Fifty Is Not a Four-Letter Word by Linda Kelsey

advantage
     I scored with the simple, wholesome roast chicken.
    “Pad Thai, you must all try it if you haven’t already,” my mother continues, as if opening up a whole world of exotic possibilities
     to the assembled crowd. “And yes, it was delicious. We’ve discovered this marvelous new restaurant that’s opened locally,
     and Dial A Dinner is featuring it as their restaurant of the month.” My father grins back at her as if he’s the luckiest man
     in the world.
    “Anyone going on the march tomorrow?” asks Olly.
    “I should hope not,” says Anita.
    “Why’s that?” asks Jack.
    “Because, quite clearly, if you are against the war, you are for Saddam Hussein. It’s that simple. Isn’t that so, Rupert?”
    “Yes, dear.”
    “Oh, dear,” says my mother. “I was planning on going on a little shopping expedition to Knightsbridge tomorrow. Perhaps not
     such a good idea after all. Do you think I’d get through? Will the march will be very big?”
    “Could be as many as a hundred thousand, according to the news,” says Jack. “Hope, Maddy, and I will be there, though we’ll
     probably head straight for the rally in Hyde Park rather than walk the distance with the crowd.”
    Anita sighs loudly. Rupert wrinkles his nose as though a bad smell has wafted by. I look at Olly. He looks pleased at Jack’s
     response. I want to say to Olly, “Be careful.” I don’t. Instead, I casually ask, “Who are you going with?”
    “There’s a bunch of about twenty from my year. We’re all meeting up in Camden first.”
    That’s a relief. I didn’t think Vanessa would be up for it. She doesn’t have the right shoes for marching.
    “Anyone for more crumble?” I ask.
    About five hands shoot up; they’re like a bunch of enthusiastic school kids. If I’m catering for ten, I make enough for twenty.
     It’s a simple enough calculation.
    “Sarah? William? Sam? What about you?”
    “March or crumble?” says William.
    “Both.”
    “March not possible,” says William. “We’re invited to lunch with friends in St. Albans. In any case, the jury’s still out,
     as far as I’m concerned. I’m undecided, and I’m certainly not ready to engage in an all-out protest. But I’m definitely up
     for more crumble.”
    “Pass your plate. Maddy, you need fattening up.”
    She looks so pale and thin and sad, though she’s trying desperately not to let her emotions show.
    “Mum,” says Olly, “I’m meeting Ravi. Mind if I go in a minute?”
    Before I can answer, my mother launches in. “There’s something I need to tell you all,” she announces, pushing aside the remnants
     of pudding and lighting a cigarette. My mother is the only person Jack officially allows to smoke inside the house. The deal
     is that she brings her own ashtray. “I could take each of you off into a corner and tell you one at a time, and try to break
     it to you gently, but what would be the point? What’s got to be said has got to be said.” And then she coughs. The coughing
     goes on for a full minute.
    Oh no, not again,
I think, waiting for the cough to subside. Not some new bandwagon that she’s about to jump on. Last time I saw her, she was
     rabbiting on about the Kabbalah, having read an article in the
Daily Mail
. And tonight she’s sporting one of those mangy little red thread bracelets that the Kabbalah people wear to ward off the
     evil eye or some such mumbo-jumbo. Or perhaps she’s decided to take Daddy off to an ashram in India.
    My father, sitting next to her—as he always does—squeezes her hand supportively.
    She has stopped coughing. “I’m dying,” she says without a trace of tremor in her voice. “Six months at most. Nothing interesting
     or original, just cancer. First Maddy’s poor sister, now me. This cancer business has gotten quite out of hand. It’s my own
     fault, of course.”
    I find I can’t chew the crumble in my mouth. At first it was delicious; now it sits there, gloopy and sticky, like newly