Storm in a B Cup - A Breast Cancer Tale (3 page)

I return his
salute and go back to sipping my coffee. I don’t even notice when the milk
burns my tongue.

“Your Rory’s
a wiz,” the woman to my left comments, after releasing a whoop and
congratulatory fist pump at his goal. Anyone would think we were at a real
game, the way she’s carrying on. This
is
only the modified version of the modified version of AFL. We’re not in the big
league. There aren’t even winners and losers. At this age, every child gets a
prize.

“Yes,” I
remark, absently.

“He has
talent. You need to nurture that.”

A massive
Michael Kors
bracelet watch is dangling
from her wrist and it almost takes out my eye as she lowers her arm. She’s
wearing a faux fur vest that hangs to her hips and suede wedges in the same
tone as her winter white jeans. Her hair is so blonde you could mistake her for
a polar bear.

“I suppose. If
he wants to,” I say.

The woman
looks at me like I’ve lost control of my faculties; like every parent wants to
push their kid into being an AFL player but seriously, I don’t give two
hoots.
 
What I want is for Rory to
be happy, no matter what he decides to do with his life. And I want to be here
to see it. I don’t want to have cancer.

“My Austin
is in the Junior Development Squad already,” the woman continues. “It’s a
nightmare keeping up with extra training and the diet regime but it’ll be worth
it in the long run.”

Diet regime?
He’s only six. Next thing she’ll be putting him on a weights program.

“I was thinking
about a personal trainer. Do you know of any?” she asks.

“For
yourself?”

“No, for
Austin. If he wants to stay at the top of his game he has to be in top
condition.”

And again I
think to myself, he’s only six!

“Personal
trainers don’t deal with children this young, do they? Isn’t it bad for
children to be lifting weights when their muscles are still developing?”

“Then how’s
he supposed to be better than the rest of the competition? There are a million
boys out there who want to be AFL stars.”

I can’t keep
my mouth shut this time. “He is only six.”

Her mouth
opens into a chasm the size of the football field in front of us. The gasp I
receive is forceful enough to suck the paint off the boundary lines. Luckily,
I’m saved from her scathing retort by the hooter marking half-time.

The woman
bends to the ground, picking up a huge Tupperware container filled with
oranges. She hoists them aloft and sprints onto the field. Well, clomps,
actually.
 
Platform wedges and mud-clogged
grass aren’t exactly conducive to sprinting.

“So, here we
are again.”

Angela,
another mum that I’ve made friends with, sidles up behind me. She nudges my arm
with her elbow and jerks her head towards my companion who is now sharing out
the orange wedges and giving the boys tips on how to improve their game. She’s
jumping in the air, pretending to mark the ball, but none of the boys are
listening. She’s dodging and weaving imaginary opponents in the name of
coaching. I think she’s forgotten they’re children. I think she’s forgotten
Caleb’s dad, the real coach, who is standing with his arms folded, trying not
to look pissed off at her intrusion.

“You look
like you needed saving,” Angela snickers.

“She’s on a
roll today,” I whisper back.

My other
friend, Melinda, comes to stand with us, too. “Has she given the ‘nurturing
talent’ speech yet?”

Melinda and
I go way back. We met at the pre-natal group and clicked instantly over a love
of wine and our inability to have it whilst pregnant.
 
Having searched for the love of her life for the past ten
years, she gave up and had Oscar via sperm donor.

“Yep. I’m
waiting for her to offer me some steroids.”

Angela digs
into the pocket of her coat and produces a white paper bag. She holds it in our
direction. “Shortbread?”

I look into
the bag and take a heart-shaped biscuit. It’s buttery-coloured and drizzled
with icing that bears an uncanny resemblance to the woman’s hair who was
standing beside me. “Yum.”

Angela
munches for a minute. “Loving these 8 a.m. starts,” she says, swallowing.

“Ditto on
that.”

“The
hangover doesn’t help. Jeff and I went to this cocktail thing for his work last
night. I spent the first part of the evening keeping him away from that skanky
little secretary of his and then I got stuck with the partners’ wives.” She
lets out a groan to let me know the gravity of the matter and takes a gulp of
her coffee. “God, those women are so boring, drinking was the only way I could
cope without killing myself. Jeff had to stop the car on the way home so I
could throw up on the side of the road. Talk about embarrassing. A carload of
twenty-year-olds honked at me — I’m sure one of them was the boy from down
the road — and a police car did the slow drive by while I was wiping the
spew from my sandals. I’m never doing it again. I’m way too old for this.”

She takes
another glug from the mug and looks me up and down. “You look pale.
 
Everything okay?”

That’s one
thing I’ll say about Angela. She’s observant. She might never shut up, but
she’s observant.

“Fine. I
think I have Breast Cancer.”

Angela’s
coffee mug drops onto the grass. Splatters of golden brown seep into the
leather of her boots. She looks down at the boots and then at me. Her mouth has
opened so wide, I can see she has no tonsils. She seems stunned, which is
understandable. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Wish I
was.”

Angela turns
to face me. The half-eaten biscuit is held, suspended between her fingers, like
a moment frozen in time. “Are you sure? How did you find out?”

“I had a
test. Results come in on Wednesday. I have to ring the doctor.”

“But you
don’t know for certain?”

“I think I
do.”

For some
reason, I like that Angela’s concerned. Nobody has been concerned yet.
Everyone’s trying to pretend it’s not happening. Like Melinda, for instance. She’s
standing there, staring at the oval, pretending to watch the boys playing footy.
I know she’s not. I can see her biting the corner of the inside of her lip; a
dead giveaway. Why doesn’t she say something? She’s supposed to be my friend.

“So what are
you going to do?” Angela asks.

“If it is
cancer, I’ll have my boob chopped off. Maybe even both. I haven’t decided yet.”

Now Melinda
decides to butt in. “Isn’t that a bit extreme, I mean, there’s lots of other
ways they can get rid of it without losing your breasts.” Her voice sounds judgemental
though, not like her at all.

I shrug. “I
don’t care. Better gone than dead.”

“You’re so upfront
about it. I don’t know how I’d react if it was me but I don’t think I’d like
having no breasts.”

I take a
bite of my biscuit. I chew and swallow. “It’s not like I’ve got much choice, is
it?”

*****

After footy,
we make a stop at McDonald’s in Jolimont. Rory looks at me quizzically as I pull
into the car park, get out of the driver’s side and unlock his door.

“What’s up,
Mum?”

“Nothing. You
played well. I thought a treat might be in order.”

 
His little eyebrows draw to a frown like
he’s unsure what this is about. Has his mother been abducted by aliens and
replaced with some other lady who doesn’t care what he eats? He knows that
stopping at McDonald’s for no reason is about as likely as telling him he can
have a day off school for the hell of it.

“Yeah?”

I ruffle his
hair and take his hand. “Yeah. And you can have whatever you want.”

“Even Coke?”
Coke is the Holy Grail of junk food to Rory.

“Even Coke.”

“Can I play
on the playground, too?”

I push open
the heavy glass door and we walk and stand in front of the counter, looking up
at the menu board. “Don’t push your luck, buster. It’s not your birthday.”

Rory smiles up
at me. “You’re the best Mum ever.”

I squeeze
his pudgy, little-boy hand. Just the reaction I was hoping for. “And you’re my
favourite son.”

“But I’m
your only son.”

“Guess
that’s why you’re my favourite then.”

Rory gives
me a shoulder in my hip and laughs. I’ve been making this joke since he was
born. It’s a thing we do.

“I want
nuggets and fries and a Coke.
 
And
can I have one of those ice creams with the M&M’s?”

Instantly,
my mother hat is on again. “It’s eleven o’clock in the morning, Rory. You’ll
make yourself sick.”

“You said.”

“All right. But
you’re not eating the ice cream now. We’ll take it home and put it in the
freezer. You can have it for dessert tonight.”

We place our
order and a few minutes later are back in the car, front seat piled high with
brown paper bags and cardboard drink trays. There’s two huge tubs of soft serve
ice cream sprinkled with chocolates and plastic straw spoons to eat it with. In
the back seat, Rory is chomping on his nuggets, something else I never let him
do. Eat in the car, that is.

“You know
what, Mum?” he says, his cheeks bulging with fried food.

“What?”

“I’m the
luckiest kid alive.”

I smile at
him in the rear view mirror. How am I going to tell him?

That night,
for the first time in years, I have a nightmare. The images of my body turning
coal black and disintegrating into a blob of jelly-like skin are so real I wake
up bathed in sweat, my lungs heaving for breath. Sitting up in bed, I stare out
into the darkness of the bedroom, trying to dispel the vision, the one where
Rory is sad and alone, wandering an empty street crying out for me. What have I
done to deserve this fate?

Why me?

Chapter 4

Wednesday
comes around in a flash. Brendan is up early today; he has a meeting in East
Perth and attempting to navigate the city in its current state of disarray
requires a packed lunch and a passport. The council is ‘beautifying’ or
‘improving’ or some such thing. Personally, I think they have no idea. Perth is
already beautiful. What we need is a decent freeway that can get people from A
to B and a train system that will carry more than twenty people at a time.
Anyway, I digress. He’s up early and off to work, kissing Rory and me as he
swoops his keys from the bench and heads for the door.

“Good luck,”
he calls over his shoulder.
 
“Not
that you’ll need it.”

At the
breakfast bar, Rory stops mid-bite of toast. “Good luck for what, Mum?”

I look at
him and, heaven help me, I lie. “I have a dentist appointment later. You know
how Mummy hates the dentist.”

“You’re a
scaredy cat sometimes.” Rory goes back to his breakfast.

“Only about
the dentist.”

I begin to
stack the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, my mind mulling over possible
scenarios that could occur later in the day. So far, I haven’t obsessed too
much about the cancer. At least I don’t think I have. Sleep has become a
non-existent event over the past few nights and I did put the milk in the
pantry instead of the fridge earlier on. Plus, I have this insatiable craving
for a cigarette, which is very odd, seeing as I’ve never smoked. As I close the
door to the dishwasher, I realise I’ve been obsessing subliminally, which is
probably more detrimental than having a complete meltdown.

Shit.

I give the
benches a swipe with the cloth and shoo Rory to his room to collect his things.
Oh well, I think, not much I can do about it now. At least I don’t
look
nervous. Rory would pick up on that
instantly.

The plan —
which I’ve formulated in my mind and rehearsed so that nothing can go wrong —
is that I’ll drop Rory at school, drive to the shop, grabbing a coffee for Lani
and me on the way. By the time I get there, it’ll be past nine and I’ll be able
to ring the doctor. What if they say I have cancer? What if I only have months
to live? Despite, my subliminal obsessing, the plan hasn’t progressed past the
phone call. I have no idea what I’ll do if we reach that stage.

I grab my
keys and holler down the hall in the direction of Rory’s bedroom. I know he’s
looking for something to take for Show and Tell. It’s the morning of his weekly
turn, and he always leaves it till the last minute. He never lets me help. “Rory.
School. Come on, let’s go or we’ll be late.”

*****

Unfortunately,
the plan does not go according to plan.

After dropping
Rory at the gate, I am the victim of a flat tyre whilst idling in the drop off
zone. As a rule, I do not change flat tyres. I do not like grease and dirt that
much, but today I am obligated to get out of the car and fix it. With a sigh, I
turn off the ignition and pop the back door of the car, stepping into the before-school
chaos.