Thank You

Thank You.

Her boyfriend, Will, is about to break up with her. She senses it in the way he moves; the way conversations sour over nothing; the way she wakes in the middle of the night and sees the space that once held his body empty, finding him sitting at the dining room table, staring into space. She has loved Will for the last six years, and now he’s leaving her life. He hasn’t said anything - nothing specific - but she can already see him reorganizing his priorities. He’s emptying out the space that once held all of his love for her. She says, one Saturday morning, “let’s get a coffee,” and he says, “you go,” and stares into space. It is happening in slow motion. It makes her feel sick, sick to her stomach, and she can’t even comprehend the enormity of the sadness yet. That will come later. For the time being, she’s in the shadow of this Great Sad Thing, and she’s biting her thumb, and biding her time.

Because it’s all making her feel like she’s going crazy, she decides to meet up with an old friend, Mary, who she has not seen in at least a year. Mary sounds pleased on the phone, eager, promising news. They choose somewhere to have lunch. She hangs up. Will is over in the other corner of the room, and she waits for him to ask who she was talking to. But he doesn’t.

Mary looks beautiful, even more beautiful than she did when they last saw each other, and she moves with the grace of a dancer, even though she isn’t one.

“Actually, it’s funny you called me,” Mary biting her lip a little. “Well. Not funny. Just…A coincidence. I was going to call you, anyway.” Mary looks away, her blue eyes searching for some distant point in the horizon. “I’ve got cancer,” Mary says, and her voice doesn’t break at all when she says it. It hangs well in the air of the restaurant. Strong, and definite. Mary says, “I’ve got cancer in my bones.”

She doesn’t know what to say. She shakes her head, once, twice, and then feels herself starting to cry. Mary looks sad, but resilient, like a rock in a great expanse of water. Alone, but not lonely. She touches Mary’s hand, and when that is not enough, she begins to cry.

And it is as she is crying that something comes to her, suddenly. It is a thought. It is what she could only describe as an ‘opportunity’. Suddenly, in her head, a scenario unfurls. This evening, she will go home. Will sitting there, in the living room, waiting for her to walk in the door. And when she does, he will rise, bad news hiding behind his lips, and he will clear his throat and he will say –

“Let’s talk.”

But she will not let him. She will say, her voice breaking; “Mary has cancer.”

And Will’s face will derail. He will be lost for words. He does not know Mary well at all; only from old stories, and awkward conversations at parties, but he knows the significance of the wordcancer. And he will console her, as she cries, and he will cook for her, and listen in comfortable, open silence – unashamed – as she describes Mary’s strength, and the exact depth and breadth of the cancer in her bones. Later, he will even take her to bed, laying her gently in the sheets. He will say something like,

“let’s sleep,”, and his voice will wash over her like music. And he won’t smoke, because it would be obscene to do so, and he will leave the computer switched off, dormant. He will lay with her. And maybe that will be the moment. No, not maybe. She is sure of it now. That will be the moment of closeness that catches him unawares. That closeness he has cut himself off from over the last few months – he will suddenly find himself becoming the man who loves her, once again. It won’t just be the physical act of being that hard pressed against each other that changes his mind. It’ll be thereal closeness too, the closeness of lovers when their love becomes transparent. When it becomes hard, like glass, and uncomplicated. He will look down on her, and that closeness will flood his heart; she will be asleep, or pretending to sleep, and he will gaze down upon her face, and this uncomplicated love will seize him by the throat.

She looks up at Mary. She is still crying, but less so now, the tears streaking her make up.

She says, “Mary…” But Mary cuts her off.

“That’s alright,” Mary says. “Honestly. It will all be okay.”

She looks at Mary’s strong, powerful face. She has been given a gift, in this moment, she has been saved, and she has to bite her lip, really bite it, because all she wants to say to Mary is something so simple. So essential. So true.

All she wants to say is thank you.