is, she needs to grow a pair of ovaries and tell her only daughter.”
“Okaaay.”
Not a good image.
“So, I’m gonna hand you back to your mom, and she’s gonna tell you. Aren’t you, Charlene? Charlene!”
“All right. You don’t have to get so pushy with me. Geez. You’re only twenty-one months older,” I hear Mom say in the background. “Hey, honey. It’s me again.”
“What’s your news, Mom? And why’s Aunt Judy bossing you around? Forget that—she always bosses you around.”
“Oh, my sister is the queen of bossy, honey. We all know it.”
“Get on with it!” Bossy Aunt Judy yells.
“Okay, okay. I’m on it. Don’t lose your false teeth over it.”
“I don’t have false teeth, and you know it, Charlene.”
These two are like a comedy duo right now.
“Mom?”
“Look, Emma,” she begins, and instantly my hackles are up. She never calls me Emma.”
Not unless there’s something wrong.
“Quit messing around and tell me what’s going on, Mom.”
“It’s, ah, well, I’ve got some news. A while back, I found a lump, and I went to the doctor. She ran some tests and, well—” I can hear her take an audible gulp of air, “Honey, I’ve got cancer.”
My hand flies to my mouth as I take in a sharp breath. “You’ve got cancer?” I say, my voice suddenly breathless, like the air’s been sucked right out of me.
Sebastian pings out of his chair and is at my side almost before I finish my sentence.
With the mention of the word, my world comes to a crunching halt. Sebastian’s revelations about Chris, my failure to fit in in Geraldine’s eyes, Heather and her Saving Pemberley plans, Timothy’s distinct lack of British success. All of it falls into silence, and I’m left with that one word in my brain, the word that changed my life when my dad was diagnosed.
Cancer.
“Honey?” she questions when I don’t reply. “Are you okay?”
“You said a lump. Is that a breast lump?”
Sebastian’s face creases in concern.
“What type of cancer is it? When did you get it? Can they fix it?”
She laughs. She laughs.
One of us is clearly taking this better than the other.
“I can’t give you answers on all those questions. All I can tell you is that I found a breast lump a couple months back and—”
“A couple months? And you’re only telling me now? Mom!”
Her voice is quiet when she replies, “I’m sorry, honey. I wanted to be sure before I said anything to you. You know, what with your dad and all.”
At the mention of my dad, my tears begin to well, and a lump tightens my throat. Dad died of his cancer. Does that mean Mom will, too?
“Women find lumps every day, and they amount to nothing, you know. Modern medicine is a miracle. I didn’t want to disturb you over there with Sebastian. You’ve got a wedding to plan, a new life to build. You’ve got enough on your plate.”
I try to keep my voice from cracking when I reply, “But, Mom, it’s cancer. This is serious.”
“I know, honey,” she says quietly, and the softness of her voice causes my tears to overflow, running down my cheeks, my tightened throat heating up. “It took me a while to wrap my head around it, too.”
I slump down in the closest chair, the energy draining out of me, like air from a punctured balloon. “Tell me everything.”
And she does. She tells me how she went to see her doctor just as soon as she found the lump, how her doctor sent her for tests, how she nervously waited for the results, how she’s now got a treatment plan in place and is forging ahead with it. All the while I’m listening intently, I clutch onto my phone, tight.
I’ve lost one parent to cancer. I don’t want to lose another.
“I’m coming home,” I announce once she’s done.
Sebastian squeezes my hand. “Whatever you need.”
I nod at him as tears prick my eyes.
“No, honey. Stay where you are. Your aunt may be the bossiest older sister on the planet, but she’s here for me. I’m in good hands here, and I’ve got total trust in my doctors.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Now, tell me all about Phoebe’s wedding. Is it as Downton Abbey as I imagine it to be?”
“Mom.”
“Please, honey. I need to think about something else for a while.”
“Sure.”
Sebastian holds me as I tell her about Phoebe walking down the aisle, about how everyone was dressed, about Sebastian’s best man speech, about the other contestants from the show. I try to remain positive. I try not to