We can probably all be forgiven if we’ve been a bit ticked at Days of Our Lives‘ Shane recently. Even with John missing, he’s been doing everything he can to avoid talking to Steve, Marlena and even Theresa. Worse, when his old friends came knocking on his door, Shane did finally break down and tell them where John was last seen, but he was also very clearly keeping a secret.

It turns out, though, that that secret had nothing to do with John, but his own wife. Because on Tuesday, he finally stopped avoiding Theresa and broke the news to her: Kimberly’s cancer has returned, and it’s bad.

Poor Tate has to worry about two grandparents now.

Credit: Jill Johnson/JPI

When the Brady sibling had leukemia last time around in 2010, Bo was found to be a bone marrow match and he flew out to California to donate some marrow to save her life. The cancer went into remission and Roman, Bo and Kayla’s sister recovered enough to make several returns to Salem — mostly to try setting her and Shane’s daughter straight! Now, though, it’s time for Theresa to head out to visit her mom, and look after her, which means the blonde’s brief time supporting her family in Salem is up. When Emily O’Brien chatted with us, she broke down what was to come. “I think she has terminal cancer,” O’Brien shared of Theresa’s mom, “Stage Four. I know it was pretty severe the way we did it, and [Theresa] said ‘I can’t think about anything else except to just go and take care of my mother in California right now.’”

That’s heartbreaking for a few reasons. We knew Theresa wasn’t going to stick around long (especially since O’Brien will be returning in July as Gwen), but leaving this suddenly means saying farewell to Brady and Tate, the Ava mess, the John mess, the grandchild mess — all off it. And her brief confrontation with Amy is going to be it. Theresa won’t be going Mama Bear, pushing back against Sophia’s mother to support the kids in whatever they decide. Even if it did take her a little while to get on board with the whole adoption thing…

“She has to kind of put [Tate’s fatherhood] to the side because of how serious the cancer is with her mother,” O’Brien shared. “She is essentially giving up everything to go and be with her in California. So this is kind of her farewell swan song in town.” How much of a farewell? Well, never say never in this town, but, “it’s goodbye for now.”

As for how she leaves things with Brady, O’Brien felt like it ended in a good place, unlike the last parting. In fact, they may have gotten back to where they were before Theresa made a mess of things last time with all her conniving and scheming. “I think there’s going to be this bond between the two of them, this love that they’re always gonna have for each other,” Theresa’s portrayer shares. “It’s just that she has to go deal with the biggest thing that’s come up in her life right now, and it’s her mother’s health.”

The big question, though, is what’s going to happen to Kimberly? The character hasn’t been around on a permanent basis since the ’90s. Patsy Pease left her contract role back in 1992, though she’s made plenty of returns over the years to celebrate both family triumphs and tragedies. We can’t imagine the show would let one of the core Bradys die off-screen, but if this is goodbye, how will the show say it?