Page 26 of Four Weekends and a Funeral

But since I’ve never met an ultrasound tech who wanted an honest answer during transvaginal chitchat, I say, “Oh, sure!”

Marie starts slow and optimistic, but her movements become more desperate as the time drags on. The wand moves inside me like it’s an oversized couch and I am a doorway, the ultrasound tech the determined moving crew. To the right. No, left. What if we try it at an angle like…? No, push it up from the bottom. Use your back. Pivot!

“Alison, dear. I can’t find your right ovary. Can you lower your leg to the floor so I can try from another angle?” Her eyes crease with a pitying smile.

In this position, I’m poised to make direct eye contact with Marie, something neither of us wants. My pulse quickens as she roots around with greater gusto, and I stare down the painting behind her head—a lake motif so bland it’s as if the room’s designer was worried hotel art would be too provocative.

The procedure eventually ends, and Marie hands me a towel to mop up the leftover gel before leaving me to put my underwear back on.

“Your doctor will review the findings with you over the phone sometime next week,” Marie tells me as she closes the exam room door behind her.

•••

Since my mom artfully pried my appointment time out of me when we last spoke, I should’ve expected she wouldn’t wait for my call. Still, bitterness coils in my chest when I see her name light up the screen before I’ve even unlocked my front door.

“Alison!” she shouts into the receiver. “I don’t have long. I’m on episode two of the Kentucky cult documentary.”

“You called me,” I answer, fiddling with my key in my dead bolt.

I live in a historic brick building in Saint Paul originally renovated to house artists. Now it’s mostly occupied by government workers, young professionals, and the occasional minor league baseball player.

My front door bounces off my tiny entry table when I open it too far. The large windows, high ceilings, and exposed brickwork once made the studio feel spacious and airy when it was empty. It wasn’t until I tried to fit a table into the kitchenette that I discovered a studio was too small a space for an average-sized human to spend most of their waking hours.

Every piece of furniture is nearly touching another piece of furniture, as if I arranged the whole room for the world’s most straightforward game of The Floor Is Lava. I shimmy myself between a kitchen chair and the vintage table I rescued from a rummage sale to hang my coat on a wall hook.

“Right, right,” my mom responds. “It’s just as well. This episode has been about a bunch of people doing yoga in a strip mall. I’m not missing much.”

I toss my keys into a little ceramic bowl. “Next episode, they take over a school board. Then it gets really nuts.”

“Oh, I know them!” I have to pull the phone back from my ear because of the volume of her shriek. “A few years before Emma was born, I went to a meeting. Everyone wore wool scarves inside. It was so odd. I never went back.”

I find this completely unsurprising. My mom was the Forrest Gump of 1980s cults. If a cult was recruiting, my mother had a brief encounter with them. My sister and I have a few theories on this, ranging from benign to conspiratorial—what if Mom is the actual cult leader?

The most likely answer is that my mom is both the perfect and most disastrous recruit. She’s outgoing, she’s trusting, and she wants to please people, but unlike the ideal recruit, she loves herself precisely as she is and has no desire to reach nirvana at your expensive weekend retreat. Also, she detests a sign-up sheet.

When she exhales, I can hear her mentally ramping up to the real purpose of her call. “What were the results of the ultrasound?” Enough small talk.

I kick off my boots one at a time. “And here I thought you’d called to talk about true crime.” I hoped we could have one conversation about something other than my cancer risk, but who was I kidding?

She tuts. “Alison.”

“My doctor hasn’t reviewed the results yet.”

“My doctor always called right away.”

“I’d hope so. You had cancer. I just don’t have boobs.”

I swear I can hear her roll her eyes. When she pauses, I pounce before she can fill the quiet herself. Neither of us has ever been able to hold a silence. It slips between our hands like a wet bar of soap.

“I went on a beautiful prairie hike yesterday after work,” I say to fill space.

“You told Emma you were lost in ‘Murder Field.’ ”

I did tell her that. The thing about the prairie in the early winter: it’s just dead, hard ground. The waterlogged soil turns to solid dirt with the steep drop in temperature. The trees are naked. The sky is gray. It’s the perfect setting to find a body in the cold open of a prestige crime drama, so, naturally, I shared my location with my sister so my family would have closure in the event of my disappearance from the barren wasteland abutting a rural highway.

“I didn’t realize you discussed anything about me aside from the present state of my tubes and ovaries.”

I want to be able to talk to my mom about all aspects of my life—my ambivalence about this job opportunity; my reinsertion into Sam’s life, or death rather; and this overwhelming sense that I’m living all wrong—but since my diagnosis, I haven’t been able to keep her off the topic of removing my body parts like we’re trapped in a continuous game of Operation: Hereditary Cancer Edition.

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