Positively Beautiful (7 page)

When I get home, I grab a banana and climb the stairs to my mom's room. The phone rings and I speed up. Maybe it's the doctor, maybe they got the lab work back early and she's calling to tell Mom everything is A-OK. Maybe it was even a false alarm.

I hear her say, “Oh, Jill, my God, it's terrible,” and I stop just outside of her bedroom. It's bad, then. Suddenly, I don't want to go into the room. I slide down the wall and sit with my arms around my knees.

“Cancer and this worry on top of
that
… I guess it just didn't seem real before. I didn't want to think about it. But now … What do I tell Erin? She's going to need to know at some point. She's only sixteen, though. Okay, almost seventeen. But when should I tell her? The counselor said she couldn't even get tested until she's eighteen, and really, it's better to wait until she's twenty-five.”

Tested?

There's a pause as she listens, then: “I know there's time, it's just … I feel so bad. It'll be awful if I gave her this. She only
got
her breasts a few years ago. How do I tell her this?” Her voice shakes a little.

WTF?
My face is hot. Why are they talking about
my
breasts?

Mom says good-bye and hangs up.

I look down at my banana. It's completely squished in my hand.

I get to my feet and push open the door. She's still holding the phone, and she looks up, startled.

“Erin!”

“What's going on? What were you talking to Aunt Jill about? Why should I get tested? For what?”

“It's nothing, Erin. Don't worry about it.” She looks sick and guilty.

I stand in the middle of the room. Only one other time in my life have I
known
Mom was lying to me. It was when Memaw was dying and I went to visit her in the hospital. Mom swore up and down Memaw would be okay. But I knew Mom was lying. Mom doesn't fib about the little things.

But she will lie about the big ones if she thinks she's protecting me.

“What do I need to know about? What do I need to get tested for?” I can't seem to stop squeezing the banana and it begins to leak pulpy mess onto my palm.

“Erin …”

She has to tell me. She
has
to.

“Mom, whatever it is, you've got to tell me, or I'm going to imagine the worst.”

She sighs. “I wasn't going to tell you. Not yet. I haven't wanted to think about it, and I thought we had plenty of time. I don't know how … to tell you this.”

“Just say it.”

She closes her eyes and leans back on the pillow.

“You asked me how I got cancer, and that was actually a very good question. After Memaw died, my doctor decided to test me for something called a BRCA gene mutation.” She pronounces it
brackah.
“The BRCA gene is responsible for suppressing tumors in breast tissue, and when it doesn't work right, when it's mutated … well, it makes a person prone to breast cancer. Me having cancer so young, and then Memaw dying of ovarian cancer … it just made sense for me to get tested. I did and I was positive for the BRCA gene mutation. My body doesn't know how to fight off cancer in my breasts. That's why I got cancer at such a young age the first time, and why it's back in the other breast now. We think Memaw probably had it too.”

She looks at me like I'm supposed to get something.

I don't.

“Memaw had it? But she had ovarian cancer. I don't get it.”

“If you have a mutation in the BRCA gene, you are also prone to ovarian cancer. While Memaw never got tested for the gene mutation, it's pretty likely she had it and passed it down to me. We'll never know for sure, though.” She pauses, studying my face, then she sighs and continues. “There are many mutations of the BRCA gene, but I have one that is usually seen in people of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, which is unusual because we're not Jewish. I know that my grandfather, your great-grandfather, came from Poland during World War II, so maybe that's where it came from and he passed it down to Memaw. I don't know. We'll probably never know. All we know is that I inherited a gene mutation that makes it more likely that I'll get cancer.”

It's not like I'm stupid. All this talk of ancestors passing down faulty genes finally sinks in. “Wait a minute, wait a minute …” My voice is shaky and my chest feels like it is pumped up full and tight with hot air. “You and Memaw … Does that mean I have it too?”

Mom pats the bed beside her and I sit, because I can't stand anymore.

I get it now. I get why she didn't want to tell me.

Mom talks some more about the gene thing, telling me there is a good chance I don't have it, and anyway I don't need to worry about it, because it isn't something I need to think about until I am older, she hated keeping secrets from me, she hopes I'm not mad at her, it's hard being a mom and making the right decisions, and she loves me so
very very much.

We're both crying by the end. I hug her knees because she is still in too much pain to hug her the normal way and she strokes my hair and says, “It's going to be all right,
I promise it's going to be all right.
”

Friday afternoon, I go to a bookstore. Usually I go with Trina, but she's off with Chaz. I haven't told her yet about the gene. It's stupid, but for some reason I was waiting for her to ask what was wrong today at school. Like she's supposed to be psychic and know. But we're the Dorkster Twins, so yes, I guess I do expect her to know when something's wrong with me.

I grab a caramel macchiato and think about a muffin, and then decide on the muffin, despite the little fat ring I have rolling over the top of my jeans. I wander the aisles, finding the Health section, and flip though the books on breast cancer. Some of them look heavy and serious, some not, like
Breast Cancer for Dummies
and
Totally Pink Mad Libs.
I guess some people find breast cancer absolutely hilarious. Or maybe they just need a good laugh.

Feeling dissatisfied, I find a comfy chair and pull out my
laptop. I search “BRCA gene” and come up with a ton of websites. I start reading, and before long I want to throw up.

Mom says people with this mutated gene are “prone to breast cancer.” She didn't tell me people who are positive for the BRCA gene can have up to an 80 percent chance of getting breast cancer. How could she have left that out? She didn't tell me a lot of women who test positive decide to lop off their breasts, and take out their ovaries for good measure, even
before
they get cancer.

I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. I sit, just breathing for a few minutes. A clerk comes by and I must have looked pretty terrible, because she goes, “Honey, are you okay?”

Just read my fortune cookie
, I almost say,
and it's a real bummer.

“I'm fine,” I say instead, and she nods and moves off.

Maybe I don't have the gene. There's a 50 percent chance I
don't
, after all. But I keep thinking about little tumors gleefully growing RIGHT NOW while my stupid mutated BRCA genes run around in circles wringing their hands going
I dunno, what do we do?

I look back at the computer. I'm on a BRCA website, and I notice they have a forum for young “previvors,” which is apparently what they call people with the gene before they have cancer.

I click on it, and most of the posts are from women in their twenties and thirties. They're talking about getting their breasts taken off, perfectly healthy breasts, because they don't want to worry about cancer. Some of them are talking about when to have their ovaries taken out because they also have up to 45 percent
chance of getting ovarian cancer.
Do I have time to have children? Will I go into menopause?

I want to throw up again.

I scroll through the messages back a couple of months, but nobody's my age. Surely, there's got to be someone like me out there who is worried about having the gene?

I sign up using “Thissucks” as my user name. The cursor blinks over the comment section, and then I start typing:

Life sucks, and then you die.

Words of a wise Greek philosopher or a 1980s thrash metal band? You decide. That's how I'm feeling right now. I found out my mom has breast cancer, and now that I may have this stupid BRCA gene that means
I
might get breast cancer. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to do. I'm sixteen and thinking about whether I'm going to have to cut off my breasts. Should I get tested? My mom says no, not right now, I need to wait. But I can't stand
not knowing.
How do you live with that? How do you live your life knowing that you might have an 80 percent chance of getting cancer?

I hesitate, then stab Send.

I'm still shaking when I get home. Tiny trembles, aftershocks, that keep quivering along my skin in waves.

I check on my mom, but she's sleeping. The pain medication makes her tired.

Settling down on the couch, I pull up my e-mail and am surprised to see several messages in response to my post on the BRCA website. I'm already starting to feel stupid for posting anything.

I read through them, most of them from adults giving me encouragement but telling me I can't get tested until I'm at least eighteen, and really I should wait until I'm twenty-one or even twenty-five, and to put it out of my mind until I'm older. I scroll through these impatiently. Really? I'm just supposed to NOT think about this until I'm at
least
eighteen? They don't understand. They're all ancient. They don't know what it feels like to be sixteen and find out you might have to cut off your boobs.

The last is from someone with the screen name “Ashley!!!”

When I turned eighteen a couple of months ago, my mom told me I could have the BRCA mutation. My mom had breast cancer but is in remission. Her twin sister, my aunt, just died of it. My grandmother died of breast cancer five years ago. I have a little sister who's going to be finding out in a year she could have this gene mutation.

I got tested a week after my mom told me. I thought there was no way I could have it. I thought I was invincible. I'm the strong one, I'm the one who takes care of everybody else. I thought it would make my mom feel better to know that I didn't have it.

I'm positive. I have the mutation.

Here's the thing. I saw a dolphin jump the other day, flying through the air like she thought she could keep on
going and fly to the moon. She crashed down in a big splash of water and then she did it again. You could tell she was having a blast. I started thinking: does she think about death? Do animals feel joy because they don't think about death or because they live with it every day?

I'm learning how to live with this. It's not easy, but hey, nothing is.

Mom is sleeping when Chaz and Trina pick me up Saturday night. I wasn't going to go, I really didn't
want
to go, but when Trina called to say Michael had asked whether I was going … I decided to go. Mom spends most of her time sleeping, all doped up with pain medicine, so she won't even miss me. I want to see Michael again but … couldn't we just go to the movies or something?

Trina gives me a Dorkster Twin fist bump as I crawl into the backseat, and Chaz grins at me. He's dressed all in black, like some sort of ninja warrior. I can tell he really gets off on this exploring stuff. Even Trina has gotten into the spirit of the thing; she's wearing a camouflage tank top with tight black pants and a wide black belt.

“Hey,” is all Michael says as he slides into the backseat beside me a few minutes later.

“Where we going this time?” Trina asks, bouncing up and
down in her seat like a little jack-in-the-box. She's holding Chaz's hand and he looks proud as a peacock with new tail feathers, as Memaw used to say.

“It's an old prison farm in southeast Atlanta,” Chaz says, turning onto Candler Street.

“You know, I grew up here, and it's always like,
really?
when people visit and want to see Peachtree Street and CNN and the Underground and all that. I mean, who cares? This stuff is all so much more
real
,” Trina says.

“I didn't know death and decay was your thing,” I say sourly, and then wish I hadn't. Trina throws me a hurt look and everyone is quiet for a while.

I can't help it. I'm not getting it. And it's later this time, so it's going to get dark while we're there. Trina even packed a picnic basket, and Michael is carrying a cooler. The plan is to hang out at some dark, dank building long past sunset. F-U-N.

I pat my bag where I've stashed my flashlight. I put new batteries in it, and I've only checked it, oh, about twenty times. It should work. I've also got my camera. I
am
looking forward to taking some pictures, if nothing else.