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Stage 3 breast cancer has a way of rearranging your priorities without asking permission. The doctor’s voice was calm, practiced, almost gentle. Mine was not. I nodded like a responsible adult while my insides panicked. I drove home and sat in my car for an hour, staring at my hands, wondering how they could look so normal when everything else had just broken.
Why would I? We were strangers. Six years is enough time to forget the sound of someone’s laugh, the exact shape of their concern. I told myself she didn’t need to know. I told myself I didn’t need her.
Chemo started in winter. The hospital smelled like disinfectant and coffee that had been sitting too long. My first session took hours. I slept through most of it, the drugs pulling me under like a tide I was too tired to fight.
My sister.
