Dear Audre:

A year ago my mother will be overdue for a mammogram but she won’t go because of COVID. She’s always been better than me at keeping routine appointments, but the world will be on pause for so long that it will take a slump of her shirt to find the lump the radiologist will eventually say he can see without machines, so close to the surface of skin it is. How small will it be to the mother of one year ago? Was it a pea, a hard knot to shell? Or was it the same as it is now, a robust peach pit, an undergrown avocado hull?

Also: why do we name things growing inside of us by fruits and food? My babies were called these things, my sweet potato, my watermelon due for a January picnic.

I found my own lump when I was nursing my son. A harmless fibroadenoma, called a breast mouse for the way it scurries off during exams. I do not need an exorcist, but my mother does. I imagine her knowing, touching it again, this thing she carries with her and squalling, slapping it away like some hairy-legged spider, “Get it out, get it out!” looking in the drawer for a grapefruit knife.

A year ago we were settling into old desk chairs, watching the streets quiet and still. I’ll think this must be over by the next school year because I tend to think in allotments of academic years, but each time I think I’ve got the calendar right, it will change on me. Each daily minute is a mouse, each second. As soon as you grasp it, it scurries away.