The Owl & Moon Cafe: A Novel (No Series) (8 page)

“Not really.”

He handed the paper to her and closed her fingers around it. “I know you’re reeling, Allegra. But early intervention gives us a chance to circle our wagons, to build out of your body and available drugs a kind of fortress against the attacker.”

Adrenaline flooded her skin. Her ears felt hot, and the sides of things were going blurry. She’d never been a fainter and refused to faint again. Fainting had caused this whole problem. She opened her mouth, but no words came out, so she shut it and tried not to cry. Then, as if directly from her solar plexus, she blurted out, “I want Khan!”

“Who’s Khan?”

“My dog,” she sniffled. “You probably don’t remember Lieutenant Uhuru.”

“The hell I don’t. She peed on my hiking boots, and bit my ankles whenever we had sex. I have scars.”

She wiped at her tears and blew her nose. “I can’t cry like I used to. It’s exhausting.” She swiped at her cheeks. “And Uhuru just wanted to protect me.” Allegra remembered how badly she wanted to hear Doc say the same thing. “Uhuru lived nineteen years. Now she’s—” She looked up at him and her eyes welled with fresh tears. “At the Rainbow Bridge, waiting for me to join her. If you won’t release me this minute, I’ll go AMA.”

“You’ll what?”

“Leave. You know, like they say on television, against medical advice.”

Alvin shook his head and smiled. “Same old Allegra.” He kissed her cheek, her forehead, and then, like in the old days, he saved the best kiss for last, delicate and noiseless and right on the tip of her nose. Doc’s kisses used to be about life, but now, not only was she terminally ill, and that part of her life over, she probably grossed him out, which made needing Khan all the more pressing. She cried harder.

“Allegra,” he said, “I won’t insult you by telling you not to worry. But try not to let it consume you. I’ve had lots of patients sicker than you do just fine.”

She breathed into his neck, and for a moment, lost herself in his scent. Too soon it was gone, and reality slapped her back to where she was and why. “Doc,” she said, “would you ask my daughter to come in now?”

Our daughter, she didn’t say, but that was the truth. He just didn’t know it yet.

M
ARIAH SET DOWN THE
People
she’d been reading and looked at the wall aquarium in the waiting room. It was filled with tiny, glittering fish. Lindsay would know their Latin names, but Mariah didn’t. She sighed. Nothing with her mother could ever be simple. Allegra might telephone and say, “Why don’t we go out to Point Lobos and watch the pelicans?” and Mariah would fill a bag with stale bread, get in Allegra’s van, and boom, she’d find herself in a picket line for underpaid supermarket cashiers. Her mother loved to tell people that she had a “rap sheet.” She was so pretty that several of the cops who arrested her ended up dating her, if you could call drinking and dancing and doing the horizontal mambo dating.

When the nurse called her name, Mariah looked up. “Yes?”

“Your mother’s asking for you. Follow me, please.”

They walked down a hall lined with colorful prints of the Carmel area. They passed a scale, a counter with various medical-looking items on it, cupboards above, and made a left to the exam room where Allegra sat crying and a bear of a man stood with his hand on her shoulder, rubbing.

“Mariah?” he said. “I’m Al Goodnough. Your mother and I were friends a long time ago. I’m sorry to meet you under unpleasant circumstances.”

In Allegra’s shadow, all other women were plain. Everyone loved her. Everyone.

“Your mother has leukemia.”

No, she didn’t. Allegra was spontaneous. Passionate. Invincible. Healthy.

“Your mother and I were friends years ago,” the doctor was saying. “While I wish the occasion were happier, I’m delighted to meet you nonetheless. We need to arrange for some tests and then your mother’s chemotherapy schedule…”

Mariah had stopped listening and gone into college professor mode. Sociologically speaking, the best medical treatment was reserved for the wealthy. This balding, sandy-haired middle-aged man wore buttery soft Italian loafers. The gold pen sticking out of his coat pocket was a Mont Blanc. The watch on his furry wrist probably cost more than a down payment on a condo. She went to her mother’s side and he moved away.

“The chemo clinic is at the hospital,” he continued. “She’ll need to be driven both ways. We’ll begin with a five-week course, two days per week, and see how she tolerates it. Some 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 stairwell that led to the café kitchen.

Mariah tried to think how to word it. “It’s not good. The doctor thinks she’s developing leukemia.”

Gammy’s face paled. “What do you mean ‘developing’? You either have something or you don’t.”

“I don’t know any more than that, Gammy. You saw her. I don’t know if you should try talking to her or not. I can stay the night if you want.”

“Nonsense,” Gammy said, taking hold of the small gold cross on her necklace. “I’m going to call to my prayer ladies, get a circle going for Alice. You’ve got enough on your plate with your little pitcher with the big ears over there. She’s been asking a lot of questions. What will you say to her?”

Mariah considered that. She’d handle this better than she had losing her job. Straightforward, no deception or holding things in. “I’ll figure something out. See you tomorrow morning, Gammy.” She kissed her cheek, the skin there as soft as flower petals, and smelling faintly of Jean Naté.

Mariah wanted to come to Lindsay with tangible treatment options and facts. A mother was supposed to be hopeful, a life-affirming cheerleader during those windy spells when it felt as if the whole of your existence might blow away. When the obstetrician laid Lindsay on her breast, Mariah had pledged to be the kind of mother who would never be too busy to listen. What a ridiculous ambition, she scolded herself. You didn’t fare any better than Allegra’s catch-as-catch-can style of mothering. Maybe a person could only hope to redeem bad mothering by being a good grandmother. Maybe what Gammy was to her, she would become to Lindsay’s child. Maybe that was all you could hope for.

A textbook she’d once used in class had a chapter devoted to the role illness played in society. Mariah could always get her intro students involved in a heated discussion when they talked over the sociological aspects of right-to-die issues, palliative care, and assisted suicide. But not once had Mariah imagined the words in her textbook applying to her own family. Suppose there was no remission? Suppose her mother’s health only dwindled? If things got bad, would she be brave enough to help Allegra make a dignified exit?

As she and Lindsay drove toward Pier Two, Mariah noticed a docked sailboat with all its lights on, including a string of flickering Christmas lights that made the mast glitter like it was home to fireflies in the fog. She cracked her window so she could hear the wind-chime clanking of boats and lines against the moorings and tried to imagine living aboard a boat year-round. The kitchen would be no bigger than a breadbox. Damp would creep into everything. It had to be a man who lived there, like the jogger loping along the pier with his dog. What a huge dog. She couldn’t imagine sharing living quarters with such a large animal. Maybe it was a rottweiler. Those were popular again.

“What do you feel like for dinner?” she asked Lindsay, who was counting her mother’s tip money, separating coins.

She looked up. “Doesn’t it depend on what we can afford?”

Mariah felt a pang in her heart. Too much was changing, and it was happening too fast. “We can spend a little money. How much do I have in tips?”

Lindsay flattened the dollar bills and quarters. “Forty-seven dollars and ninety-three cents. Is that a lot?”

That was all she’d earned in tips? Mariah pictured her university pay stub. Twice a month she checked it online, and transformed those numbers into the bills she had to pay. Now her pay would arrive in cash that came from the kindness of customers—or not. Suddenly dinner out seemed like splurging. “It’s pretty good for a weekday. We’re here at the wharf. How does chowder and crackers sound? I can get us a to-go order from The Sandbar Grill. It’s too cold and wet to eat on the beach.”

Lindsay shrugged. “Fine with me.”

“Anything interesting happen in school today?”

“Not really.”

“How’s your week been so far?”

“Fine.”

“Lindsay, cut me some slack. Can’t you tell me a little bit of it?”

Lindsay dropped her mother’s tips back into the peanut butter jar she kept them in. “Some girls got in a fight yesterday. We talked about Science Fair. In ‘Life Paths, Life Questions’ we saw a film about Christo, and art sucked.”

“You know I don’t like that word. It’s ugly.”

“Sorry.”

But she didn’t sound sorry, she sounded hopeless. Mariah scrambled. “Tell me about the Science Fair.”

“Dr. Ritchie said we could partner up if we wanted to do something really hard, so my friend and I, we’re brainstorming controversial topics so we can both get a good grade and maybe win a ribbon or, if we’re lucky, the prize scholarship.”

Mariah remained fixed on the “friend” part of the conversation. Lindsay had a friend? Thank God. “Sounds good,” she said, deliberately keeping her reaction low-key. “So what did you do in art?”

“Worked on our projects.” Lindsay pointed to a parking place only three spaces away from the wharf’s boardwalk. “Empty spot. And it has time on the meter.”

It was about damn time something good happened, Mariah thought, turning her car into it and noting the meter time remaining. “Okay, two chowders, oyster crackers, a Diet Coke for me and a water for you?”

Lindsay looked up. “Allegra’s really sick, isn’t she?”

Mariah sat back down in the driver’s seat. “Yes.”

“Does she have cancer?”

Mariah ran her finger over her purse strap. “That’s what the doctor thinks.”

“Will she die?”

Mariah stroked Lindsay’s cheek, the pale, freckly skin so prone to blushing. “I don’t know, sweetie. But she’s tough. I’m betting she’s going to make it.”

“That all depends on what kind of cancer it is, doesn’t it?” Lindsay blurted out. “Some brain tumors can’t be removed. With cervical cancer you have a chance. Ovarian cancer, though, the odds aren’t good. Is that what it is?”

Mariah tried to find the mother-words she would have wanted in Lindsay’s place and came up short. The sad fact was that she didn’t know what Lindsay needed. She only knew her own desires and low tolerance for half-truths. “Nothing like that. It’s in her blood. Imagine if cancer had an opening act. That would be where she is. The doctor says she’ll probably be back to her old life when they get her on the right treatment.”

“So it’s leukemia?” Lindsay asked.

“The doctor mentioned that word, yes.”

“Chronic or acute?”

“Lindsay, I’ve told you all I know. They need to do more tests.”

“Have they done a bone marrow biopsy?”

“Not yet.”

Lindsay turned her head and looked out the window.

Was she crying? Mariah couldn’t tell. “Honey, talk to me. I can’t tell what you’re thinking if you don’t tell me.” She touched her daughter’s shoulder, a wing of sharp bone that could stand a little weight, if only Lindsay would eat more. But Lindsay was picky about food, and Mariah worried that if she made too big a fuss it could lead to anorexia or bulimia in this too-smart child who nevertheless was capable of only age-appropriate emotions. That was the thing about being a mother; you had to watch every word you said. “We’ll look it up on the internet when we get home. You can print out whatever you think will help Allegra, okay?”