I stood at the window, cigarette in hand. After the first couple of puffs, my lungs learned not to resist, and to go quietly with the fumes. My hand shook mildly as it pulled the stick away from my lips long enough for me to exhale a great mass of smoke.

What did it matter now? The cancer was back. After the doctors’ guarantee that every last drop of evil had been removed, that any shards of cancer left embedded had been annihilated by the radiation, that with a good diet and exercise plan and as long as I eschewed any form of chemical evil, I would live.

So I gave up soda. I gave up cigarettes. I gave up alcohol, even socially, even the red wine that is supposed to be good for your heart. Drugs weren’t difficult to give up as I had never indulged in such activities, and would not have known where to go for the stuff even if I had had the inclination to do so. I ran every day, sometimes twice a day. Never any more than twelve-hundred calories a day, and each bite was carefully measured to match the bloody Food Pyramid.

Three years. Three years I had fooled the malignancies. Three years I had denied them their sustenance, every evil gram of substance that could harm me. And three years later, the cancer had found me again, in my sterile home in my sterile neighborhood, living my sterile life of good and propriety. Since the news arrived two days before, I had receded into self-destruction, intent on destroying myself before the cancer could try again.

I stared out the window, my fingers barely attached to the cigarette in my mouth. The bangs hanging over my forehead were greasy, and clung nastily to whatever it touched. I could detect the faint odor of tobacco and alcohol on my clothes from the bar last night. Some man had even left the air of his cheap cologne on my pants after kindly rubbing himself against me in drunken interest. I wouldn’t take anyone home last night, though. I wasn’t that upset.

My arm swung the cigarette in a careless arc, a few cinders of ash gliding innocently to the hardwood on which my heeled boots clicked, my feet guiding me aimlessly around the first floor. My eyes glazed over triumphant photos in which I, with other cancer survivors, cheered over living to complete a marathon benefiting cancer research. In front, tied carefully with a pink ribbon, were letters from other women in the photo. In that pile also were clippings of their obituaries.

I lingered momentarily in front of my wedding photos, and the surrounding images of my children. My children. My beautiful children. They don’t need to know.

I returned to the wedding photo. I remembered the day clearly: bright, beautiful, the park glistening with children laughing in the distance and with loving vows. That long kiss to mark our commitment. I snickered absently at one photo, the one of Tom’s hand provocatively caressing my bottom mid-kiss. We had hid that one, pulling it out only so often as to remember it.

My feet moved me towards the backyard and through the mid-April mud. Taking one last drag of the cigarette, I hurled it far into the alley, following it up with a crushed pack of cigarettes, and meandered back into the house. I looked lazily into the sky, the hazy gray staring back. Tom would be coming home soon. His flight in from his business trip to Tucson would land in an hour. The children were due home later this week from college. Much needed to be done before then.

Once inside, I retrieved a recipe from my collection, picking from the “Heart Healthy” section of the book. Setting the vegetables on the sink next to the defrosting chicken, I departed to the front door and leaned over to retrieve my running shoes. Cloudy weather was no reason not to kick the cancer’s ass.

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