Sometimes, late at night, when I can’t sleep, I stare at my bedroom ceiling and think about my boobs.

I think about the day when I first asked my mom for a bra, after being made fun of for my little nub-boobs. I think about how I have used my boobs, stuck them out to avoid traffic tickets in my youth, and about the wonder and horror of my milk coming in. How unexpectedly peaceful and satisfying it was to nurse my son, once I figured it out and forgave my husband for warning me that maybe they were just too damned big for my baby’s head.

I think about the desire to wean that same little boy, and my confusion of not knowing when it would be okay to do so without leaving mental scars on either one of us. I think about the times when he’s “beeped” them, unsure of his new relationship with them, once weaned.

I think about that in-between place, when my son remembers them being his, and them now being off-bounds for touching, because “private.” I think about privacy and boobs. Late at night and mid-morning, and sometimes, when I least expect it, like at book club, talking to two women who have battled (and so far won) breast cancer.

In thinking about my boobs, I wonder how old I’ll be when I may need to say “fine, cut them off.”

You see, my birth mother had a double mastectomy last year, her sister had one a few years back, her other sister had a lump removed, and their mother, my biological grandmother, died of ovarian cancer. I think about my boobs a lot, actually, and had my first mammogram this year. I paid the extra $50 to get the more complete 3D scan.

I think about cancer a lot as well. My husband’s mother lost her battle with it, as did my beloved uncle and so so too many of my friends and their relatives to begin to mention here. Some of them are fighting. Some of them are winning. Too many of them are not. Haven’t.

I know that nobody will disagree with the statement that cancer is an asshole and that it needs – sooner rather than later – to be cured already. There are billions of dollars going toward research for funding, for fighting, and for coping, as I write this. It’s still not enough.

My friend Lizzi wants to do something about it and IS DOING something about it. She’s challenging all of us to donate – now – to the cancer fund of our choice, and is offering to write whatever we want, as a return.

Brilliant. Right? Right. Write. She’s written.

I rose to her challenge, donated, and chose fiction. The following is what I received for my donation. Thank you Lizzi, for wanting to do more than the doing. Also, this is totally 10 things of thankful, yo.

All thankfuls and differences start with one. A single idea.

Blind Date

Oliver grimaced in the mirror, stretching his bottom lip up over his teeth and jutting his chin as he scraped away at four-day-old stubble with a razor which should have been replaced by now. He used his fingers to stretch his cheeks, trying not to mind that his jowels were looking distinctly wrinkled, and cursed as he cut himself for the third time.

He toweled off and applied tiny pieces of toilet paper to the cuts, watching as they snowflaked with red and stuck to his skin. At least he had shaved. At least he had done that.

Blind dates weren’t really his scene, but Larry had insisted. It was too long since there had been someone special, he had said, and Oliver was in serious danger of turning into a grumpy old git. He didn’t want to be friends with a grumpy old git, and he didn’t want Oliver to think that grumpy old gittishness was any kind of acceptable manner of living. Ergo he would shake things up.

And how! A flurry of phonecalls later, and Oliver found himself abandoning his usual Tuesday afternoon potter around the garden to go and meet ‘Miss X’ (quite why Larry was so determined to make a pantomime out of it, he would never know) at a local coffee shop. For tea.

He ran some Brylcreem through his salt-and-pepper hair, and stretched himself into a shirt, wondering whether a shirt was too formal for a meeting in a coffee shop, whether a coffee shop was really suitable for a blind date, and whether it was too late to back out. He put a pair of (plain, not fancy) cufflinks on, and gave himself a hard stare, his blue eyes stern.

“Now then, old chap. It doesn’t have to GO anywhere. It’s just a meeting. With someone new. And it will keep Larry quiet – that’s the point: not being a grumpy old git to the point where I get called on being a grumpy old git. And then I can be a grumpy old git in peace”

He grinned at his reflection, pleased to see that his smile still lit up his face, even if he rarely had occasion to use it these days.

The doorbell rang. Larry!

“Oh crikey! Well, here goes nothing, old chap. Good luck”, and nodding at himself in the mirror, he straightened his shoulders and strode out of the bathroom. When he picked up his jacket in the hall, he suddenly remembered the tissue stuck to his face, and quickly brushed them off, cursing. He opened the door to Larry, who was looking impish, in spite of his 65 years.

“You ready then, fella?”

“Nearly…”

Oliver took the cufflinks out and laid them on the table in the hall. Too formal for a coffee shop, he thought.

He shut the door carefully behind him and checked it was locked before turning to Larry, who was already halfway down the path.

“Wait up! I don’t know where I’m going!”

“You’re kidding – it’s that new one, just across from the park. It’s been there about two months now. Very posh, it is, too – artisan pastries; organic Colombian beans; poetry readings…”

“Poetry readings!!!”

Larry drew himself up and assumed an attitude of saint-like patience.

“Yes, Oliver – poetry readings. They’re fun and creative and full of nice, friendly people who all know that they need to get out of their house once in a while and INTERACT. Something I think you’ve almost entirely forgotten how to do. Honestly, if it weren’t for me and the fact that I’m an amazing friend who broadens your every horizon, I think you’d be quite happy to moulder away at home until you became part of the furniture.”

Oliver harrumphed in reply “I go to the pub. And I don’t do that with YOU in tow.”

Larry raised an eyebrow “Touche, old stick. Anyway, last time I went there, the locals were rather unfriendly, so you’re welcome to them. For some reason they took against me and Petey and made it their business to tell us so. Bodily.” He winced at the memory.

Oliver’s gruffness softened “I know, mate. I’m sorry about that. If it weren’t my local…” he trailed off.

“Oh, tish-tosh, old thing! It’s all in the past. And anyway, it must do you some good to know that you’re the most cosmopolitan one in there…” he winked, cheekily “…darling.”

Oliver sent his elbow into Larry’s ribs “Shaddup”, he grinned. “That’s twice today I’ve smiled, thanks to you – are you certain I need to go on this blind date to halt my registration on the Grumpy Old Git list?”

“Yes.” Larry was adamant.

They walked in silence for a while, each lost in their thoughts, Oliver’s preoccupied with trying to remember How To Do Dating. He should open doors for her; definitely, but should he pull her chair out? Offer to pay? Probably, he decided.

As they neared the town centre, Larry half-turned, and put his hand out to slow Oliver for a moment.

“Look, I know this isn’t your ideal afternoon, and that you’d rather be tending your carrots, but it is important, okay? I just want you to know that. And thanks for trusting me enough to go along with the idea.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow “What brought that on, you daft thing?”

Larry wrinkled his nose “I don’t really know how it’s going to go. I guess I’m getting vicarious butterflies in my stomach. Or something.”

Oliver smiled “You really are daft. And yes I’d rather be in my garden, but I’m doing this to shut you up, not for any other reason. After all, you’re the only good thing Lil left me, and I’m damned if I’m going to lose you because you think I’ve turned out grouchy.”

“Almost the only good thing” Larry muttered under his breath as they started moving again.

The closer to town they got, the edgier Larry seemed to become, his face showing unusual strain, and a distinct lack of its usual rosiness. In fact, he looked rather drawn, and had become quieter than Oliver had ever known him. By the time they got to the coffee shop, he was almost wan.

“You sure you’re alright? Those butterflies seem to have gotten one helluva grip on you” Oliver remarked as they walked through the door.

“Ah! There she is!” Larry’s voice was falsely bright “Here already – perfect!”

Oliver stopped dead in his tracks and looked at the woman Larry was pointing to.

A younger woman with thick, blonde hair, a smart outfit, and shoes which matched her bag.

A younger woman with a pretty, nervous smile, which nonetheless lit up her face, and a wedding ring on her left hand.

A younger woman with bright blue eyes. His bright blue eyes.

Oliver’s face crumpled briefly, then turned stony. He swivelled towards Larry, his entire body stiffening, no longer obeying his brain.

“How could you do this to me? After all the things you know…after everything we’ve been through with that cheating bitch, and all the bloody aftermath…” he gestured violently towards the woman “…this is UNACCEPTABLE!” he roared, finally giving in to the storm of emotions which had overtaken him.

“I. Will. Not. Stand. For it.” He shouted, slamming his fist onto an adjacent table to punctuate each utterance.

The woman’s face fell. Larry flinched away. The other customers looked stunned, and even the barista stopped pouring, at Oliver’s outburst.

He looked around the room, suddenly aware of his surroundings.

“Show’s over, folks. I hope you enjoyed it.”

He turned on his heel and slammed out, crossing the street in such a fury that he forgot to look for traffic and swore violently as a truck swerved to avoid him, stridently honking its displeasure.

Oliver walked at top speed around the park, his mind whirling, heart pounding and breath puffing hard within his chest. How could they? How could they? He wanted to cry and shout and break things. That painful chapter in his life, which had been closed for many years now, had just been opened again, and all of the agony and mess swirled around his mind, tangling his thoughts and making it difficult to isolate any one thing in particular, other than how very angry he was.

In the end, he slowed, too many years of ‘pottering’ catching up with him. He sat down heavily on a bench and put his head in his hands, allowing his eyes to moisten in the comparative privacy of the space behind his fingers.

A pair of tentative shoes eventually appeared on the pathway in front of him, and stopped.

Oliver didn’t raise his head.

“Why did you do it, Larry? WHY? After all this time…I thought that I’d finally made peace with the past. You agreed with me before when I said that I wouldn’t see Katie again. You said I was right, and that she’d picked Lil, and that was the end of it, after what Lil did. Why on earth did you break your word?”

The shoes shuffled silently forwards, awkwardly, as though burdened, and a tiny, petal-soft touch to the top of Oliver’s head made him raise his face from his hands and look up, astonished.

The little girl couldn’t have been more than six months old, with inquisitive blue eyes and a barely-there coating of fine, white hair on her head. Her skin was perfect, with a scattering of milk-spots around her nose, and tiny, cherry-blossom lips. Her hand reached out for him again as Larry held her closer.

Oliver’s breath caught in his throat as he made eye contact with the child, and reached out his hand to touch hers. She grabbed hold of his finger tight, and immediately tried to pull it into her mouth, testing her strength as he resisted slightly before giving in and letting her have a good chew of what he hoped was a clean fingertip.

His cheeks suddenly flooded with the expenditure of all of his anger and upset, the tears displaced by wonder as he tried to take in the situation.

In his peripheral vision, Katie stepped forward, smiling that family grin. His grin.

“Dad,” she said “her name’s Olivia.”

—

Thanks again, Lizzi, for wanting to DO SOMETHING to help kick cancer’s ass. It matters. And, your story? Is awesome. Totally 10, right?

I am also extremely thankful for the amazing outpouring of support that you all gave when I shared something in this post that was uncomfortable and emotional. 

Your hosts: A Fly on our (Chicken Coop) Wall, Amycake and the Dude, Considerings, Finding Ninee, Getting Literal, I Want Backsies, Mother of Imperfection, Rewritten, Thankful Me, The Wakefield Doctrine

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