“She looks like she could be your older sister, Alannah,” Bronagh said as she stared at my ma with her head tilted. “I hope I look half as good as ’er when I’m fifty.”
“It’s all the laughin’ she does.” Da smiled, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand that he had held from the moment we entered the room. “It keeps ’er young, bein’ happy.”
“If that’s the case, Alec Slater will never die,” I commented. “He’s always happy.”
Bronagh and my da chuckled, but Damien remained quiet, and that drew my attention.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“Where I’m goin’ to take you on our first date.”
I paused. “Can it be somethin’ simple?”
“Simple?”
“Yeah, like goin’ to the cinema, to dinner, a trail hike when it’s pretty outside. Ye’know, simple.”
Damien considered this. “That seems a little too simple.”
“I’m a simple girl.” I shrugged. “I don’t like things that are over the top.”
“I’d listen to ’er if I were you,” Da chimed in. “When me and ’er mother threw ’er a twenty-first birthday party, she was so mad that we spent money on ’er that we had to listen to ’er lecturin’ us about it for weeks.”
“That’s true.” I nodded. “I did do that.”
Damien’s lips twitched. “A dinner and movie date it is.”
“Oh, can we go and see The Greatest Showman?”
I had looked it up when Morgan mentioned bringing his girlfriend to see a Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron musical and had been itching to go see it ever since.
“And that would be?”
“A musical with Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron.”
Damien rolled his eyes; Bronagh gasped.
“Shut up,” she said. “I love Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron.”
I snorted. “Who doesn’t?”
“I’m sitting right here, woman.”
I looked at Damien and grinned.
“It’s Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron. Like I have a chance.”
“If they saw you, you would.”
I laughed. “I wish.”
Bronagh snickered over Damien’s scowl, but all our attention was turned to the door when a light knock sounded and in stepped the head doctor on my ma’s team, the one who had just performed surgery on her.
“We’ll go and get some tea,” Bronagh said, getting to her feet at the same time as Damien. “Excuse us.”
When they left the room, myself and my da got to our feet, and after we greeted the doctor with a handshake and nod of our heads, we waited.
“The surgery went beautifully,” the doctor said in a thick accent that I couldn’t detect, folding his arms across his chest. “I removed the tumour and very little breast tissue. Once she is all healed up, a small scar is all that will be left behind.”
I deflated with relief. “Thank you so much.”
“My pleasure.” The doctor bowed his head a little. “Now, she will be a little sore when she wakes up, and her breast, as well as some of the surrounding area, will be swollen, but that is all perfectly normal.”
“When can she come home?”
“Tomorrow morning,” the doctor answered. “She’ll be kept overnight just for observation.”
I frowned. “That soon?”
“While your mother’s surgery was important for her treatment plan, it was minor. Tomorrow, she will only feel discomfort and tenderness, and in a few days, she will be feeling much better.”
I nodded in understanding.
“So.” Da cleared his throat. “What now?”
“She is booked in to start her first radiation treatment four weeks from tomorrow, and she’ll have that for five to six weeks starting at five times a week.”
Again, I nodded.
“Don’t look so worried.” The doctor smiled at me and my da. “This is a good day; the tumour was removed with no complications. Your mother and wife’s future is much brighter than it was this morning.”
Until I heard the words “no evidence of disease”, I didn’t think I’d stop worrying about my ma. Hell, I think I’d still worry about her even after I heard those all-important words. That was what you did when it came to people you loved. You worried about them just as hard as you loved them. That’s how you knew how important they were to you. If you couldn’t imagine your life without them, they were part of the pieces that made up your heart, and I was confident that my ma made up a whole half of mine.
Five days later …
“I thought you’d be in a better mood after seeing Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron singing and dancing their hearts out on the big screen.”
I looked up from my plate of food to Damien when he spoke, and I frowned.
“Dame, I’m sorry, I’m ruinin’ our first date.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“I am.” I sighed. “I keep thinkin’ about me ma.”
“Call her again if it will make you feel better.”
“I can’t,” I grumbled. “She said she’d reach through the phone and strangle me if I phoned ’er again.”
“Sounds to me like she’s perfectly okay if she’s threatening you with bodily harm.”
My lips twitched.