My love, the waiting room of Radiology Associateswith its post-industrial art gallery vibe replete with diecast warehouse ducts does little to assuage my estimate of the pain that you might endure when the needles come out and they poke at the nodule in your throat from six different angles.Though I’m rooms away, I try to be cool so you’ll relax, that you might not flinch, that the needles won’t pinch or burn, won’t find anything super unusual, won’t leave you reeling from the un-expected warmth of a porcupine scarf. If I were to be honest, I’d fall apart. Therefore, I revoke my worst worryand we will never be separate for more than the seventy-two hours it takes for you to indulge in a girl’s weekend with your old friends at Shell Point. I visualize health: I see the sweat on the cold beer we share by a poolwith our respective novels, their pages’ cornersdarkened a bit by suntan lotion fingerprints. I see grandkids and canoe tripsdown the Sopchoppy and a red Dodgeat the boat ramp on Mount Beasor Road. Weddings, of course, and graduations.And even if I sometimes see you and me with bad hips and the same arthritisthat our grandparents endured,I see us happy, nonetheless, not worriedabout biopsies or sickness or chemofatigue, fingers too numb to work pajama buttons. I can almost feel a calm sweeping in through the brash light of the waiting room’s wall-sized window, noon sun glaring off the parking lotwith its short, newly planted trees. Inside, the lobby chair is stiff, not madeto lean back, so in my mind it’s a puffed-up recliner where a person can find some comfort waiting for their name to be called, or for the onethey love to return with a bag of ice nestled between clavicle and chin.
