Sitting on the edge of the exam table in the overly bright hospital room, my feet sway back and forth in sync with my racing pulse—not jittery, like the time I’d been caught drinking beer off-campus during my first year of college and sat on a hard wooden chair at the campus police station. Back then, I was more worried about what Mom would say than about getting caught, but now this sway and swing are driven by anxiety, and Mom is dead. I wish she were here with me and Larry, my husband of eleven years, who stands across from me, grim-faced and pale, arms crossed across his broad chest.

Stage IV cancer, surgery, but first chemotherapy, the tall, slim doctor says in a soothing, calm, practiced voice, no Kentucky drawl present. My official oncology team fills the tiny room, like wallflowers at a middle school dance, surrounding me like a cocoon—sterile white coats, official titles stitched in cursive on the right chest in Wildcat blue, with their names in caps underneath. I am the center of attention, the thing I wanted most in life, but now I’d rather be anywhere else. My breathing is shallow. My mouth is dry. My hands are bone cold. I listen to the discussion about what to expect on a timeline—during chemo, then after, after, after—but I am detached, floating. I see myself from above, a fifty-seven-year-old woman who has endured and survived far more than cancer. How bad can it get?

Then the “Chief of Oncology,” a short Asian man whose gold-rimmed old-fashioned eyeglasses make him look older than he probably is, leans casually against the wall and brings me back. “If we can’t remove the tumor, then we’ll sew you back up.”

Suddenly, I am my mother’s daughter after all. I square my shoulders, clutch my stomach, and snap, “Then you’d better do your job.”