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finished telling of Olaf’s death, Nancy dared to ask a question, throughout which her voice trembled. “Dr. Chandra…what kind of doctor are you? I mean…what’s your specialty?”
    He met her eyes directly, as though he assumed that she shared her daughter’s indomitable and stoic nature. “I’m an oncologist, Mrs. Blair. With an additional specialty in surgical oncology.”
    “Cancer,” Nancy said, the word issuing from her with such a note of dread that it might have been a synonym for
death.
    His dark-chocolate eyes were warm and sympathetic, and in them she saw what seemed to be sorrow. “Though I really do need to review the test results more closely, I feel certain we are dealing here with gliomatosis cerebri. It originates in the connective cells of the brain and infiltrates quickly, deeply into surrounding tissue.”
    “What causes it?” Murph asked.
    “We don’t know. Scientists have had little chance to study the disease. It’s exceedingly rare. We see no more than a hundred cases a year in the entire United States.”
    Nancy realized that she had come forward in her chair and that she was holding the edge of the table with both hands, as though to anchor herself against some great approaching turbulence.
    “You’ll remove the tumor,” Murph said, making of those words a hopeful statement rather than a question.
    After a hesitation, the oncologist said, “This tumor isn’t localized like those in other forms of cancer. It has a spiderweblike pattern, filmy threads across more than one frontal lobe. It can be difficult to detect. The boundaries of the malignancy are hard to define. In certain cases, primarily in young children, surgery may be an option, but seldom a good one.”
    Perhaps consoled and given hope by the fact that the glioma was not easily detected, Murph said, “Then you treat it how—with chemo, radiation?”
    “Often, yes. That’s why I want to study Bibi’s test results more closely before deciding what we might do to extend her life.”
    Although she gripped the table tighter than ever, Nancy felt as if she were floating away on a tide of despair as real as any flood waters. “Extend her life?”
    There were lustrous depths in the physician’s eyes, and in those depths coiled a knowledge that suddenly she didn’t want him to share with them.
    Dr. Chandra looked down at the table, at Murph, at Nancy once more, and said almost in a whisper, “It pains me to tell you that there is no cure. Survival time from diagnosis averages one year.”
    Nancy could not breathe. Could not or didn’t wish to breathe.
    “But with chemo and radiation?” Murph asked. “What then?”
    The oncologist’s compassion was so evident, his sympathy so tender, that though Nancy irrationally wanted to hate him for what he revealed next, she could not muster even anger. “One year is
with
chemo and radiation,” Sanjay Chandra said. “And your daughter’s cancer is already very advanced.”

After she woke from her nap, Bibi freshened up in the bathroom. Her face in the mirror surprised her. Sparkle in the eyes. Color in the cheeks and lips without benefit of makeup. She continued to look better than she felt, to the extent that she might have been staring not at a looking glass but into a parallel dimension where another, healthier Bibi Blair lived without a serious concern.
    Having developed an appetite, she made her way back to bed to wait for the return of her parents and for dinner. The tingling along the left side of her body had grown less intense. The weakness in her left hand diminished, and not once did she find herself dragging her left foot. In the past few hours, she hadn’t suffered a recurrence of the foul taste.
    She knew better than to conclude that the subsidence of her symptoms meant her affliction, whatever its cause, must be temporary. In spite of all its myriad wonders and its exquisite beauty, this world was a hard place; the comforts and joys that it offered, all the