Page 27 of Four Weekends and a Funeral

We used to have light conversations about celebrity makeups and breakups. Now when my mom calls, it’s always the same. We’ve been trapped in a cancer loop for years. I worry sometimes that once my ovaries are gone, we’ll have forgotten how to discuss anything else.

“These things are important, Alison. You need to take advantage of your chance to mitigate your risk.”

“I know,” I respond, because I have the gift of living without cancer and don’t get to waste it.

“Why don’t you see my doctor when you visit for Christmas? She really is the best.”

I saw her doctor for the results of my genetic test when this all started six years ago. Before I sat down in front of a neon graffiti Warrior painting in that petal-pink office, my breasts were Schrödinger’s cat—both the breasts I’d always known and ticking time bags, plotting to destroy me when I least suspected it.

“I have my own doctor,” I counter, plopping onto my bed.

“Fine. Fine,” my mom says, and I can practically hear her hand waving dismissively at me across the line. “Then ask your doctor about that fallopian tube study I sent you. Can you at least do that for me?”

“Sure, Mom,” I sigh.

“Good.” Her relief smacks me in the ears. “Imagine how great you’ll feel when you don’t need to worry about cancer anymore. You’ll be so much happier once this is behind you.”

I hear the click of a binder on her end of the line and the flip of the printed medical journal articles. She drones on about studies at Mayo. Risk, hormones, and abnormal cells reach my ears, but I’m not listening.

Instead, I’m wondering what my mom talks to my sister about. Does she read these articles to Emma and complain about my inaction? Or does she have a relationship with her that has nothing to do with genetic mutations?

For a split second, I picture my other breasts, the ones that were never plotting against me and only wanted to be held close to my chest in a wired balconette bra—a kind of bra that’s been verboten since my mastectomy. What would my mom say to those breasts? I’d bet those boobs know nothing of egg extractions and oviducts.

Lucky bastards.

8

Gobble, Baby

I wake up Saturday morning to an iCal alert that makes my heart lurch.

Message from the Future: 75 days to Chile!!

“I got you an Americano,” I tell Adam when I arrive at Sam’s, dropping the drink carrier on the soapstone kitchen island. It’s a lame peace offering, but if we’re stuck together, I don’t want to bicker. We’re packing up this apartment and then parting ways forever. We don’t need to be friends, but we do need to get through this. “I was going to call it a ‘guilt coffee’ since I’m dipping out early today, but since I’m going to a children’s concert at my friend’s elementary school after this, I’m feeling more dread than actual remorse.”

Adam accepts the red Starbucks cup with an approving nod. “How did you know I like Americanos?”

I shrug off my coat and drape it on the rack. “You have big Americano energy. I can tell everyone’s coffee order. It’s my useless superpower.”

He smells the coffee cautiously. “You know, Spyhouse is down the street if you’re looking for an independent coffee shop,” he says, as if I don’t live here.

“Spyhouse doesn’t have my favorite winter beverage.” I take a swig and shimmy my shoulders with my swallow, feeling it tingle in my throat. “Mmm, peppermint mocha.”

“Thanks for this. You didn’t have to go out of your way.” He lifts his red cup, his face contrite.

I have no interest in rehashing how we left things last time—or pinning down my ex’s exact level of apathy toward me for the second week in a row—so I shake my head and let him off the hook. “Wasn’t out of my way.”

He nods, shoulders relaxing, and returns to the corner of the kitchen. Adam unscrews a cabinet door with a tight expression of concentration.

“Did his family ask you to do that?” I ask. Removing cabinet doors doesn’t fit within our limited job description.

“They’re all beat up, and this stain is peeling. It’s easier if I just refinish them.” He seems to think this requires no further explanation. He’s not telling me something, but I don’t care enough to challenge him.

I open Spotify. Music fills the apartment, giving me the energy I need for another day trapped in Adam’s company.

“Why are you playing Christmas music?” His voice wobbles between confusion and distress.

My stomach jerks with the vague feeling I might be in trouble. “Starbucks had Christmas cups.”

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