Can We Keep Her?

Loss

The first thing that she noticed was the weird puckering on the underside of her breast when she glimpsed it in the mirror. She felt around and while her fingers could feel the lump her mind screamed at her that that can't be what it is. Cancer was something that affected other people. Even still, she went to the doctor. Not telling anyone her concern in case they got worried. There was obviously no reason to be worried. She couldn't possibly have cancer.

Except that she did. The lump was scanned and biopsied. It was cancer. It was a lump though, and with any luck cutting it out would be the end of it. The worst-case scenario was she would have a mastectomy and really, losing a breast was not nearly as bad as not getting to see her grandkids grow up. That was when she had told you. A simple, I have breast cancer, but don't worry surgery was all she needed. Everything would be okay.

Only it wasn't just her breast. It was in her bones. It had reached her lymph nodes. Stage four inoperable cancer where the best she could hope for is that she could handle being sick on chemotherapy long enough to last out two years.

She did her best. She hated that people worried about her. She hated that more than she hated losing her hair and throwing up. She made it nineteen months. Not even the full two years promised.

That's how, at nine years old, the triplets lost the only grandmother they had ever known.

When the phone rang in the middle of the night and Bucky watched you take it - answering questions in a choked monotone and thanking them for calling - it broke his heart.  He put his hand on your hip in the hope it would ground you. You'd turned to look at him and broken down in tears. He had wrapped you in his arms, holding you tightly as Steve spooned you from behind and you'd cried yourself to sleep.

Over the next week, he and Steve watched on as you seemed to just start running on autopilot. You moved through the world in a constant state of activity like you were scared that if you stopped for even a second, you would fall apart. You kept going to work even though the kids were all allowed to stay home and grieve. When you weren't at work you were home, cooking meals for your father and delivering them. Organizing funeral services and caskets and caterers. You wouldn't get out of the kitchen no matter how many times Steve or Bucky offered to cook or order in, or just take something off your hands. Sarah stuck to your side like glue. Partly out of her own grief but partly because she recognized the grief in you and felt a powerful urge to do something about it but she wasn't sure what.

So you let her help you cook. You took her to work and let her design her own chocolate creations that you helped her make. You hugged her a lot and when you went to visit your dad she would sit with him and cuddle and talk about her Grandma until the three of you were crying again and then she'd change the subject to something else.

Bucky and Steve just felt like helpless bystanders to your grief. Any offers to help were rejected and so they watched and did their best to help the kids with theirs. Neither man was a stranger to the feeling, yet both were the kind who usually tried to power through it, they suddenly recognized how not stopping and mourning the things they lost, might not have been the healthiest route to take.

On the day of the funeral, you got up early and showered, feeling numb. The day ahead seemed like something final and if you stopped to think about what it meant, you were worried you wouldn't have the strength to go through with it. You went and prepared breakfast for everyone, eating your own as you cooked so you could just put theirs on the table and move on to something else. When Steve caught your hand and looked up at you with a sad half-smile on his face, you pulled away and ran to the bathroom bullying yourself into staying stoic as you dressed in a simple A-line black dress.

You came back out and helped the kids get ready. Pulling up the zip on Rebecca's dress, and fixing the back of her hair. Putting Sarah's hair into two braids. Helping Anthony tie his tie.