Short Story: The Gertrude Chronicles

The Gertrude Chronicles

By Elizabeth Ballou
QuailBellMagazine.com

The lump in my sister’s armpit was the size of a ripe cherry before she would let herself be taken to the doctor’s. She had fought the idea like McCarthy bearing down on a suspected communist, delivering long dinner lectures about the normality of a gravelly bulge appearing in one’s underarm region.

“It’s just armpit blubber. I’m fat, that’s all,” she said, plucking at fingernailfuls of skin from her thin arms and ramming her face into her chest to create a rippling series of chins. “See, look at all that flab. So shut your mouths, fuckfaces.”

“Language, Claire.”

“Duckfaces.”

“Much better,” crooned my mother, and spooned more spaghetti onto her plate. “Now, eat up, your tumor needs nourishment too.”

“It’s not a tumor!” She speared me with an angry glance. “Back me up here.”

“It’s not a tumor,” I repeated. I stole a look at her armpit. The lump flopped over the sleeve of her strapless summer dress like a flesh-colored stress ball.

“Just trying to lighten the mood!” said Mom, and she whistled her way back into the kitchen.

Claire cleared her throat. “I guess it does look like a—tumor, a little.”

“Yes,” I said, through a mouthful of spaghetti.

“And tumors are generally, you know, bad for one’s health.”

“Yes.”

As my mother came bustling back into the dining room with a tray of fresh  bread, Claire draped herself across her chair as if she were a saint awaiting martyrdom. “Cart me away, bitches.”

She went to the endocrinologist the next week, skipping American History and Physics to let our mother drive her across the river to the other side of town. The endocrinologist prodded at the lump until it bruised into the glorious spectrum of colors seen in a deep winter sunset. She showed this off with great pride as I was typing up the final draft of my University of Chicago application essay, waving her right hand high above her head in order to expose it. In her left she held a sheaf of papers so tightly that her knuckles were going white.

“Isabel,” she told me, “God has recognized that I am truly one of His most humble and virtuous.”

“I’m pretty sure that His most virtuous have more respectable vocabularies,” I said, and kept writing.

“Well, don’t you want to know how?”

“I guess.”

She ballooned her breath in and then out, smiling beatifically. “God,” she said, “has given me a third boob.”

I stopped. “You’re kidding. Right? I mean, you can’t be serious.”

Claire shoved the papers in my face. “Read it and weep, sucker.”

The fleshy lump growing in the patient’s armpit appears to be comprised entirely of breast tissue. This can be attributed to erratic activity of the pituitary gland, causing a hormonal imbalance that seems to be affecting thyroid output and thyrotropin production.

“Well, I’ll be.” I thwacked the papers with my palm. “So you’re saying that Our Lord gifted you with an overactive pituitary.”

“Yeah. This is, like, the stuff of medical textbooks.” She looked down at me from the swooping line of her nose. Although I was one year older, she was one inch taller.

Claire gave the papers to our father that evening with the same pomp. He reclined on the worn blue couch, his hand familiarly rubbing the bald spot on the top of his head as he skimmed the endocrinologist’s jargon. I lounged in the armchair next to him, waiting for Alex Trebek to reveal the answer to Final Jeopardy. “Thyrotropin? Never heard of that.” His gaze flitted back to the evening news report.

“It stimulates the thyroid to produce other hormones. I think.”

“Mmm.” He nibbled at the eraser on the end of his pencil, then changed the channel.

I yelped. “Wait, the category was Ancient Writings—”

“Hush, this is important. Election’s in a month. They’ve redrawn the district lines this year, you know. Virginia state senator elections could be thrown off by that—"

“And then the other hormones regulate tissue growth,” Claire continued. “But they’re not doing any regulating right now, I guess.”

“So McEachin, the Democratic incumbent, could possibly have a disadvantage this year—"

“What this all means is that I am cultivating a third mammary in my armpit, okay?”

“I hear you!” He blinked. The sudden redness of his face contrasted blotchily with the ginger-gray of his hair. “And I am—I mean, any father would be—concerned over the appearance of the, ah, alleged—"

I snorted. “Think we’ve gone beyond ‘alleged’ at this point.”

“All right, the confirmed, ah, anomaly.” He thinned his lips until they turned a cloudy white. “Christ have mercy, this is not my area of expertise.”

We sat without talking, letting the quiet susurrations of the TV’s election report special wash over us. The tapping of our three laptop keyboards in unison created a soft cantata of clacks. Our mother came in and nestled herself into her armchair in the corner, Time magazine clutched in hand.

After the special had finished, our father stood up, straightening his thinning hair. “Damn this election. I’m voting for Perot.”

“He’s not on the ballot, honey,” said our mother without looking up.

“I’m voting for Perot,” he repeated. “Write-ins, you know. Write-ins.”

And he trudged out of the room, leaving us to contemplate the endocrine system and election theory.

***

“Gertrude was sort of a jackass, you know that?”

I opened one eye. “Who?”

“Gertrude.”  Claire held up her copy of Hamlet. The letters forming the title leaked across the cover like ink in water.  “Hamlet’s mother.  She was so…passive. Never stood up for him, or looked into her husband’s death, or whatever.”

I shrugged, staring out the window. It was November, cold enough for our breath to spool out in front of us when we went outside but not cold enough for snow. Drafts moused their way in through cracks in our one hundred-year-old house. Small Dog, our Dachshund the size of a Subway foot-long, whined deep in her throat and leapt into my lap. “That’s a bit simplistic.  She had her hands tied no matter how you look at it. I always felt sorry for her.”

The dog whined again. “Shut up,” said Claire. She sneered.  “And feeling sorry for Gertrude doesn’t make her into a good character. How am I going to write a paper about a person who essentially does fuck-all?”

I buried my hands in Small Dog’s slick fur. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

“That’s exactly the problem. When you only have quotes like that to go on, what are you supposed to do?”

“Are you serious? That quote is like a loaded gun. It implies that Gertrude’s more perceptive than she seems. It implies that she can understand the web of relationships between Ophelia, Hamlet, and herself—if she chooses to. It means that—”

Claire growled, bearlike, and settled herself into the couch. “That’ll be all, thanks.  I can write it on my own, you know.”

I relaxed back into half-sleep. The grandfather clock from the outside hallway ticked away the minutes.

“Gertrude. That’s it.”

“Hmm?”

“My boob! Gertrude!”

Small Dog yipped at the noise of Claire’s voice. I yawned. “Hamlet’s mother and your armpit lump?”

“That’s what I’ll name it. Gertrude. It’s a lumpy kind of name, anyway.”

“It does have a tumor-esque ring to it,” I murmured.

Claire grinned wolfishly, massaging her armpit the way you’d smooth your tongue over a tooth about to fall out. “Damn straight.”

***

March was what my mother called envelope season, even though the Top Twenty-ranking schools I applied to spent far too much of their budgets on glossy, multiracial booklets to send real envelopes anymore. Instead, I meditated in my room for hours each day, legs crossed in lotus pose. My laptop, a hulking five-year-old model I’d named Calliope, rested in the taut bowl between them. Every half-hour, as surely as if it were a variation on a sun salutation, I tapped the refresh button atop my email account with the pad of one finger.

Sometimes my mother would knock. “Is the Great Swami still alive in there?”

“Mmhm.”

“Would she, in her infinite yogic wisdom, like some vegetarian chili?”

I’d crack an eye open. “I don’t want chili. I want an acceptance email.”

“It’s from Whole Foods,” Claire would yell from down the hallway, where she’d blast the Glee soundtrack until the windows vibrated. “You better eat that. Probably cost half Dad’s paycheck.”

“You eat it. Do it for Gertrude.”

Early in the morning, I would fall asleep with my heels still pressing into my thighs, back straight, Calliope’s glow swallowing up the features of my face.

On March 16th, I woke to an email with the headline Check your UChicago account for your admissions decision. I pressed my hands together, feeling a sticky energy gathering between my palms. Then I logged into my account.

Dear Miss Bransford,

We regret to inform you that, though your qualifications are significant, we have placed you on the waitlist for the Class of 2016. At this time, we do not know if we will use the waitlist; therefore, it is difficult to predict your ultimate chances of admission. We would appreciate hearing fr

I closed Calliope and lay in my bed until my alarm clock went off.

Claire didn’t look at me when I told her during breakfast. “Big whoop. Shrug it off and move on.”

My tongue fluttered inside my mouth for a moment. “I…what?”

“It’s not the kiss of death, you know.”

“But it was my top choice—"

“Look, I probably won’t get into JMU next year, okay? Let alone UChicago. Just eat, okay?” She caught my gaze. “And wait a little. You’ll get some acceptances for sure.”

***

She signed the surgery papers in the spring, after my mother had wrestled through a string of doctors who had more pressing surgical matters than removing a third boob. The rest of us watched Gertrude grow as if it were fruit in an orchard: large strawberry to crabapple to plum-sized. “It’s like I’m a damn greenhouse,” Claire told us.

She put her name to that paper with a flourish, as if she were attaching her signature to the Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence. It didn’t matter that she was a minor and my parents’ signatures were scrawled in the lines above. The jagged black lines of her name drew our eyes to it every time we looked.

“What’s it say right there?” said my father after Claire signed it. He picked it up, scanning the pages with his practiced lawyer’s eye. “‘Chance of severing the axillary nerve, which controls the deltoid, teres minor, and triceps brachii muscles?’ Did Dr. Lemarque mention that today?”

“Yeah.” Claire squirmed under our gaze. “But it’s a less than 5 percent chance. And if it means getting rid of Gertrude…”

“It could get worse. It could turn malignant. That’s what she said today.” My mother fluttered around the table, lips tight, drinking sparrow-colored wine in sparing sips.

“You used to joke about Gertrude,” I reminded her.

She set the glass on the table with a thunk. “That was a long time ago.”

“Look, guys, I’ve already put my name on the thing.” Claire threw her fists up in the air. “Why don’t we all just leave it?”

The surgery was scheduled for Monday, two weeks later.

I retreated back to the blue-walled comfort of my room, back in lotus pose, mulling the language of the release form over. Chance of severing the axillary nerve.  It sounded like a warning sign in bright red, corners sharp. Danger, sharp turns.  Warning, no entry in designated construction zone. Caution, objects in mirror may be closer than they appear.

***

She came home from outpatient surgery two hours later than expected. My father and I had spent the extra time tense in the living room, reading The Book Thief (mine) and McCullough’s Truman (his). At last we heard the whine of the minivan settling into place in the driveway.

Claire was wan and sagging but clearly Getrude-less. The pain meds made her head droop against the thin stem of her neck. Our mother guided her to the back porch, fingers against Claire’s shoulders.

“The axillary nerve?” my father asked.

“Completely fine,” answered my mother.

“Then…?”

Claire’s head rolled up. “Gertrude was,” she said, her voice fuzzy, “the size of a motherfucking lemon.”

“Jesus Christ,” muttered my father. His Roanoke accent, which reared its head during times of stress, broke ‘Christ’ cleanly into two syllables.

We laid her on the overstuffed blue couch. She wore a flannel shirt stolen from our father’s closet and thick, white leggings that looked like part of the Sugar Plum Fairy’s ballet ensemble from The Nutcracker. “For keeping my blood pressure steady,” she croaked when I asked. “So my arteries don’t blow up or whatever.” A translucent bag in the shape of a lightbulb hung by her side, tethered to her armpit by a thin cord. Watery blood dripped into the bag every time she rolled over.

“You’re leaking,” I told her.

“That’s what happens when they take a lemon-sized third boob out of you.”

Small Dog reared up on her hind legs and launched herself into the curve of Claire’s body, sniffing the blood bag. Claire’s hand absentmindedly found the brindled thatch between her ears.

I leaned forward in my chair. “Did they give you Gertrude?  You know, to keep?”

“What do you think this is like, Isabel, getting wisdom teeth removed?” She whuffed a breath through whitened lips.  “No.”

“Damn. We could’ve sent it to UChicago. A parting gift.” I spindled my hair around my fingers, grinning until my gums showed. “But still, somewhere out there is a handful-sized chunk of breast tissue. Which once belonged to you.”

She tapped her nose, pensive. “Yeah, I guess there is. Poor Gertrude. Wonder if she’s feeling separation anxiety.” Claire pushed herself into a seated position. “Hey, get out your cell phone and take a picture. This shit’s gotta go on Facebook.”

“You mean the blood bag?”

“The blood bag, the leggings, the whole shebang. Documenting it all for posterity.”

I pulled my smartphone out of the pocket of my jeans. Claire smiled.  I pressed the camera button.

“And give me your laptop, while you’re at it,” she said.

Fifteen minutes later, her profile picture showed a girl with her mouth widened so far in a grin all her teeth gleamed. Her hair, frizzed from lying against a surgical table all morning, formed a tawny halo around her head. One hand rested on a Dachshund, which blinked stupidly at the camera. And the other cupped the tangle of bandages at the crux of her arm and her chest, where soon the skin would be clean, and fresh, and whole.

Elizabeth Ballou studies English and Spanish at the University of Virginia but hails from Richmond. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prick of the Spindle, Crack the Spine, {tap}, Spry, the Adroit Journal, and the Virginia Literary Review, among others. She hopes to one day learn to parallel-park without panicking.

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