You only have two weeks left to finally live

Mariella was a very tired woman. She glomped on McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts fried grease balls for lunch and dinner. It was the only solace in a world of her husband and mother. She wouldn't understand this until much time later but she only married her husband because he tickled her feelings of inferiority like her father used to. It made her feel good to have something to make her feel bad, so she could control life.

Even so, she knew she wasn't happy with Ronald but when she had three kids with him she knew she'd be stuck in Amerysberg working part-time at the saddest abortion clinic this side of the city. Her eyelids were a constant weight. There were days she wanted to leave but she couldn't. She had to live. She had to skate along for as long as possible, for her beautiful children. They needed her.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Espinoza but the tests came back positive. It's malignant." She grabbed her breast and gasped a harsh cold breath and her throat and body started convulsing. "It's spread to your lungs and heart and we're estimating you have two weeks to a month. I'll give you a moment."

Back home Mariella gathered her children around the kitchen dinner, their favorite meal: mac and cheese sandwiches with ham slices for bread to comfort them when she broke the news. She sat down.

"Kids, I have to tell you something." She opened her mouths to tell them. The little buggers listened to her obediently. She thought about how they would cry when they heard; and she'd spend her last weeks on Earth, weak and on pills, consoling bawling children. She thought about how her husband would come home soon and she'd have to break the news to him.. She felt the dread of his hairy knuckles twisting the knob, his fat body sucking in space and energy as he walked in the house, the smell of Marlboros polluting the hallway. She was about to take a gasp of air to give her the strength to push through the way she had to do things, just as she had when she got married, when she had children, when she applied to work at the clinic. Suddenly a thought struck her mind like a match stripe.

Fuck that shit. I have cancer.

"What is it, Mom?"

"Kids, we're going to Hawaii."

The kids' mouths dropped open. Seventy minutes later, they were hastily packed and speeding towards the airport in her 2001 Honda Civic.

The part she thought was dead in her -- her dreams -- was suddenly as vibrant as if she'd never met her husband. They flew to Hawaii where they explored the island, slept under the stars, fished with the locals, drank from the coconuts, cried, laughed, and spent their days gazing at the ocean. They were so happy together.

And several weeks passed by, Mariella didn't feel any weaker. So she visited a doctor on the island.

The Doctor was a gentle, soul and had to just tell two patients they were positive for cancer and HIV. It was a tough day. His heart warmed when he looked at Mariella's file and latest round of tests. He couldn't wait to finally give a patient good news. He walked into the room. She sat in a paper gown.

"Your tumors are shrinking. Your cancer is receding!" He looked at her with a wide smiling eyes.

"BAHHHHH!" she bawled, covering her face with her hands which became wet with tears.

Fuck this job, the Doctor thought.

With sagging shoulders, she walked out and hiked back to the beachfront hutches where the fisherman showed her children how to clean a lobster.

"We're going back to Illinois. We're going back to... life."

The kids groaned. Mariella went back into the jaw of the tiger: Her husband was enraged that they had gotten up and left. He had hired police officials to track them down. She submissively nodded and sighed and took his abuse. Back to the life.

"You have two weeks to live again," said the Doctor, shaking his head. "I'm sorry. The tumors are just as aggressive as before."

Mariella clapped her hands together. "YES!!!!" The Doctor looked crazy confused.

And so back home, "Kids.... we're going to the Caribbean!!"