Page 77 of Devoted

“Hey, baby,” Brooks answers after the first ring. I didn’t want to go to sleep without checking on him first.

“Hey, you. How’d it go?”

“It’s been a rough night. She threw up in her bed and I had to change all of her bedding. She was just too tired to make it to the bathroom and missed the bowl I placed next to her head. Once I got her settled back in though, she slept fine, but I didn’t. I was too afraid of her getting sick again.”

My heart breaks for him at that moment because I know he feels helpless. That’s exactly how I felt. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s brutal, Jess. I wish I could hold you right now just so I can feel like everything is going to be okay.”

“I wish that too. I’m about to hop in the shower though and pass out. It was a long shift.”

“I bet. Get some rest, baby. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Take a deep breath, Brooks. Just remember she’s still alive.”

“I know. Thank you. Sweet dreams.” The line goes silent as a heaviness rains down on me, much like the stream of water pouring all over my body in the shower later.

I wish I could take away the pain I know Brooks is feeling, the exact level of powerlessness and uncertainty that’s plaguing his mind and heart. Cancer is horrible and unfair, a disease that has no prejudice, no discrimination based on gender, race, or age.

My mother was only in her mid-forties when it took her life. And even though I’m approaching thirty, I know that her genes run through me.

As I stare out my kitchen window and watch the sun move higher in the sky, a white butterfly flies past and makes my lips tip up. Every time I see one, I like to think it’s my mother paying me a visit, reminding me that she’s watching over me and I’m never truly without her.

“I love you too, Mom,” I whisper, feeling as though that butterfly was a sign from her in more ways than one.

As I move into the shower and stew on my mother’s presence, I decide to do a check on my own breasts, even though I know it’s probably just a precaution nagging in the back of my mind. I make sure to check myself regularly, but I realized it’s been a while since I’ve explored and concluded that everything feels normal.

As my hands move around my right breast, I let out a sigh of relief as my touch indicates everything feels smooth and normal.

But then I feel it as my hand curves under the left side, so small that if I hadn’t moved my hand in that direction, I probably would have missed it. My fingers stop in the movement and poke and slide back and forth over the skin where a small bump has appeared on the side of my left breast, right above my butterfly tattoo.

And suddenly the sign that I think my mother was sending me is protruding from my body as a physical representation of an impending truth I felt one day I would have to face.

I just didn’t think it would be this soon.

“No…. no, no, no…” I whisper in the shower as my entire body freezes and my breath catches in my throat.

I have a lump.

On my breast.

At twenty-nine.

This can’t be happening.

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