Beverley swung her legs off the bed and was confronted by the cold tiles. Her husband had already left for work. Evidence of his hasty departure was manifest in the mismatched socks strewn across the room and an open closet door.

She got out of bed and sauntered out to the kitchen to make breakfast for one. It was the anniversary of her mastectomy, the date had been circled on the calendar. It was supposed to be a day with the girls. The 'girls' of course had passed their prime and as herself, were suffering from empty nest syndrome. Her pride and joy, the only child she had brought to term, had recently packed his bags and flew off to med school in Cuba. She still had not adjusted to the quietness of the house. She flicked on the television set for her latest ritual, surfing the cable news networks.

Matt and the rest of the Today show team greeted her as she sipped tea from the Mother of the Year cup that Michael junior had bought for her. It was more of the same on the sunny streets of the big Apple, people waving banners, smiling mid-westerners trying to get their 15 minutes of fame and put their little towns into focus. She switched the channel as a pasty couple from Calabasus, Missouri almost wrestled the microphone away from Matt.

The CNN update offered the latest harrowing pictures from Darfur and highlighted the number of American dead in Iraq. She moved on to something lighter, Maury, or as her friends called it, the Paternity Test Show. She almost choked on her mint tea when Maury announced that five men were to be tested because a 17-year-old mother was unsure who her three-year-old son's father was.

The phone rang.

" Bev?"

"Karen."

"How are you feeling? You all right."

"I'm fine Karen."

"What did Michael say?"

"Michael went to work."

"So he didn't?"

"Are we still going out today?" Beverley interrupted her. She knew Karen would ask question after question and no amount of polite pauses would deter her and she wasn't in the mood for an interrogation.

"I invited Lilith," Karen answered after an uncomfortable pause. " I hope that's not a problem."

"It's not a problem," Bev responded, switching off the set. Karen reminded her again of the time and place and she hung up and went back to the bedroom. She looked at herself, her Dacron and cotton nightgown that provided sweet relief in the heat of the Kingston summer. She slipped it off her shoulder and examined the scar tissue that had been her left breast. Her decade-long struggle with cancer had taken all the fight out of her. She had watched herself transform into 'Emacia', the nickname she had given herself when chemotherapy ate away at her body, leaving her frail and weak.

The special lingerie her husband had bought to celebrate the fact that her cancer was in remission had remained in her bureau drawer, untouched.

In his quiet way, he had made attempts to remind her that he still loved her, but she knew he wouldn't look at her the same way. She knew he would be horrified if she donned those revealing lacy garments he had bought in an attempt to remind her of her femininity.

Michael had tried in the beginning, whispering poetry, but that had made her cry. Cancer had ravaged her, first ovarian which resulted in a hysterectomy before she was 29 and she had wept bitterly because the big family they had planned would never happen. Michael had nursed her and loved her back to health. They had prayed together and she recovered and then on their 18th wedding anniversary, the symptoms of breast cancer had presented themselves and she was once again fighting for her life.

The ringing telephone startled her.

"Bev."

"Michael."

"Today."

She waited for him to find the words, he cleared his throat.

"I'm fine Michael, I'll be OK."

"OK."

There was a click on his end. She sat down heavily in the reading chair in her husband's home office, scrunching her toes into the carpet. She leaned into the chair and breathed his scent, the cologne their son had bought for his birthday, his stack of Bibles on the table, his Daily Word, her fingers brushed the cover of the book. Up until four years ago that had been her morning ritual.

Sitting in her husband's chair reading the Daily Word, then the scripture of the day, then regurgitating whatever sermon had been preached that Sunday and chanting it like a mantra while she went through her day. She flicked through the pages, found the fated date that had changed her world and read that day's inspirational message.

'Don't Give Up' was emblazoned in bold letters at the top of the page, She had heard that many times during her long battle with cancer. Her chair had sat empty on the pulpit of the church her husband pastored. He quoted scriptures as he held her in bed at night trying to make her understand that she wasn't being punished, that God loved her still, that it was his will that she be tested. He praised her beauty even when the painful radiation treatment made her lose her hair. He lauded her courage even when she was too sick to lecture anymore and he had to clean out her desk at the seminary.

She absently rifled through the pages of her husband's book of inspiration, subconsciously waiting for her son to call. It was after all, her birthday, mastectomy aside. She considered herself reborn that day. Her husband, with his off-colour humour had called it baptism of fire, she had celebrated her birthday with tubes up her nose an IV in her arm. Michael junior had been there with his Mother of the Year cup, his father and a few members of the congregation had prayed with her and brought a small cake, but her birthday was never the same, and neither was her faith. The hardest part had been going through the motions, genuflecting with everyone else, sitting through her husband's sermons, accepting the prayers of the congregants. She held her smile in place, she was the perfect first lady. She held her Bible on the left to fill the space, but the space in her heart, no matter the sermons and singing, would not be filled. Her husband's worry was obvious when she refused to accompany him Sunday mornings, congregants came to visit and she greeted them with nonchalance, telling them she had lost her mask of normality and was in no hurry to find it.

She got it on the third ring.

"Mummy."

"Junior."

He kissed her through the phone making loud sloppy noises, she tried her best to kiss him back matching his laughter with hers.

"Yuh alright Mum?'

"I'm fine Junior, how are you? Is everything Ok? How were your exams?"

"I'm good Mummy, I'm man-aging, how is Rev?"

She laughed, he had taken to calling his Father Rev South.

"Rev is quite fine, we're both fine," she said before he could ask her how she was again.

"OK mummy, I sent you a card in the snail mail, happy birthday mummy."

"I love you, son, take care."

He said something sweet in Spanish and hung up. The call she had been waiting for had come and gone. Her appointment with Karen was approaching, she slid the glass door back and stepped into the shower. The water blasted her back and she let it beat on her for a few minutes. Hydrotherapy always lifted her spirits especially with the day she had to face. She turned and the blast of the shower settled on her chest and she gently touched it, swirling her fingers in a small caress, closing her eyes and imagining the scar tissue gone. Gently rubbing her hand on her right breast, slowly, ever so slowly rubbing it in circles, she turned off the shower and leaned heavily against the wall, pressing her breast more intently now. It had been three years. She stepped out of the shower and slid to the floor. Her cancer had been in remission for three years. She touched her breast again in disbelief.

The phone rang again.

She knew it was Karen. She was 30 minutes late. The shrill ring was the only sound in the house as she sat on the floor in the bathroom, her hand covering her breast, silent tears staining her cheeks.

'Well happy birthday Bev," she whispered.

- Natalee Grant