1. Gwen
I’m scribbling furiously on the notepad balanced on my knee, with its Children’s National logo emblazoned in red across the top, a little gray teddy bear waving at me. Cheerful little asshole. On my right, Ana is squeezing my hand so tightly that both of our fingers are turning white, but I don’t shake her off. I want to grab and hold her. I want to sob together. Whatever the oncologist is saying is literally life-or-death important, but I can’t focus. My attention flits to the uncomfortably happy photos of sick kids on the walls, to the old carpet and heavy furniture, to the bright wallpaper and sleek computer, overwhelmed by the weird hospital time capsule vibe of the room. I’m disoriented, and maybe it’s a physical reaction to the impossible words coming out of this doctor’s mouth.
“Surgery is our next step,” she says, her eyes kind and voice soft. I know it’s probably because she’s done this so many times that she knows how to stay composed, but I wish she would yell. Be angry at the cancer with me. “But I want to make sure you understand, Morgana. Stage 0 DCIS means the cells are pre-cancerous—it hasn’t spread. You’re incredibly lucky that we caught this so early. Treatment is relatively short, and if everything goes according to plan, your long-term risk of invasive cancer is incredibly low. This is treatable and survivable.”
Ana’s face is blank as she nods, but I can feel her sweating against my palm. It’s not like we didn’t see this coming; a fifteen-year-old doesn’t make it into this room without a horrifying number of tests and needles and scans. We’ve been overwhelmed with meetings with social services and family support liaisons and so many people who are trying to prepare me to be the twenty-seven-year-old caretaker of a kid with cancer.
Dr. Beldiah, the annoyingly pleasant oncologist, continues talking about timelines and treatments and next steps. She explains how I can schedule everything with a family assistance specialist who will call me tomorrow. I’m writing every word down because I’m currently running on auto-pilot, and I think Ana’s hand in mine is the only thing stopping me from crumbling.
“Gwen, could I possibly speak to you in the hall? A nurse is going to come in to take Morgana’s vitals and give her some information.” Dr. Beldiah picks up her phone and presumably dials whatever nurse she’s referencing.
For the first time in over twenty minutes, I turn fully toward my favorite person in the entire world. Her auburn hair is twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck, messy and frayed. Her jaw is clenched, and her nostrils flared. But she’s not afraid. I’ve seen this look on Ana before—she’s angry. And fuck, doesn’t she deserve to be?
Her hand grips mine so tightly I’ve lost feeling in it, but she doesn’t turn to me. I know that expression too, because I know all of them. She doesn’t want me to leave.
“I think I’d rather stay with her for now, if you don’t mind,” I breathe out, feeling like I’m talking through a straw. “You can say what you need to say here. She deserves to know everything.” I turn back to Dr. Beldiah. “She can handle it.”
Her eyes flicker between me and Ana, and she’s saved from answering by the click of the door opening and shutting. An older man with speckled hair and wire-rim glasses kneels beside Ana and wraps her free arm in the blood pressure cuff. A little pulse monitor goes on her finger. Dr. Beldiah leans toward me.
“Someone from the billing office will call you sometime this week to set up an appointment. There are financial aid applications, and they can answer questions about your insurance coverage. It’s a lot to handle, I know, but there’s support here.”
I wince and glance at Ana. The doc was right—she doesn’t need to hear this. I grimace as the nurse tells her they’re going to need to do her blood pressure one more time and she should take some deep breaths.
“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind.” I say the words, but I’m not really sure what I mean. My little sister has been on my insurance since the day my first plan kicked in, about a month after high school graduation. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a dentist before then—our mother has never been particularly skilled with paperwork or appointments or parenting—but ever since, I’ve made sure she’s the absolute picture of health. Teeth cleanings and eye exams and physicals before joining the softball team. And when she took a line drive to the chest during practice, I got her to the emergency room, thinking we could handle whatever was coming. My biggest worry was that she broke a rib and she wouldn’t be able to play in the winter league championship.
And now here we are, one CT scan, two MRIs, a biopsy, and countless blood tests later, and I have no idea how much this will cost. I’ve created a comfortable life for us, but my tips keep us afloat, and the insurance isn’t this good.
Eventually, her blood pressure settles, and Dr. Beldiah sends us off with a folder stuffed with pamphlets and forms. As we leave the hospital hand in hand, Morgana doesn’t say a word. We’ve had nine years of it just being the two of us. We know each other inside and out, left and right, and I’m certain Ana needs to be the first one to break the silence. She needs to exert some small amount of control in this situation.
She doesn’t let go of my hand until we’re standing directly in front of our neighbor Jimmy”s blue two-door I borrowed. It’s probably ridiculous, but I had a nightmare last night that we took the Metro to this appointment and the red line shut down, and we were trapped on the train until the cancer took over Ana’s entire body. I wasn’t tempting fate.
When we”re both settled in the car, the winter cold stinging our noses with the engine still off, she turns and looks me right in the eyes.
”How the fuck do you get breast cancer with no boobs?”
I am so taken aback by the question, I actually laugh. For a fleeting moment, guilt swallows me, but then Ana laughs too, the sound full of disbelief.
”Where is the cancer even hiding? What tits exist for it to live in?” She huffs bitterly into the frigid air, still turned toward me in her seat.
A pained smile pulls onto my lips in response to hers.
”Don”t say fuck, and don”t say tits,” I laugh, my reproach lacking any sort of authority.
”I think I’ve earned the right to say tits today.”
She”s right. She”s earned it.
”Okay, fine, but still don”t say fuck.” I turn the car on and navigate toward the exit. Ana is still smiling, but it feels strange now. Like how she smiled when Danny Whicker un-invited her to prom freshman year because a senior girl had shown interest. Pained, but in a way where she”s mad at herself for allowing it to hurt her.
”Are you hungry? Boob cancer earns you dinner pick of the night.” I thread the car through the streets of Columbia Heights, scowling at the college kids and Hill staffers as they mingle outside restaurants and hidden gardens. I usually love this city. But today, it’s the city that saw my sister get cancer, so I’m pretty irrationally pissed at it.
As Ana”s smile melts into something more natural, she leans back into her seat, kicking her shoes off and tucking her heels against her thighs. She”s always balled herself up, especially when we”re in the car. It makes her look so young. Today more than ever.
”Do we have pad see ew left in the fridge?” she asks, unwrapping and rewrapping her hair in the bun at the base of her neck. The traffic picks up as we inch our way toward Adam”s Morgan.
”You can have fresh pad see ew tonight. We can grab it on the way,” I offer. She rests her chin against her knees.
”Ginny, I think tonight”s going to be the last normal night for a while. I kind of want to pretend it’s a regular Tuesday, you know?”
The fact that she used her nickname for me—the one only she uses—settles my pulse a little. I can do that. I can do normal. I can so do normal. I”m not on the edge of panic. I don’t want to scream, to cry, to rage against this threat I know I can’t fight. I”m not terrified.
I”m normal.
”Okay, but I”m having someone deliver ice cream because I ate the last of it before my shift yesterday. Don”t yell at me.”
Her look of mock shock and chagrin is so classically Morgana that I think maybe she”s right. We can have one more night of normal.
It”s not until late that night, after we”ve moved the chaises around to make the couch into a giant bed and eaten until we”re nearly comatose, that I realized I never asked if she was okay. But maybe neither of us are ready for that answer, anyway.