Chapter 6 #3
We were a disaster. A beautiful, magnificent disaster—four women of a certain age mangling a Dirty Dancing classic on a stage in a bar in a town none of us would ever be able to find on a map again.
Doris was a beat behind on every line. Marge was belting out in a voice so deep she might as well have been Patrick Swayze himself.
Alice was, of course, actually good, and if she hadn’t loved dancing so much, she could have had a career as a singer instead.
And now with them at my side, I found the courage to sing… to really sing.
I belted out my off-key and ear-shattering notes without a care in the world.
The crowd was on its feet as we brought it home together the way we did everything… wild and carefree and with our whole hearts.
When the last note crashed to a stop, the cheer that went up rattled the neon signs.
Marge spun to the DJ before anyone could move. “‘I WILL SURVIVE’! DO IT! DO IT NOW!”
He did it.
The opening bass line hit, and the bar lost its mind all over again.
We sang it the way it was meant to be sung—loud and wrong and with everything we had.
Then we got to the bridge.
Marge turned, planted her hands on her hips, and leaned down, singing the walk-out-the-door line straight at Alice's chest. Alice dissolved into laughter while the rest of us joined Marge, half-singing, half-laughing as we told the cancer in her breasts to go, the music still going beneath us.
Then the chorus came.
Alice straightened up, took the mic, and sang it like she meant every single syllable—head back, eyes bright, voice full and certain and ringing out across that bar like a promise she was making to herself and anyone else who needed to hear it: that she would survive.
As the crowd went insane, I stood beside her on that stage and something cracked open in my chest that had been locked ever since the word cancer had come out of her mouth.
I’d gone quiet and organized and competent and had not for one second let myself feel how terrifying it was—all of it releasing at once.
I couldn’t control this. I couldn’t plan it away or manage it or hold it together hard enough to change the outcome. Alice had cancer and she would fight it and there would be days that were horrible and I would have to sit in that with her without fixing it.
But I could be there for her the way she was here for me now.
Still with no idea her lipstick was smeared across her face, she brought down the house like a bona fide rock star while we butchered the song beside her.
When the music finally stopped, the bar was in hysterics. We were panting, sweat dampening our hair, leaning on each other to stay upright.
As we stumbled off the stage, the adrenaline began to recede, leaving something soft and raw in its place. A sob caught in my throat as I sat back down in the booth. Then the tears just started falling. I pressed my fingers to my eyes and laughed at myself through them.
“Hey.” Alice slid in beside me.
I shook my head. “Sorry. I’m fine.”
“I know you’re fine.” She put her arm around me. “And I’m going to be fine. But it’s okay. You can cry anyway.”
I leaned against her as she rubbed my shoulder.
“I know we’re not supposed to cry or show emotion,” I choked out, wiping my eyes and laughing at the same time.
“It’s just… I can’t control your cancer.
I can’t control the surgery. I can’t control the results.
” I took a deep, shaky breath. “But I can be here. I can face the scary stuff with you. Even if it means embarrassing myself in front of an entire bar. I did it, and we can do this too.”
Alice squeezed my shoulders. “You were terrible, Sylvie. Truly, spectacularly awful.”
“The worst,” Marge agreed, raising a glass.
“I know.” I laughed despite myself.
“I thought you were wonderful.” Doris pinched her lips together, and somehow, I knew she meant it.
I leaned into Alice’s shoulder for a moment more, one second to let myself fall apart before I’d pull myself back together.
Just a moment.
Just enough.
Then I wiped my eyes, picked up my drink, and held it up.
“To Alice,” I said. “Who is going to survive.”
Marge grabbed her glass. “To Alice.”
Doris lifted hers. “To Alice.”
Alice lifted her glass and clinked it against ours.
We drank.
With a sigh, I exhaled the last of my anxiety. “Well, I think we can safely say I ended my time as captain with a bang. And now, I get to pass over the honor to the next widow.”
I reached into Doris’s bag and pulled out the Viking helmet. I turned it over in my hands once, then held it out across the table.
“Your turn, Captain,” I said to Doris.
Her face beamed. “Me? I’m the captain?”
I nodded, and she squealed as she took it with both hands.
She placed the helmet on her head. It slipped down over her eyebrows.
“Oh, Heavens,” she said. “It’s too big.”
“Oh, Heavens is right,” Marge said. “Let’s hope that’s not an omen.”
“Just no raccoons, Doris. Or bat shit.” Alice leveled her with a stare.
Doris straightened the hat with great seriousness. “I’m the captain now and I decide where we go next.”
“God help us all,” Marge groaned, signaling the waitress for another round.
I leaned back, watching my friends. The stress hadn’t disappeared, but for the first time since the diagnosis, it didn’t feel like it was drowning me. I was a Wilder Widow. And we were survivors.
I raised my glass. “To the Wilder Widows.”
“To the Wilder Widows!” they roared back.