Free The Owl & Moon Cafe: A Novel (No Series) by Jo-Ann Mapson Page B

people do just fine, no nausea at all…”
    A fraction of one percent, Mariah figured. Her mother had slumped in the chair, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe it. Mariah had a hard time believing it herself. She patted her mother’s back and handed her a new tissue and took the soggy one from her. The doctor seemed to have run out of things to say. “We need a little time by ourselves,” she told the clod responsible for putting her mother in this state. “Can you please leave us alone for a while?”
    He hovered in the doorway. “I’m not just a physician, I’m an old friend,” he said. “Here’s my home number. Please call, anytime. I truly mean that.”
    Mariah watched him gather up his notebook computer and stethoscope. She pegged him as in his fifties, wealthy, single—she saw no ring. On the relative social prestige scale, he was an eighty-six, a bona fide member of the working rich. She’d forget his face the minute they left, but not the piped-in music in his office, the plushy chairs in the waiting room, or how he made her mother cry. “We’re fine,” she said flatly, as she took his card. “We need to go home now.”
    “Call the office tomorrow for the time we’ve set for her bone marrow biopsy.”
    Allegra let loose another sob.
    “Will you just be quiet?” Mariah said, louder than she needed to, but his words rattled her down to her ribs. “What is the matter with you? Have you no consideration for the shock this terrible news has caused my mother? Did you skip the chapter on compassion in medical school? We’ll be getting a second opinion.”
    This doctor put his hands into his slacks pockets and began nervously rattling his change. Mariah hated his belt buckle, one of those fancy silver ones you found at rodeos, or in some campy boutique on Melrose in Los Angeles.
    “I’m happy to refer her to a colleague, but the diagnosis isn’t going to change.”
    Mariah stuck out her chin. “You can’t know that for certain.”
    “I’m afraid I can.”
    He looked at her mother, who was starting to calm down. “Allegra, forgive me for being such a clumsy ass about all this. I’m so sorry. I swear to you we can work on this, get you into remission. You’ll have your regular life back in no time. But I can’t help you unless you let me.”
    She buried her face in Mariah’s shoulder.
    “I’ll wait to hear from you,” he said, nodding sadly to Mariah, and finally exiting the room.
    Mariah pressed her cheek to her mother’s, which was hot and damp with tears. “Leukemia’s just a medical term, Mom. One word doesn’t mean you’re going to die. You’re going to be okay, I just know it. You’re the strongest person I know.”
    While her mother’s shoulders shook, Mariah tried to imagine a world without her. The Owl & Moon would shut down, or worse, turn ordinary. Gammy would have no one to argue with but Simon—for about a day, because Simon would quit without Allegra there to run interference. Gammy would get mad at God, and there would be endless railing about His mysterious ways. And what about Lindsay? Mariah didn’t want to think about the hole this would leave in her daughter’s heart. That she wanted to protect her mother wasn’t surprising, because she loved her. So how could she expend so much effort on being annoyed with Allegra, when this terrible disease was lurking just around the corner? Oh, my God, she thought. I love my mother as much as I love Lindsay. It’s true. I’d take her pain if only it would spare her.

    That night, Mariah decided it was best to take Lindsay to dinner rather than stay at the café. Allegra was exhausted. She stopped long enough to pick up Khan and silently made her way upstairs. A minute later, Gammy walked down. Lindsay was at the counter doing her homework, looking engrossed, but Mariah knew nothing got by her daughter, the barometer of human emotions.
    “Well, let’s hear it,” her grandmother said as they stood in the