S.L. Kletz

I came out of the womb singing. That’s what my mother always told me — that the entire hospital lit on fire with the sound of my voice and the labor and delivery unit received calls about my cries from three floors up in oncology. I doubt this fact was some sort of destiny as much as it was her justification that she would make to support her claim that she has always known my fate was rooted in my voice.

She died the day I turned 50. No one was singing that day. The cake we purchased went uneaten and the candles we bought got stuffed in the junk drawer. My husband decided we’d save the “5” candle for when I turned 51 and the “0” for when I turned 60. I told him that he would turn 60 before I did so why didn’t we just use the “0” candle then but he ignored me and we forgot about it except I didn’t because I’m bringing it up again.

I’m 54 now. I supposed the theater would have booted me the moment my age began to show under the hot lights, but I have been bringing them crowds for almost three decades now so it’s safe to say either they’re not ageist or I am talented enough to keep on the stage. They’re planning my 30-year celebration solo showcase in April that has already sold-out with a six-figure approximated revenue. They’ve even brought in a renowned composer from Turin who claims he is a descendant of Alessandro Scarlatti to teach me an aria he has written for my performance. I am not sure I shall be fond of him, but my love for the opera supersedes my disdain for the annoying.

Speaking of which — I have felt annoyed lately. At first, the annoyance crept up on me. I was quite fatigued however, my tired awakenings typically followed late nights and did not clue me in to a larger irritability that has attached itself at my feet and drags behind me like an anklet made up of paperweights. I am certain that at 54, my stamina has worn out and this irritates me. That was to be expected — that is, that I do not function like I did at 24. I can certainly belt my way through an improvised cadenza and I have mastered a critically acclaimed portamento that I can still produce at my age, but I am left quite strained nowadays. My throat always hurts. It’s a difficult thing to swallow — getting old.

I first felt that pernicious lump I could not swallow last week. I think, in truth, I felt it much longer before then, but I never cared to admit to myself what it could be. But I knew what was there in that pocket of space deep past my tongue — my destiny, as my mother would say: the reality that all that is gifted of our bodies is not intended to remain youthful forever. It was only a matter of time before my body would begin to wear.

After the camera shone down my throat into the blinking eye of my glottis, the doctors could not perceive any visible protrusion. It was instead in the scans where I lit up just like the fire of my voice in the hospital all those years ago. You know the word.

Cancer.

It is the implosion of the body that always happens to others, but it is not meant to happen to you. You are meant to live into old age, worn by life so that you take your last breath in a smile, overjoyed to have escaped suffering and move on into eternal rest. But the suffering was here, knocking at my door — rising out of my throat like the smoke of a dragon and clouding the vision of my stinging eyes.

What were my options?

That was what my husband first inquired the laryngeal cancer specialist about while I sat on the observation table, speechless for the first moment in my life.

I was lucky, the doctor said.

The way the tumor had attached to my vocal cords meant that, with a simple procedure, they could cut the cancer out. I would have full recovery after 6 weeks and could carry on with life, unlikely to encounter cancer of the throat again.

But I would lose my voice.

I was lucky, the doctor said. The hospital had excellent resources including sign language educators and text-to-speech machinery that I could utilize to maintain my ability to communicate.

But I would lose my voice.

I gripped at my throat — at that devil pocketed under flesh at the core of my soul. I could scratch at it — rip the lump out with my nails if I so pleased. I had hardly realized I was crying until I felt the voiced hum of my screams vibrate against my hand curled into a chokehold upon my own throat. My husband noticed and retracted my fingers from my neck to hold them inside the electric warmth of his palms, but failed to bring me back to life with his defibrillator hands. I was gone — flatlined since the flames first started to lick at my soul. My voice.

Over the next few days, my husband tried to convince me it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. I would live — it was a miracle. Thank God we caught it before it had the chance to spread. Yeah. Thank God for giving me a cancer that hasn’t taken to the rest of my body yet.

But of course it had to be my throat that got the cancer. Thank God.

I still had the choice as a patient, with freedom and rights and what have you, to determine whether I wanted to pursue surgery for removing the tumor. The doctor said at my diagnostic appointment that if I called by Friday, they could book me for an 8:00am surgery that following Wednesday. So there I was, finding that in the span of a week, I could sing before an audience of thousands and then permanently surrender my voice to the perfect blade of a surgical knife.

It could have been worse. It could have been worse. It could have been worse.

I despise that phrase. There is nothing that could possibly have been worse. There was nothing reassuring in that, in losing my voice, I would still maintain my ability to communicate my needs. What I needed, more than anything, was to sing. Certainly, I could type into my text-to-speech device the lyrics I wanted to convey, but a robotic impression of the human phonation would not be the same as singing.

No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò

quando la luce splenderà!

Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio

che ti fa mia!

The doctor called just yesterday to tell me my decision was actually due by Friday before 5:oopm. Since we had only just discovered the tumor, he was unsure of its growth patterns and did not want to risk further delay and the cancer expanding beyond the forbidden place it first decided to grow. Today is the Friday my answer is due. April is in a month. I have not told anyone at the theater yet. I can hardly fathom how I shall inform them. In my silence, perhaps I shall just endure into a state of quiet at all times so no one questions the moment I truly cannot make sound anymore, but that Scarlatti guy is rehearsing with me on Monday so I cannot refrain from using my voice — how could I ever stand it?

My husband called off work this week to spend time with me, and I have instead gone to the theater. It is the only place I can get away from all of this, but inevitably, after singing long enough, my throat hurts and I verge into states of near collapse from sheer exhaustion. I woke early this morning before he rose and immediately started on my way to the theater without even a bite of breakfast. I had even neglected to brush my teeth — my breath probably stunk with the odor of the cancer lodged in my throat like a word I could never quite speak.

I parked in the lot adjacent to the backstage door and made my way in up the small set of concrete stairs I once fell and chipped a veneer on. Inside, the hallway floor shone with scuff marks and smelled of fresh paint and the dye of black curtain fabric. Someone passed me with a “hello.” I forgot to respond.

I trudged forward to the stage door, propped open by a crooked stool because of its tendency to squeak as people moved in and out from the wings all day. I stepped into the darkness and surveyed the crew — perpetually dressed in black — under the blue lights as they worked to set up today’s rehearsal before the performers’ call time. I was uncertain what the show they were working on was, but no one cast their eyes up to me as I tiptoed past the property master labeling the prop table with an apprentice and some runners discussing with the production’s assistant director about the thickness of their blocking tape. I glided past, a ghost — rattling the obsidian skirt of the stage curtains as I wandered onto the stage.

The lights were on, but not at their brightest setting. The lights in the house were half on as some employees for the theater cleaned the rows of seats. The distant whir of a vacuum accompanied the dial tones from my phone.

The line rang for a few moments — I dreaded but equally figured I would get put on hold.

Thank you for calling St. Philip’s Hospital’s Office of Head Throat and Neck Services. Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly.

Just as I had assumed it would happen.

All calls are recorded for quality assurance purposes. If you have further questions about the information we gather, call our data services team at 745-3623.

The dull knot of a headache pounded behind the center of my forehead, knocking incessantly — begging me to open up and confront it. I already felt the tears, hot and fuzzy on my cheeks, as I prepared my lips for the words I was going to say of a diminishing spoken corpus that was soon coming to its end as if I were a TV turning off — with all of the light dragged to the center and reduced to darkness in an instant.

If you’d like to leave a message, please press 1.

Chirpy music played in the background, scratching along — a singular shrill nail across a chalkboard — under the filtered quality of a phone call. It had no reason to be played other than to fill what would otherwise be a silence, as if callers would find themselves in too great a fear of what lives — or rather what dies — in the vastness of the quiet pauses between the utterances of a cheerful voice actor. I think I prefer the nail on the chalkboard.

The automated message played on repeat, looping at least fifteen times — almost taunting me to give up by leaving a message. But I held on, underneath the spotlight, standing center-stage — determined to make the last words I had in me count for something. The vacuum whirred closer. A ringing interrupted the automated message and I heard a click on the other end.

“Hi, you have reached the Office of Head, Neck, and Throat Specialist Services. How may I help you today?”

I parted my lips, knowing that no matter my answer, I soon would never sing again.