Page 98 of Four Weekends and a Funeral

She hands me her napkin as tears stream down my face. I blow my nose into it pitifully. “My mom did, and I was supposed to probably, someday get cancer. And now I probably won’t. I can’t shake this feeling that I cheated.”

Chelsea shakes her head, her eyes filling with water. “You didn’t cheat, Al.”

“Maybe. But my mom beat cancer, and she’s still consumed by it because of me. It’s all we talk about. How much she doesn’t want to see me go through chemo. How I can mitigate my risk until I never have to worry about it. But I want to be someone who deserves it, like Sam. Sam deserved his life.”

Mara reaches across the table to take my hand firmly in hers. “What happened to Sam was a horrible accident—and it has nothing to do with you—but, I’m sorry, ‘mitigating your risk’? Is that what we’re calling having a fucking mastectomy, Al? You had a scary diagnosis and made the decision to take control of your life at a pretty big cost. You want to talk about earning things? You did something hard and brave, and you have more than earned the life you have.”

I’ve never liked when people call me brave for making a cautious medical decision. But from my forthright friend, it doesn’t sound like a sympathy card from the hereditary-cancer section of Hallmark—it sounds like a badge of honor.

“You have to call your therapist. Today. We’re not taking no for an answer,” Chelsea says.

I lean my head on Chelsea’s shoulder. Mara leaves her side of the booth and scooches in next to me. I close my eyes, feeling safe and still for the first time today.

“Do you ever feel like you’re doing life completely wrong?” I ask shakily.

Chelsea’s shoulders jostle my head when she lets out a puff of air that’s equal parts laughter and tears. “Yes. Constantly.”

“I have a lot of opinions on how other people are living their lives, but my own?” Mara shakes her head with a smile. “I’m sorry if I made it worse by trying to control everything. I know how I can be—it’s very helpful in most areas of my life, but I didn’t see that I was doing that to you. I’m sorry for that, but you need to tell me when I’m going too far. You have to stop doing things because you think it’s what you should do and silently keeping a scorecard.”

I lob my head from Chelsea’s shoulder to Mara’s. “I think I can handle that.”

We eat too many waffles, and I’m consumed by that fizzy, silly feeling I only have around my best friends—that intoxicating invincibility of being known, understood, and loved as the most beautiful, brilliant idiot the world has ever seen. No one else, not even Adam, could make me feel so lovably ridiculous as these two weirdos.

26

How to Eat, Pray, Love Your Way Through Minnesota

“What do you want to talk about today?”

It’s how my therapist, Denise, starts every session, though we rarely stay with the benign topic I present for long. This Thursday lunchtime session, just two weeks after my friend-tervention, is no exception. In the last two weeks, we’ve met five times, discussing BRCA, Sam, and everything leading up to my full Into the Wild at the Mall of America. The two of us have dissected my relationship with my mom, now that I’m headed home for Christmas in a few days.

We’ve also discussed Adam, but the hurt feels too close up to look at it with any clarity. If therapy is a pair of binoculars, my breakup with Adam is a tree trunk two inches in front of my nose.

But today, I don’t want to talk about him, so I broach a more palatable subject. “I’m supposed to go on vacation next month, hiking through the Patagonian Andes.”

“Supposed to…,” she repeats with a smile from her Scalamandré zebra-print chair. Denise’s office aesthetic is Mental Health Whimsy, as if Wes Anderson and Esther Perel collaborated on a collection for Anthropologie. “What makes you say ‘supposed to’?”

“It’s supposed to be an incredible experience. Anyone would want to go on an adventure like this.” My lips curve up in one of those unconvincing smiles that Adam can spot a mile away.

“Do you want to go on an adventure like that?”

“I should want to. I know I shouldn’t do things just because I should want to, but I’m worried that if I pass up on this trip, I’ll always regret it.”

Denise is ramping up to something, but her poker face offers no clues. “Why is that?”

To stall for time, I take a sip of water. “I get that this trip isn’t me, but I still want to like stuff like this more. I don’t want to feel guilty for squandering an opportunity just because I won’t enjoy the trip itself.”

The word guilty rings in my brain like a bell, and I know we’ll be pivoting to my many other issues now.

Denise hears it too, but her face remains placid. “And what are you feeling guilty for in this instance?” she asks.

My eyes find the pilling fabric on my sweater sleeve. “Same as always, I guess. For being me. For being a homebody when I should want excitement and spontaneity.”

“And there’s a greater value to excitement and spontaneity than contentment?”

“Isn’t there?” I ask.

Her brow furrows curiously. “I generally don’t rank feelings.”

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