What We Swallow

Elena's hair had started falling out three weeks after the first round of chemotherapy. She called me at 2 AM, voice trembling, asking if I would come over and help her shave it off. I brought papayas—soft, ripe ones—because they were the only thing she could keep down during those endless weeks of treatment.

That was six months ago. Now she sat at my kitchen table, sorting her morning pills into those plastic organizers with letters stamped into the plastic. A small mountain of vitamin bottles stood between us like a barricade.

"You're taking too many," I said, pouring coffee that neither of us really wanted.

She laughed, but the sound was dry. "They're placebos, mostly. The doctor said if it makes me feel like I have control, it's worth it."

The papaya on the counter was overripe now, its skin speckled with brown. We'd bought it together at that ethnic market on Fourth Street, the day her scans came back clear. She'd held it like a newborn, like something fragile that might bruise.

"I'm not doing chemo again," she said, not looking at me. "Whatever comes back, I just want to live."

I reached across the table and took her hand. Her hair was growing back soft and dark, like down on a fledgling bird. "You're not dying anytime soon."

She looked up then, and I saw something ancient in her eyes, something that had nothing to do with cancer or vitamins or the way our bodies betray us. "We're all dying, David. Just at different speeds."

She pushed the vitamins aside and picked up her knife. We shared the papaya in silence, eating it straight from the skin, juice running down our wrists. It was impossibly sweet, the taste of everything we'd survived and everything we still might lose. Somewhere between the first bite and the last, the word friend felt like the wrong shape for what we were. But it was the only one we had.