frank tells me.
“I know, but I feel like I’d be making more of a statement with a real tattoo.”
“Just what kind of a statement are you trying to make?”
“I don’t know,” I murmur. “Who Needs You? Get Lost? I Win?”
“Why can’t you say that with fake tattoos?”
“Because it shows a lack of commitment. It shows I harbor doubts.”
“Your favorite is the peony,” Frank says, “the symbol of the fragile and fleeting nature of existence. It would be a bit ironic to have that message permanently tattooed to your chest.”
“Cancer loves irony,” I say. “I don’t want to give it any more ideas than it already has.”
Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, daily medications—all have their parts to play in this drama. But when it comes down to the day-to-day, it’s all about head games. It’s about calling cancer’s bluff. It’s about faking cancer out with paper peonies. We shall see.