TENDER SPOTS

Betsy couldn’t remember when she first felt the pain in her neck.

Whenever her phone regurgitated an old photo, the ping forcing a snippet of her past into her present, she’d search her own younger face for a sign. Was it there during Dan’s holiday work thing, the one on the boat? Ainslie’s kindergarten recital? Declan’s first bike ride? Yes, it was there. In her younger self’s tight smile and stiff profile, folded arms and balled fists.

The divorce lawyer pushed his reading glasses back into position, wet his forefinger with his tongue, and flipped a page. The exhaustive details of Betsy’s situation amounted to a stack of documents a half inch thick, resting in a tidy rectangle on the desk between them. This was their third meeting, God willing their last.

But the pain. Maybe it was during the yoga class? The hot one she’d bullied her body into a few months before the wedding, the perfume of body odor its own form of grotesque encouragement. Some unnatural twist popping a vessel loose in her neck, forgotten in the excitement of getting married. Oh, to be twenty-eight again, flexible and carefree with her body and bank account both. Back when her money was Dan’s money, was their money, conjoined long after the honeymoon ended. Except that was a mistake?

Yes, her lawyer had said with painstaking enunciation at their first meeting. She was as guilty as Dan. Never mind that the love of her life and father of her children had opened the additional bank account without her knowledge. Carried three secret credit cards. Drained the kid’s meager college savings funds and taken out the second mortgage. She should have known.

 The throbbing at the base of Betsy’s neck refused her inattention. Her fingertips circled the spot, unwilling to cross the boundary and nudge the knot itself. Knot or lump? Lump or mass?

The lawyer cleared his throat. There were financial statements still missing and how could she expect him to do his job without them? (Never mind that this was supposed to be their last meeting, that his hourly rate gnawed at her sanity). Call for an appointment when you’ve gotten yourself together, Betsy.

At the elevator bank her fingers brushed the buttons, the simplicity of a single choice: Up or Down.

“Ma’am!”

The blonde assistant at the front desk waved. Betsy smiled, but the woman was only reminding her to validate her parking ticket. She slipped the flimsy paper into the mouth of the device but as the stamp punched, the sound coincided with an unexpected stabbing in her neck. Betsy collapsed. The office din dimmed to silence. The ticket dangled half-chewed from the machine as the blonde’s face peered down at her from above. Betsy gave in. 

#

“Jesus Bets, why didn’t you call me or Murray!! The ambulance alone you can’t afford that.”

Betsy read the text from her mother while her pain dozed under its blanket of narcotic-induced hibernation. All that out-of-pocket money she didn’t have, spent on the privilege of finding out nothing.

The ER doctor had examined her with less sympathy than a car mechanic. He’d ruled out a pinched nerve, rheumatoid arthritis, a fracture. Was she sure she hadn’t been in a car accident? Ridden on a roller coaster? Not whiplash then. The best diagnosis he could offer was extreme muscle strain. Make friends with Ice and Rest and in a week or two she could move on to some gentle stretching—had she tried hot yoga?

Dear Mother Mine, I didn’t call you because the last thing I need is another reminder of how hard it’s been for You to have a daughter like Me. Plus I didn’t want to hear Murray explain, again, that if I had tried a little harder, made Dan’s life a little easier, none of this would have happened.

Betsy deleted the blocky paragraph before she could send it. She was being unfair. Her mother and Murray knew Dan had “played around” with the household finances, but she hadn’t told them the unvarnished truth. She couldn’t. In their minds the truth would always be this: she hadn’t done enough to keep her husband interested. Would it kill you to put in a little more effort, Bets? Have you tried a date night?

Her phone pinged. Before she could check it, the doorbell chimed, all eight chords of Pachelbel’s Canon in D resounding with joy in her empty house. Declan and Ainslie. They’d gone home with Dan’s mother after school, a nightmare disguised as a favor. Betsy readied herself for their re-entry; two backpacks flung down in the foyer, damp gym clothes and half-rolled tubes of school-made art discarded beside zippered lunch bags.

Betsy left her phone in the kitchen and went to greet her kids. These pain pills were a riot, a real gas, and for a few sane hours she could forget Dan and the divorce, the overdue bills and the ding to her credit, even the pain in her neck. She’d just love on her babies. No pain, all gain.

Betsy greeted her over-stimulated children and her too polite mother-in-law. In the kitchen, her phone pinged again, not with a photo memory or another text from her mother but an email notification. A banner informing her that the blonde at the lawyer’s office had sent a link to a website Betsy should visit. For your eyes alone. Silly blonde. Betsy’s eyes couldn’t be trusted, everyone knew that. Even Betsy herself.

#

“How long have you had this pain?” the specialist said, leaning against the blonde-wood desk, linen clad legs crossed at the ankles.

Betsy’s forefinger pressed against the tender spot, the throbbing a hot magnet. The pain meds were long gone, leaving only desperation in their wake. “My whole married life? Kidding, kind of. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me. Some pains we experience are remnants, still present long after their initial cause has passed.”

“I’m not imagining it,” Betsy said.

“I don’t think you are.”

“But you just said—”

“I said that some pains are remnants. But this one might be something altogether different.”

Betsy tried not to flinch as the specialist held her gaze. No one ever looked her in the eye anymore. “What kind of doctor did you say you were?”

“I didn’t say. I’m not a doctor, not by the traditional parameters of the Western medical establishment.”

“Well, I guess I’m here because I’m not the only divorcing woman with a pain like this? Your website said you’ve had success with treating this kind of thing?”

The specialist bowed their head, then motioned to an area in the corner of the room where a sturdy, white-frosted partition sectioned off a small changing area. “On the dresser, you’ll find a fresh robe and slippers. After you’ve changed, lie down and we can begin.”

A few minutes later, Betsy relaxed onto a quilted coverlet draping a raised platform. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this calm. The specialist lay a heavy, scented eye pillow on Betsy’s face and then the heat from a high-powered overhead lamp sunned her neck.

“How do you feel at this moment?” the specialist said.

“Relaxed.”

“I’m going to pull back your robe so I can palpate the area on your neck. If the pain worsens, tell me and I’ll stop.”

“OK.”

The specialist’s fingertips brushed the surface of Betsy’s skin, tiptoeing around the periphery of the swollen mass.

“I can treat this pain in your neck Betsy, with a minor procedure that leaves minimal scarring. It will never bother you again. But the most important thing for you to understand is that this isn’t your fault. You did nothing to cause this.”

Betsy waited for the recriminations to arise, but they didn’t come. Not the lawyer’s or the ER doctor’s, not her mother’s or Murray’s, not even Dan’s voice entered her quiet bliss. She was alone in the echo chamber of her own mind.

“Yes,” Betsy whispered.

“This is a topical analgesic I’m applying, to numb the site.”

A chill spread outward, dampening the throb.

“I’m making a four-centimeter-wide incision and using forceps to remove the mass. You might feel some pressure, but it will be over quickly.”

A dull thud sounded, an object settling onto a stainless-steel tray.

“I’m closing the cut, using three self-dissolving stitches.”

A tugging sensation, not unpleasant.

The heat from the lamp switched off and the eye pillow lifted from her face. Betsy sat up and looked at the tray. Next to the scalpel and forceps lay a pale, wrinkled thumb. She leaned in, examining it, this thing the source of so much suffering in her life. The nail bed was cracked, the cuticles ragged, but the fine hairs on the knuckle were still the same bland brown as the hair on Dan’s head.

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Elizabeth Lyons-Pence worked for many years as a story producer and freelance scriptwriter for several HGTV shows, including House Hunters. She is at work on her debut novel Mother Land and lives in Evanston, Illinois with her partner and two children.