After the Fire by Jane Rule

correct when he told her she could still wear a bikini when it was over. All that men understood was the cosmetic loss. Breast amputation was more traumatic for them. The invisible mutilation meant nothing to them.
    “You will finally feel better for it,” Henrietta said, “but nobody should expect you to be glad.”
    “Bonnie will,” Milly said gloomily. “You can only be utilitarian about your body when it has its uses.”
    Henrietta understood that. Hart’s body now did nothing but prevent him from dying, a stubborn damaged thing which could still lumber his spirit with life. Oh, and she wanted it to and did not understand why simple flesh could be so dear.
    At the hospital, they discovered that Milly was assigned to a single room.
    “I can’t have that!” Milly protested. “I can’t afford it.”
    “It’s paid for,” the nurse explained.
    And there on the window sill were a dozen yellow roses.
    “I don’t know how he’s got the gall!” Milly exclaimed.
    “He’s doing what he can to help,” Henrietta said.
    “Do get out now, Hen, will you?” Milly wailed.
    Though Henrietta spent an hour with Hart at least twice a week, his physical appearance always came as a shock to her, her memory having sealed over the facts and healed her image of him between visits. Wholly accepting what had happened to him and who he was now might make visiting easier, but it would rob her of his companionship in her mind for all the time she was alone. She didn’t lie about his condition even to herself, but she put it out of her mind.
    Only when she was buying ice cream did she remember that the day before yesterday he wouldn’t eat it, had pushed her hand away like a petulant child as she tried to feed it to him. Was it the ice cream he didn’t want or the fact of her feeding him? He couldn’t feed himself, and his speech was too impaired to communicate more than an occasional negative like “no” or “bad.” His constant mood was irritation which could flare into anger when he had the energy. Maybe he was tired of peppermint. She bought a second pint of strawberry. If he didn’t like it, the other patients would.
    Hart shared a room with a man whose last name was Clay. People there called him Clay, the way Milly called her husband Forbes. With Milly it was a rudeness. In the nursing home, where first names and terms of endearment were ordinarily used, that last name sounded respectful. Clay was some years older than Hart and entirely bedridden, but his mind was still functioning. When he put his teeth in, he could make himself understood. Clay, in many ways, looked out for Hart, coaxed and encouraged him, called a nurse to head off impending trouble. Henrietta tried not to think what a purgatory it must be for a man like Clay to share all his waking hours with Hart.
    She would have made more of an effort to be a bright spot in Clay’s day, too, if Hart hadn’t been so plainly jealous, not as a man is jealous, more like a small child confronted with a new sibling. Hart didn’t know who she was, but he wanted all her attention.
    Henrietta tried to compare this experience with Hart to the mothering of a child still inaccurate at feeding itself, in command of only a few words, at risk of falling with every upright step. A child at that stage is not often content. Everything is struggle and frustration.
    Hart didn’t want either kind of ice cream, and Henrietta felt absurdly rejected. At least a child’s negative declarations of independence, however momentarily irritating or even wounding, were positive signs of development. Hart’s rejection of even that ordinary pleasure was a defeat.
    “Is he eating other things?” Henrietta asked as she turned the ice cream over to the nurse for other patients.
    “His appetite isn’t good,” the nurse admitted.
    Henrietta returned to Hart and sat quietly by him as he dozed in his wheelchair, his mouth slightly open, drool spilling down onto the collar of his robe. If