Writing Prompt 13 in Write of B+

I thought I knew who I was. I was David and Olivia's mother, Jeff's wife, daughter to Iris and Henry. I kept my house, carpooled, I walked Sampson, the dog that everyone begged to have and swore they'd take care of. In short, my identity was wrapped up in my house and family. For many, many years it was all I knew.

"Call David's mom to see if she would be willing to make cupcakes for the PTA bake sale."

"Call Olivia's mom to see if she can chaperon our field trip to the zoo."

"Let's see if our daughter can drive us to the specialist appointment in the city."

"Honey, pick up my dry cleaning for me."

"Bow-wow-ruff-ruff-ruff." (Which I assume is Sampson's way of saying 'take me for a walk/I see a squirrel outside'.)

So much of me was wrapped up in planning meals, making lunches, washing laundry, running errands. It had been that way since I quit my job to be a full-time stay at home mother to my baby boy, then following exactly 2 year later, my daughter. There were days I'd get to the end, climb into bed beside my husband and lay there, staring at the ceiling. My thoughts always went to "Is this it? Is this all I am meant to do?"

In 2010, my life changed forever in an instant. But we're not quite there yet. Almost, but not quite. Instead, we'll go back to 2009. I was 30 years old, mother to 10 year old David and 8 year old Olivia. The president of the PTA had called me to see if I'd be willing to bake 150 of my banana pudding cupcakes and 150 of my double chocolate fudge cupcakes for their fall bake sale, all donated of course. It was an overwhelming amount of cupcakes, and the due date was six weeks out. I was in the shower, trying to work out the logistics of so many cupcakes. My brain was whirling around numbers, pounds of flour and sugar and eggs.

My body was in autopilot. My brain, focused on math (which was never my strong subject), my hands went to work washing and conditioning my body. I wasn't even thinking about it when my hands moved from my head and shoulders to my arms, belly, and breasts. Auto-wash at it's finest. My hand, the left one, my dominate hand, had cupped my left breast while the right one was rubbing the wash puff over it and a jolt of pain shot through my breast. I dropped the puff almost immediately, startled. Baking math shot out of my head and I immediately was drawn to inspecting my breast, wondering if I had scratched myself or bruised my breast somehow. Jeff sometimes like to nip and suck, and I had sported a few hickies from vigorous love-making (always on Tuesday and Saturday nights).

I didn't see any marks, the skin smooth and supple. Blessed be the genes that kept my breast looking as pert and perky at 30 that they looked in their 20's. I ran my finger tips over the area I thought might have been the culprit of pain. I gasped slightly, palpating a sore, hard mass. My brain shut down.

I don't know how long I sat on the closed toilet seat, naked. I'm going to guess for quite a while because that's where Jeff found me when he came home from work for lunch. My hair was dry, my skin dry. My eyes, wide but tear-free.

"Are you okay? I came home and the garage door is still up, my lunch wasn't waiting, and- what's wrong?" Jeff asked me, shaking my shoulders roughly. "Why are you just sitting here, naked? Where's your robe? Are you sick?"

"I found..." My mouth wouldn't make the words. What was the words?! My brain was blank.

"You found what?" Jeff asked. I shook my head. I couldn't bring myself to say the words. I was young, I'd breastfed. I lived in the suburbs, drove a minivan. I voted and even did jury duty. People like me didn't- No! I wouldn't think of it! I stood up, suddenly, startling poor Jeff.

"Sorry, Jeff. I've just so much on my mind. The PTA has put in an order for 300 cupcakes for their fall fund-raiser, and I think I might have bit off more than I can chew. I'll be down in a second and I'll whip you up a BLT," I could hear how false my voice sounded but if Jeff noticed, he didn't respond.

A week later, I sat on the exam table wearing a too-small paper gown. My doctor, the same man who had delivered both of my children, had done my yearly exams (though I was a tad bit behind on my latest one), who'd held my hand when a surprise pregnancy three years back had ended in a gush of blood and a flood of tears, leaned against the counter. He held my chart in his hand. I focused on his fingers, long with neatly trimmed nails. I blushed.

"I'd like to do a biopsy, but I've been doing this long enough to know the difference between a benign lump and breast cancer."

No easing me into it. No sugar-coating it. Just rip if off quick, like a band-aid. Worse case scenarios played out in my head. Me wasting away, bald and barfing, my house going to ruins, my kids going to school in dirty clothes, unfed, my husband burning water on the stove.

I went home and decided to not say anything. Maybe Dr. Mark had been wrong. Surely. No one could be right all of the time. Not even Jeff, no matter how much he thought otherwise. I tried to ignore the bandage on my breast. I tried to ignore the worry that twisted in my stomach. If Jeff or the kids noticed, they didn't mention it. They joyfully spoke their days, ate their dinner, and headed off while I cleared the table and did the dishes.

Dr. Mark called me himself a week or so later. He jumped right into it. My head spun. Meeting with the oncologists, the surgeons, surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, lumpectomy versus mastectomy, clear margins, lymphnoidectomy, metastasis, tamoxifen, recurrence, survival rate. I was listening but not hearing. Instead, all I saw was the fact that I still hadn't figured out how I was going to pull off the cupcakes the PTA needed. I only had two weeks left.

"I need to wait until after October 1st," I muttered. I still had to buy eggs. Sugar... flour.

"I wouldn't recommend it, as your doctor," Dr. Mark protested.

"The cupcakes," I murmured.

"Cupcakes? Mrs. Saaks, you really can't afford to put this off," Dr. Marks protested even more forcibly. In the moment I hesitated, he jumped, rattling off information for pre-op, for surgery, for the beginning of the end.

Telling Jeff, telling my parents and the kids, it was brutal. Jeff stared at me, my mother cried. The kids asked if I would still be able to make the spooky cups for their Halloween class party. My father remained silent, stern, and I secretly wondered if he thought less of me.

"They'll take the whole breast?" Jeff asked me that night. He wouldn't touch me. He just stared at the ceiling while we prepared for sleep. It was Tuesday, I was certain he'd reach for me like he always did on Tuesday night. Tonight, he stared at the ceiling.

"Both of them," I explained. "But I can get reconstruction, after the chemo and radiation." I guess I was listening more to Dr. Mark than I thought.

"Reconstruction, really?" Jeff didn't seem convinced.

"I'll have my breasts back," I cupped them over my night dress and blanket. I rather liked the ones I had, and I would miss them.

"Silicone?" he asked after a few minutes, as if he'd been thinking through it. I never asked him how he felt about it, but I suspected he was working through it.

"Yes," I nodded needlessly. It was already dark in our room. Even with the glow of the alarm clock, I couldn't make him out.

"Ugh, I don't know. I'm not a fan of fake porn-boobs," Jeff muttered. He had always been a wholesome purist. Its why we only made love on Tuesday and Saturday nights, never on 'shark week', and I still peed with the door shut, even after 12 years of marriage.

"Porn boobs?" Images of girls from Juggs flashed before my mind. That was definitely NOT something I wanted. I liked the size I had. I wondered if they could just make them the same size.

"You know, Silicone parts are made for toys-" Jeff blurted out all of a sudden. We both paused before we burst into laughter.

"Thanks, Sir Mix-a-lot," I choked out, trying to catch my breath. I couldn't remember a time that he and I had laughed at something so ridiculous, so hard. It had been years.

"I'm just saying," he said after a minute.

"I would feel more whole again if I had my breasts," I pointed out. I squeezed the right one, the left one still rather sore from the biopsy. I would miss that.

"It's just-" Jeff paused. I knew he was still working through it all. I did drop a bomb shell on him, after all.

"Insurance will cover it," I promised. That part, I had checked. We had insurance through Jeff's work, it was good, but not great. However, they did pay handsomely for cancers, and reconstructions.

"It's not the money," he promised. He took my hand under the blanket and just held it. I couldn't recall the last time we just held hands.

"Then what?" I tried not to pressure him. I wanted to know, but didn't want to stress him out.

"I don't know," Jeff explained. It was probably the most honest answer that he could come up with at the time. I'm sure he was worried, scared. I was worried and scared.

"Oh," I sighed. He rolled over, leaning against me. He kissed my forehead.

"We'll get through this," Jeff promised.

He stayed by my side through everything. He would hold my hand, kiss my forehead, be with me but not BE with me. At the time, I was so sick, so tired, I felt as if he was the greatest for understanding that I just wasn't able to be physical for him. Our house didn't fall apart when my hair fell out, the PTA still managed to raise all the money it needed for a new playground without my cupcakes. My kids still managed to get to school with clean clothes and full bellies.

The world didn't end when I was out of commission.

And when the final tests came back that I was in remission, and my hair began to grown back, my energies returned. I started slowly, building back up to the super mom that always had a spread out for breakfast, and a good home cooked meal for my family. I even learned to appreciate the new breasts the plastic surgeon gave me during my reconstruction, even if Jeff still wanted nothing to do with physical intimacy.

It wasn't until 2010 that I found my identity. I was well now, better than I had been. The doctor had been pleased with my rebound of energy and vitality. I was nearly whole.

And that's when Jeff dropped the mother of all bombs on me. He was leaving me.

I remember sitting there at the kitchen table, tracing patterns in the tile while he spoke of HER and how he LOVED her. It made me physically ill, to think that after all these years, he'd been ready to walk away and only stayed when I got sick. I'd be lying if I didn't admit to how much it truly hurt. He didn't seem upset or even sorry about it. He sounded like a school-boy, finally landing the girl of his dreams. Up until that moment, I thought I was that girl.

He didn't wait until the kids got home, he left it to me to explain why we were the model American family, picturesque in every way, when they left for school this morning, just for them to return to a broken home at the end of the day. David was mad, Olivia confused. I didn't have any answers, so I stayed silent.

My life was falling apart. Just when I should have been celebrating my new found health, I was mourning the end of my marriage. My mind started working overtime. I would have to go to work. I would have to do something with David and Olivia after school, I just couldn't in my heart have them become latchkey kids when they'd always had me home. I sat at the table and cried.

No man is ever given more than they can handle, I'm a firm believer, but at that moment, I wasn't sure that I was going to make it. Give me stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, I can survive that without shedding (many) tears, but end my marriage (one that I didn't even know was in trouble) and the world came crashing down.

I stared out the window, the leaves were already starting to change. Had it been a year already? I heard the phone ring, the shrill sound intruding on my moment of pure misery. I debated letting it ring, but that moment of hope that maybe Jeff had realized he was wrong about his desires to be with HER had my feet propelling me to the phone.

It wasn't Jeff. It was the PTA president, wondering if I was back to baking.

"I am," I lied quietly as I twirled the cord on the phone (we were still pretty old-school).

"Oh, good. I was wondering if you could make 300 cupcakes for the bake sale, strawberry short-cake and that peanut butter delight one you make," she chirped brightly. I cringed. I hadn't figured out my finances yet, but I was pretty certain that I wasn't going to be able to afford to just donate the time and supplies used to make so many cupcakes.

"Yes, but-" I protested. She sighed and chuckled.

"I knew this was coming eventually," her voice was levitious, light and cheery. "What's your going-rate?"

"Going rate?" I parroted back.

"Everyone always said you'd eventually go pro, your cupcakes are that good," the PTA president laughed into the phone. "I just hope that you'll really stick it to our rival schools when you make treats for their bake sales, unless I can convince you not to wholesale to them."

"Go pro?" the words slipped from my mouth and danced around the too bright, too clean kitchen. "I;ll get back to you."

It had never, ever occurred to me that my affinity for cakes and sweets could ever, would have ever, helped shape me from Jeff's Ex-wife, David and Olivia's mother, Iris and Henry's daughter into a new, own me. I never thought that getting cancer, or my husband leaving me for the other woman would make me stronger. With that one call, in my darkest hour, I was sent a life-raft... a means to pull myself up off the ground.

Three years ago, three years ago my life changed forever in an instant. With a push and a shove, I was forced to pull myself up, brush the dirt off (metaphorically speaking, my kitchen floor is quite spotless), and don my apron.

That first year, October 2010-December 2010, I created, baked, and sold 10,000 cupcakes at $1/piece net. The By October 2011, I had doubled my ex-husband's yearly income in cupcake money.

I sit, now, at a table in my very own free-standing bakery, at the corner of the two busiest streets in my town, drinking a well deserved cup of hot tea, another day down. It's nine at night, the cupcakes all sold out. I can hear David and Olivia in the back, laughing over their much deserved treat. I smile, standing, walking over to the door to flip the sign from open to closed, glancing at the front window...

CATE'S CUPCAKES

It took my darkest days to find myself, but I did... I'm Cate, Cate Saaks, cupcake connoisseur for Cate's Cupcakes. The corner of First and Maine. If you're ever in town, come on down. The boobs might not be real, but the smile is genuine, and I'd be glad to share it with you over a cup of tea.