her short story feature
Breasts
A BRA FITTER NOTICED Kate's inverted right nipple and suggested that she seek medical advice. A GP found a lump. Then the waiting began. It was eight days before the biopsy
results came. Kate could not speak the C word. "I'm too young to die," she sobbed. "I
want to be around for my grandchild." Her husband, Roger, a 50-year-old social
worker, broke the news to their daughter, Maria, newly married and expecting. There were few other people in Kate's
life. Her mother and father were dead. She had one brother in Perth, who had long since stopped answering letters. She had two female friends, a lovely cousin and several psychologist colleagues that she felt close to.
130 | December/January 2012 | HER MAGAZINE Roger rang these people the next
evening. All were distressed. Some burst into tears. "Don't cry," was Roger's advice. "You'll
only upset yourself. We need to stay calm." "It'll be alright," he said to Kate. "Be
strong." Chaotic months followed with a
lumpectomy, recuperation, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Cancer shaped Kate's thoughts, gave her nightmares and stole her dreams. Her GP suggested she join a cancer
support group. "Best not to," Roger said. "Why sit
around dwelling on it?" "For a social worker," Kate answered,
"your lack of understanding is astonishing."
Kate joined a group, and a healing bond
grew between her and the women, who became like the sisters she had never had. The medical treatment progressed. Kate
began to believe that she was not going to die. She started to value life anew. She learned to paint. Her pictures were
of playing children, laughing puppies, beaming sunrises, mountain ranges that glowed against the evening sky and of bare-footed women gazing out to sea with joyful, crying eyes, arms outstretched to embrace the universe. Roger was supportive of Anna's artwork,
bought tools and a do-it-yourself carpentry book and built her a studio. Roger had an unusually shaped left
nipple, which he had mentioned to a nurse when he took off his shirt for a flu
