The Instant When Everything is Perfect by Jessica Barksdale Inclan Read Free Book Online Page B

soul? Someone who might understand what had happened to him? Her face made him want to smile and cry. He recognized her, a complete stranger. “There you are,” he almost said. “Where in the hell have you been?”
     
    Robert sits back in his chair, shaking his head. Right. His parted twin walked in into one of his exam rooms, just like that. Maybe it was just that the daughter seemed like someone who would never ask for a procedure as trivial as a forehead peel or liposuction or a chin implant? Someone who would never swish into his office, sit down, and talk about having a “little cosmetic maintenance.”
     
    He doesn’t know what his reaction was all about, but when he’d seen her—what was her name? Had he written it on the chart?--she reminded him of a taste, something like caramel, rich and thick and sweet.
     
    For the first time that day, Robert Groszmann, M.D. is excited to see a patient.
     
     
     
    He tries not to look at the daughter, Mia Alden, too often. He is conscious of focusing on Sally while she talks, nodding, blinking once, twice, and then turning to Mia for a quick, natural affirmation of Sally’s words. Mia is never looking at him, her eyes on Sally’s face, but he can tell that she sees his glance, her peripheral vision catching his gaze. Her face seems flushed, high colored. He looks back at Sally, listens, wondering how old Mia is. Her skin shows, as the current lotion ads say, the signs of aging. Small crow’s feet by her eyes, the slight grooves running from her nose to lips, lines that will slowly deepen with time. But she has no eyelid droop, no need for a Blepharoplasty; no excess skin under her chin. She’s had no work done, not ever.
     
    She’s not wearing a wedding ring, and there is no tan line where one should be. But her last name is different than Sally’s. So maybe she’s divorced or separated. Robert stares at his chart, wondering what went wrong with her marriage. Or, he thinks, she just doesn’t wear a ring. A choice? She’s not old enough to be a hippie, throwing out all social norms. Perhaps she just took it off for today, to send him a message.
     
    She’s got to be thirty-eight. Maybe forty?
     
    “So what do you think?” Sally glares at him, her dark eyes glinting.
     
    Robert pushes his hair back, blinks, reads the actual words he wrote on the chart, and then looks up. “What I’m hearing you say is that you do not like the way a mastectomy deformity looks.”
     
    “God no! All those lumps and bumps in the wrong places.”
     
    “Those people,” Robert says, “were fat. Overweight. Considerably. You wouldn’t have a result like that.”
     
    Mia laughs, shifts in her chair. “Lucky it’s you and not me, Mom.”
     
    Robert swallows, unable to believe he said the word fat. Why not obese? Overweight? Clinical terms. He glances at Mia, who is still blushing.
     
    Sally waves her hand. “It’s just so ugly. But I can live with it until I heal from the first surgery. Then I want it done. An A cup, just like we discussed.”
     
    Robert writes down what she says, knowing that the appointment is just about over. He won’t see Sally Tillier or Mia Alden for months now, not until after Sally has had her mastectomy, undergone chemo or radiation treatments, and healed. Maybe, as sometimes happens, a woman as practical and conscientious as Sally Tillier would decide that her mastectomy deformity is quite livable, doable, the prostheses just fine. With her new bra and the soft, malleable prosthetics, no one knows her secret. She could walk and travel and even date without anyone knowing. After the cancer, the idea of additional surgery, further hospitalization and office visits and worry might seem ridiculous.
     
    Robert might get a call or a message from Sally, saying she’s changed her mind. Or she might just never call again, the idea of even stepping in the building too much to bear.
     
    Robert taps his pen on the chart, nodding. “I think that’s