Page 102 of Born to be Wilder

The number sat in my chest, and I felt it clearly for the first time without flinching.

One in four.

One in four chances that in some quiet moment, in some ordinary year I was supposed to have, it would come back. That I would hear those words again.

You have breast cancer.

That I would be back at the beginning of this, or worse… at the end of it.

Twenty-five percent chance.

A loaded gun. One chamber filled. Spin the cylinder and see what happens.

The song changed, the familiar notes floating up around us, pouring out of the speakers built into our float. The notes vibrated inside me, building as I closed my eyes and let them work their way into my blood.

“Tina Turner! I love this song!” Marge shouted, whipping some beads around over her head as the lyrics to “The Best” started up.

I looked down at my breasts. The pink sequins covering them caught the light and threw it back in a thousand directions.

I thought about fourteen-year-old Alice, wishes answered, stuffing socks replaced at last. About every costume, every stage, every dress. About my daughter. About Alejandro’s hands. About the painting, quiet in its box on Bertha’s shelf, the woman in it beautiful and brave and terrified.

Thank you, I thought. You have been a huge part of me. But you turned on me, and I know now what I have to do. I intend to be here, with them, with the ones I love, for a very long time, and that means I have to do it without you.

The float moved through the crowd, and the music played and the beads flew. And just like that, I knew the moment had come… the reason I had wanted to be here at Mardi Gras.

Ready for one last show, girls?

Hope and grief and bravery and sadness collided inside me as I truly accepted my fate, and I reached down and slipped my costume off my shoulders one by one.

Then, with a deep breath, I pulled down the top, the open air hitting my breasts, forcing a rush of air into my lungs as I closed my eyes and let them shine one last time.

The crowd went wild, men and women screaming as I raised my arms up high, the lights on our float illuminating my bare skin. I started to dance, to move, to let my body be complete one last time before I tore it apart to save myself.

The chorus of the song hit, and I smiled as I spun, wild and free and topless and celebrating my choice to take the long, hard path.

The right path.

“Oh my God! Go girl!” Diamond shouted behind me.

The widows spun to look, three mouths dropping open as they saw me.

“Whooooo! You did it! Yes!” Marge screamed. Then she threw a set of beads at me.

I caught them mid-spin, kicking my leg up high as I smiled back at her.

“You’re incredible!” Sylvie cried out, her eyes welling with tears.

Doris clapped, screaming and cheering as she watched me reclaim my power right there on that float in front of thousands of people.

And then the beads came from every direction.

Dozens of them, hundreds, even, cascading down on me like rain. From the streets, from the balconies, a deluge of purple and green and gold that caught the light and fell around me like an offering to the gods.

I stood in it, hands raised, breasts free, and I let them fall around me.

Then the tears fell too.

Not the kind I’d been fighting for weeks, not the ones I’d held back in doctors’ offices and quiet RV bathrooms and fortune teller’s chair.