Tower Breast Diagnostic Center – Habana

No pictures. All cell phones must be off as one walks in. I never wear pink. In fact, I don’t own a single pink outfit… other than a lacey dress that is rather mauve. But every six months I wear a pink wrap-​around outfit with the opening to the front. The ladies who sit by me do too. Not one of us looks forward to this nervous camaraderie. Every single time somehow, even if a completely new group of us, we end up speaking about how younger we look for our age… about the glow on our skins… about how cold the little waiting room seems. No one mentions why she is sitting there. Every once in a while, the little room grows silent.
I visit Tower Breast Diagnostic Center every six months. There is something in me, they must watch closely. I go there with a mixture of trepidation and hope and incredibly afraid. Normally high heels and long black curls empower me. As soon as I walk in, I feel I shrink into a pixie who might have lost some of her glittery dust along some unknown path. Careless. But that very minute, someone from the staff smiles and gets all friendly. Like she has known me my whole life, and gets me. Papers are filled and I wait in the main room as four of our names are called at a time. Our pink gowns wait for us inside a changing room… and then we sit in another smaller cozier one. The whole process is less than two hours that seem millenniums. Then I get called. And Ariana, the lovely x-​ray technician, takes me to that little windowless room… and chatters and her eyes speak about compassion. She is as afraid to see something as I am to know that there is something other than what we already know.
I am moved by how carefully she handles me, about how apologetically she is each time -«Amara, This is going to feel uncomfortable, it might hurt a little, I am so sorry.” – and I smile at the sound of my name each time we change positions. Every time she says «Amara this» or «Amara that»… I am a person to her. This has become personal. As if I am the only patient she has ever had… and she wants to do this perfectly for her own pride, for the Radiologist’s diagnosis, for my benefit… and wellness.
No. I will never love pink. But if I have to wear it, every six months or so… I rather wear it among this people.