Page 34 of While I’m Still Here

“Oh, my God. My baby.”

“Mum.”

“My baby has cancer.”

“Mum, I'm thirty.”

“You are my baby!”

“Yes, but when you say it like that, it sounds as though a toddler has breast cancer, which feels like a completely different emergency.”

Colin covers his mouth, and I glare at him. Mum doesn't even acknowledge the joke. Questions start coming instead, and I decide that I wouldn’t hate it if my left tit did me a solid and just killed me now.

“When did you find out? Why didn't you call me yesterday? Were you alone? What did the doctor say? What stage is it? Has it spread? Are they doing chemotherapy? When is surgery? Are they taking the breast? Both breasts? What about your lymph nodes?”

“Mum.”

“What?”

“Breathe.”

“I am breathing.”

“You're really not.”

There's a shaky inhale on the other end. Then she says the one thing I knew was coming. “I knew this would happen. I knew it, Bea. After your gran, and then me, I knew there was a chance. I should've pushed you to get checked sooner. I should've made someone listen. I should have…”

“Mum.”

“I should've done something.”

“Mum.”

Colin's hand tightens around mine. “This isn't your fault,” I tell her.

“But our family history…”

“Isn't your fault.”

She's crying properly now, and suddenly I am six years old again, looking at my gran's scars, asking what happened. Learning a word that felt far too enormous to belong in a child's vocabulary.

Cancer.

A word I've heard over and over ever since. Gran. Mum. Friends. Doctors asking about family history. Forms with little boxes that want to know whether cancer runs through the branches of my family tree. I've spent years wondering whether someone would one day say the word back to me. Yesterday, they did.

“I don't know everything yet,” I tell Mum quietly. “That's why I didn't call yesterday. I couldn't answer any of the questions you're asking me. I still can't. I've got more tests. I've got another appointment. They're talking about surgery first, and then they'll know more.”

“I’m coming with you.”

I look at Colin, and he's still holding my hand, and somehow everything feels lighter. “Colin's coming.”

Mum goes silent—different silence—I know this silence. I don’t like this silence. “Colin?”

“Yes.”

“Colin Fletcher?”

“No, Colin Firth. Yes, Mum. Colin Fletcher.”