Illustration by April dela Noche Milne
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There are five of us, all sisters. The oldest and the youngest were born almost exactly a decade apart: They are connected by a special kind of love.
The turning point in our relationships arrived unexpectedly, during an ordinary conversation about what to wear to a Christmas party. The oldest sister had this expensive little black dress that fit exactly right, a dress we’d all seen and admired. She was giving it away. Any one of us would have taken it, but she offered it to the youngest sister. A gift.
She tried on the dress while we watched. It was tight. It took two of us to close the zipper while she flattened her breasts against her chest. She’d never had children, never breastfed, her breasts were big, firm and beautiful. The joy of the gift made her vow to lose 10 pounds. I’ll be healthier, she said. It’ll be good for me she said. You’ll be jealous of how I’m going to look at the Christmas party. We all shrugged, not caring if she ever lost weight. Not really believing she would. But we named it the LBD Diet and offered up plenty of unsolicited advice on how to lose weight. Like sisters do.
The dieting made her tired, cranky, cold. Her hands were especially cold. Seven weeks in, eight pounds lighter, she joked that almost all the weight had come off her breasts. They’d shrunk and gone all soft. Her bra was loose, the cups gaping. What the hell, she asked. The rest of us, with already soft breasts, laughed and teased her of more softness to come. By December, she’d lost 12 pounds. She wore the dress to the party. It fit perfectly. She looked gorgeous.
Days later, on a winter night, she tucked her cold right hand across her chest, inside her bra, to warm it. Skin to skin. And there it was, on the outside of her left breast, a lump. And panic. She mentioned it to me two days later in a restaurant. In the middle of dinner, she said come with me to the bathroom, I want to show you something. (I am the second oldest, a nurse by profession, the keeper of secrets and bearer of private joys and sorrows.) Now? I asked. Now, she said. Sitting on a toilet, behind a closed door, she lifted her shirt, guided my hand to her breast. Feel. Right there. My fingers, skilled from a lifetime of feeling fleshy things, easily found it. Is that a lump? she asked. It is, I nodded. It’s a lump. A quiet panic filled the small space. My questions: Does it hurt? Are there any other changes? Have you seen a doctor? When was your last mammogram? Are you tired? Have you lost weight? Of course she had.
I reassured her that it was probably nothing. But it was nearly as wide and half as long as my pinky finger. It travelled along a duct. It was close to a bone. It didn’t feel like nothing. We looked hard at each other. My hand still on her breast, no longer feeling the lump. Just holding. Healing. Hoping. Unspoken fear and unwavering support. She promised to see a doctor. I promised to go with her. She tucked back into her bra, pulled down her shirt, wiped away tears, rearranged her face. We walked back to the table with all the gracelessness of two people pretending everything’s fine. There was a burning in my chest. On the left. Right next to her lump. Right next to my heart.
What happened next could fill a thousand pages. The consultations, biopsies, diagnosis, the double mastectomy, the pain, the drains, radiation, a flat-scarred chest, reconstruction, infections, exhaustion, so many tears. So much fear. How her husband loved her right through it. It doesn’t matter, he told her. It’s your thighs I love anyway. Drugs made her go through early menopause. She was the youngest, the one who never did anything first. We teased, listened, laughed, reassured. But it broke our hearts. The healing of her body and mind seemed to take forever. Her beautiful bright light dimmed.
But this isn’t a story about all that. At some point, my youngest sister realized it was the little black dress that set the chain of events in motion: the diet, the weight loss, the cold hands, a soft breast that revealed a hidden lump. That little black dress from her oldest sister was the gift of a lifetime, she said. It was the gift of life. There has always been a special bond between them. The three of us in the middle listened in silence, knowing we are loved just a little bit less. But we don’t mind. Because their love is our love too. It’s critical to our sisterhood.
Years later, the LBD hangs in the back of a closet. She only wore it once. The weight regained; the breasts rebuilt; it no longer fits. But it will not be thrown away. It is a testament to the enduring power of sisterhood. And a reminder that even in the darkest of times, love in the form of the perfect little black dress can light the way.
Chris Rokosh lives in Calgary.