After Cancer I Turn into A Badass novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Six Months
A doctor gives Veda six months. At dinner her mother tells her not to die before the wedding photos, and Veda cancels her card in front of everyone.
The doctor said stage four, and then she said six months, maybe eight.
I sat in the leather chair with my purse on my knees and nodded.
"Do you have someone who can drive you home?" she asked.
"I drove myself," I said.
"Is there family we can call?"
I thought about my mother and almost laughed.
"I'll tell them tonight," I said. "It's Daphne's engagement dinner."
The doctor's face went soft in a way I didn't like.
I thanked her.
I thanked the receptionist too, and the man holding the elevator.
That was what I did. I thanked people for things that were happening to me.
In the parking garage I sat behind the wheel for twenty minutes and did not cry.
My phone buzzed with my mother's name.
"Veda, the florist wants the second payment by five," Mom said. "Put it on your card, we'll sort it out later."
"Mom, I just left the doctor."
"Well, you're always at some appointment. Five o'clock, honey."
She hung up.
I had put eleven thousand dollars on that card since March.
We had never sorted out a single cent.
My parents' dining room smelled like pot roast and furniture polish.
Everyone was already there.
My father sat at the end with his napkin tucked in his collar, looking at his plate.
Daphne, my little sister, held her left hand out over the centerpiece so the diamond caught the light.
Her fiancé sat beside her, and across from him sat his parents, who had flown in from Columbus to meet us properly.
His mother wore a cream suit that cost more than my car.
I had ironed the tablecloth that afternoon, because Mom asked me to.
"You're late," Mom said, without looking up.
"I'm sorry. I was at the doctor."
"Of course you were."
Mom passed the green beans.
"Daphne, tell them about the country club."
"Twenty-seven days," Daphne sang. "And Veda's card covers the florist, so we can finally stop worrying."
His father laughed politely.
I put down my fork.
My hands were steady, and that surprised me.
"I have pancreatic cancer," I said. "Stage four. They gave me six months."
Nobody moved.
His mother's hand went to her throat.
My father's napkin slid out of his collar onto his plate.
Daphne stared at me with her mouth open.
I waited for someone to say my name.
"Well," my mother said.
She set down the green beans.
"That is a lot to bring to a dinner like this, Veda."
"Margo," his mother whispered.
"No, I just think she could have chosen her moment."
Mom turned to me with her church-lunch smile.
"Daphne has waited her whole life for this night."
"I'm dying, Mom."
"We're all dying, sweetheart. Some of us have plans."
Daphne found her voice.
"Does this mean you can't pay the florist?"
I looked at my sister.
Then I looked at my mother, who was looking at the clock.
Something in me that had been bent for twenty-nine years came straight up.
"No," I said.
"No what, honey?"
"No, I can't pay the florist."
I took my phone out and opened the wedding folder that Mom had made me share.
The florist, the cake, the photographer, the club deposit, the band.
Every card on file was mine.
I took them off one by one, at the table, with her watching, while the little confirmation emails buzzed in my hand.
"Veda," Mom said, very quietly. "Stop that."
"Five vendors," I said. "Thirty seconds."
"You will not do this to your sister."
"You'll have to find a new card."
Daphne shoved back her chair.
"You are so selfish! You get one little diagnosis and you ruin my wedding!"
His mother had gone white.
His father was looking at his wine.
"It's fine," I said, and then I heard myself and stopped.
I had said that sentence ten thousand times.
"No," I said. "It isn't fine."
My mother stood up. She was a small woman, and she had never looked so large.
"Listen to me," she said. "Whatever is wrong with you, you will not die before that wedding and spoil the photographs."
The dining room went quiet enough to hear the pot roast settle.
I looked at her for a long time.
She truly believed that was a reasonable thing to say.
"I'll try to be there," I said. "But I'm telling you now, Mom. You won't like how I look."
Behind me the front door opened.
I knew those footsteps. Glenn never walked fast, and he never walked loud.
My husband stood in the dining room doorway in his work jacket, with his keys in his hand.
I had not told him anything. I had not even called.
"Your mother texted me this afternoon," he said. "She said you'd be in a mood, and I should come get you."
He looked at the table, at my sister's face, at the phone in my hand.
"Is it true?" he asked.
I thought I would cry then, in front of everyone, for the first time all day.
"Six months," I said.
Glenn said nothing for a very long moment.
"Get your coat, Veda."
"No," I said.
His eyebrows moved.
It was the first time I had ever seen them move.
"Not home," I said. "Take me somewhere with a bar."
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