“We’re with you, babe.” Blake squeezes my hand then lifts it to his lips to kiss along my knuckles. “We’ll help you.”

I’ve avoided this unpleasant task for as long as I can, and there’s no way another day can go by with it left undone. Blake, Kyle, and I are headed to my parents’ house to break the news to them. Last night was terrible when we told Blake’s parents, and after we left their house, I was in no shape to talk to my mom and dad. All the years his parents have been by my side, they’ve viewed me as one of their own kids.

Unloading this burden on my family and friends is almost as bad as getting the diagnosis itself. No one knows what to say when they’re given life-altering news. I don’t know what to say in response to their stunned silence or their shocked concern. We humans are all terrible at consoling each other under such unexpected circumstances.

Dad meets us at the door with hugs and a smile, and I immediately feel guilty for knowing I’m about to take that bright smile away from him. “Grace, I didn’t know you were coming over. I’m so glad to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Daddy. Is Mom home?”

“Yes, she’s in the living room. We were just watching a little TV. Come on it.”

“I could really get used to these visits from my favorite people in the world.” Mom greets us at the door to the living room in much the same way Dad did. Surprised but happy to see us and eager for us to sit and talk to them. She beams as she hugs each of us, then invites us to make ourselves at home.

I notice how she keeps staring at Kyle. She looks away, but her line of sight inevitably moves back to him within a few seconds. A forlorn expression crosses her face, and she looks down at the floor.

“What’s on your mind, Mom?”

“I was just thinking about how much Kyle looks like you when you were his age. Then I realized you were the same age he is now when you last lived at home. Time is just flying by, and I don’t have a clue where it has gone.”

Blake and I exchange knowing glances. “I know exactly what you mean. That’s actually why we’re here. I have some bad news I need to share with you both.”

Nothing about this discussion is easy—not for my parents, my husband, my son, or me. But when I lift the hat from my head, Blake and Kyle follow suit.

I tell them everything I know about my diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment plan. From the time I entered nursing school, we were taught to be blunt so there were no misunderstandings. If our patient died, we said he died. He didn’t pass away. He’s not no longer with us. He’s dead. The direct answer can sting at times, but having a distraught family member misunderstand the status of their loved one is worse. That technique was ingrained in me fifteen years ago when I was in nursing school, and tonight is no exception.

They have to understand how serious this is and how quickly my status could change in the future.

As I expected, Mom starts crying almost immediately. But I never expected what follows. Overcome with grief and distraught, she slides off the couch and onto the floor before burying her face in the crook of her arm. Her wails fill the room, not at all diminished by her position. Her whole body shakes with her cries. My dad, wiping tears from her face with one hand, wraps his other arm around her and does his best to console her.

“Gretchen, you need to pull yourself together. Grace needs us to be strong for her now.”

Mom nods her head. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make any of this about me. It’s not at all. Grace, I wish I could take this from you. If it meant you were cured, I’d take it without a second thought.”

“We both would,” Dad says. “What can we do to help? Whatever you need is yours.”

“There’s nothing I need you to do right now, except keep your family close. All of your family. Whatever the future brings, Blake and Kyle will need your support and love.”

Mom pulls herself up off the floor with Dad’s help and moves on shaky legs to sit beside Blake. She wraps her hand around his and meets his questioning gaze. “Blake, I’ve been so wrong about you for so long, and I’m so sorry for how we treated you. Grace was so young and so in love with you, but I was convinced she was throwing her life away. Matt and I thought we were doing what was best for her, that tough love would bring her back to us. We regret the years apart, but I’ve never been so glad to be wrong about someone. You obviously still love each other as much today as you did back then. Probably even more now. Thank you for taking such good care of our daughter, especially when we weren’t there to care for her.”

“Thank you for saying that, Gretchen. It means a lot to me.” Blake wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into him for a friendly hug. Instead, she releases his hand and throws her arms around him and squeezes tightly.

She sits back, drying her wet face with her hands, and releases a deep sigh. “What do we do now?”

“We enjoy the rest of the evening together,” I say. “Like you said, time is flying by, and we can’t stop it. So we’ll just make the best of it instead.”

After forty-five minutes of torture from looking through every picture taken of me from infancy until I left home, Dad, Blake, and Kyle retreat to the man cave and leave Mom and me alone to finish our trip down memory lane. As they walk past, Blake leans down and kisses me, but I can sense his mood is off. He’s apprehensive about something, though nothing has happened tonight to throw him off-kilter.

My eyes crinkle at the corners, and my brows draw downward slightly, silently questioning him. He answers with a half smile and a slight shake of his head, telling me not to worry about it. It’s amazing how well I can read him and know something’s bothering him now—again. I lost that sixth sense about him for a while, when we were disconnected and just drifting through life. Now that we’ve made a more focused effort to pay attention to each other, so many signs are right before my eyes.

“Grace, I just don’t understand,” Mom says, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Understand what, Mom?”

“We don’t have a family history of breast cancer. I don’t know one other person in our entire family who has ever faced this. How can this be? Have you had a second opinion?” She wipes tears from the corners of her eyes and inhales deeply, trying to stave off the emotions overtaking her again.

“My diagnosis has been confirmed, Mom. I don’t need another opinion. And, as far as family history, that’s only one factor. No one has a family history of it until someone in the family has it. There’s a lady I see when I go for chemo who was only thirty-one when she was first diagnosed. Her name is April, and she’s my age now. She’s so sweet, Mom. She ran four miles a day, ate a healthy diet, and had no family history. She had surgery a few years ago, they removed all of the tumor, and she had clear margins—but it still returned. The cancer metastasized to her bones, and she’s undergoing treatment to keep her tumors stabilized. This disease can literally happen to anyone, without warning and without cause.”

“I suppose I have to accept this is really happening, then.” She sounds defeated, as if her dreams were ripped from her fingers and linger just outside of her reach. “You don’t seem to be as affected by it as I am. I guess that makes me keep thinking there’s a chance the doctor was wrong.”

“We all have to accept this is happening, Mom, but we each have to do it in our own way. It’s okay to be sad, mad, hopeless. It’s even okay to be in denial. I’ve had more time to adjust to the initial diagnosis than you have. This new turn wasn’t expected, and I’m cycling through all the stages of grief every hour myself. I may seem okay right now, but I’m not always this calm. Trust me.”

“I need a drink. What can I get you?”

“Just some water, please. My chemo cocktail doesn’t mix well with alcohol.”

“You’ll have to teach me all about this—the medications, the interactions, the side effects. I want to understand so I’ll know when and how I can help you.”

A fact I haven’t wanted to admit to pops into my mind. We all need our mother, no matter how old we are. Please, God. I want to be there for Kyle when he needs me.

“Grace, Blake works for a pharmaceutical company. Can’t he find out if they have some miracle in a pill they’re working on and get you into the trials?”

“The process doesn’t quite work like that, Mom. But don’t think he hasn’t made call after call to verify that for himself. As long as my proven combination works, my doctor wouldn’t chance changing my medications. What if I stopped this course and started another one, only to find out it doesn’t work? That would allow the cancer to grow uninhibited. I’ll only do clinical trials as a last-resort treatment.”

Her panic-stricken face is the only reply I need to know she understands what I’m saying.

“Now, if there’s a medication trial that would be used in conjunction with my current regimen, I would do that—if it was shown to reduce or eliminate the tumors, for example.”

“Let’s hope and pray for a powerful breakthrough along those lines, then.”

On the ride home, I reflect on the night with my parents. Part of me, a big part of me, wishes we’d had eighteen years of this so that Kyle would’ve had both sets of grandparents while growing up. So that Blake and I would’ve had more support and felt less alone. But I realize I can’t keep living in wishes and what-ifs. Living in the now is more than enough to manage, and this life is what we have now.

“You three men disappeared for a while. What were you up to in the man cave?”

“Mom, what happens in the man cave stays in the man cave. At least until we’re ready to reveal our secrets.”

I laugh, because I can’t help but feel amused by my son’s continued antics. He hasn’t changed toward me, he isn’t treating me with kid gloves, and I love that. “Oh yeah, little boy? I’m still your mother—I can beat it out of you.”

“That’s child abuse, you know. I will report you to the authorities.”

Now, I’m really laughing. “Yes, you do that. Let’s go stand before a judge. We’ll let him see how much bigger you are than me, and he can decide who’s being abused in this house.”

Kyle laughs along with me, playful as ever. “We could tell you, but then we’d have to kill you. I’m not old enough to be a murderer yet.”

“There’s a minimum age requirement?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“What is it?”

“Not seventeen, almost eighteen. That’s all I know.”

“That’s right.” I nod, pretending I just remembered this important fact. “You do have a birthday coming up soon, don’t you?”

“You wound me. How could you forget my birthday? I mean, I skipped an entire grade. I’m younger than everyone else in my class. My eighteenth birthday is a big deal, Mom. I’m so unappreciated in my own house.”

Blake and I both laugh out loud at his pretend diva tirade.

“Yes, you’ve been so abused your entire life, son,” Blake says.

“Can you say that again? Right into the microphone, please.”

Laughing and joking with my little family feels so good. I’ve almost forgotten that my next treatment is tomorrow. I’ve almost forgotten I’ll be three months into a five-month regimen. I’ve almost forgotten that after that fifth month, I’ll have another scan to check the size of my tumors. I’ve almost forgotten that my life has changed in virtually every way I can possibly imagine.

But tonight, tonight is my now. This is where I live—in the moment.

“Hey, where’d you go? Did we lose you?” Blake asks and squeezes my hand in his.

“I have so many thoughts flying through my head at any given time, I’d swear I’ve recently developed ADD. But I’m right here where I’m meant to be, with you and Kyle. I’m not anywhere else, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

“Did you overdo it tonight? Was all this too much for you?”

“Not at all. Don’t worry about me, Blake. I’ll let you know if that ever happens.”

“Good, because I’ll take you home before your energy runs out. You have to save some up for me every night.”

“You know, studies have shown that 96.3 percent of kids are traumatized by their parents’ public displays of affection. You’re traumatizing me beyond repair right now,” Kyle chimes in from the back seat.

“I’m pretty sure you just made up those numbers and studies,” I reply with a chuckle.

“I’m still 96.3 percent sure you’re traumatizing me beyond repair. You can’t talk about anything remotely related to…what you two were just talking about.”

“Son, I think it’s time you and I had the talk—the one about the birds and the bees,” Blake says, his teasing smile lighting up his face.

“Oh God. You’re killing me. This is cruel and unusual punishment. You’re violating my rights. Stop the car! I’ll walk home.”

Our laughter fills the car for the rest of the ride home—at Kyle’s expense—while he pretends to stew in the back seat. I catch him smiling to himself when he turns his head, trying to hide his amusement, though.

These moments are what matter.

The small things in life are the big things.