Unbreak My Heart(14)

I could call or e-mail Kana, but I don’t want to say the wrong thing to her.

I head to see someone else. Someone who knew my brother on this side of the world.





10





Andrew



At the hospital cafeteria, Trina shakes three sugar packets crisply between her thumb and forefinger. She rips open her sweet trifecta and dumps it into her coffee. “Fuel,” she says, tapping the paper cup. She wears blue scrubs, a white lab coat, and has her long black hair looped back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. “You want one?”

I shake my head.

She waggles the cup at me. “I’d much rather give you this than the other thing.”

“I’m not here for that.”

She lets out an exhale. “Good. So what’s the story, morning glory?”

I tell Trina about the letter as clinically as I can, like an unbiased reporter, because I want her unbiased report in return. I tell her about the absence of meds at my house.

“You’re going to go, right?” she asks.

I don’t answer right away because I expected more back-and-forth.

“You’re going to go and meet this woman and read the cards, and see this temple and go to this teahouse?” She chugs half her coffee. I wonder if it burns her throat.

“You really think I should go there?” I figured I was crazy, casting about for something, anything, and Trina would knock sense into me. But logical, rational, sensible Trina thinks Tokyo is a good idea.

She nods several times. “Next flight. Go.”

“Why?”

“First off, because of the meds. That’s a little weird if he wasn’t taking them, and to leave them behind. That doesn’t sound like Ian. It’s one thing to stop meds when you’re at the end, but a few months before then? Cancer patients usually take their meds, especially when his returned so aggressively. Because, you know, meds fight the cancer.”

My heart drops, sagging heavily under the weight of the possibility that my brother simply stopped wanting to fight.

That notion feels so foreign, so at odds with the man I knew, that I don’t know how to fit it into the picture of him. He was a lawyer, and a damn good one, like our dad before us. Like I’m going to be. The Peterson men know how to fight. It’s in our blood.

“I should go to Tokyo, find Takahashi, and ask if my brother was taking his medicine or not?” I ask, sounding like the parent checking up on the sick kid.

“He must have had a reason for not taking them. Do you want to know?”

Desperately. “What about the whole doctor-patient confidentiality thing? I thought it was against the rules or something.”

She shrugs. “Technically. But that’s all about getting sued, and this isn’t a TV crime drama. There isn’t a trial going on where someone’s being compelled to testify. Plus, in some countries, the doctors are accustomed to talking to the family. Friends of mine who’ve worked in Asia have said as much. The family sometimes learns stuff before the patient does.”

“But what do you think this temple and teahouse is all about? Is that like some new medical treatment for cancer? Some alternative healing or whatever?” I shrug in question. “That doesn’t sound like Ian. Not at all. He was very traditional. No voodoo shit, he’d say.”

Trina doesn’t answer right away. She takes another drink. “I don’t have the answers, Andrew. But whatever it was, it sounds like a good thing, like spending his last few months in that manner was a good way to go.” Her voice softens as if she’s talking to a worried patient. She reaches a hand out and places it on mine. “Drinking tea. Sharing stories. That sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

I nod briefly and look away. I’m glad he wasn’t in pain every single second. I hate that my strong, tough brother, the man who taught me how to tie a tie, how to fix a flat tire, how to ask a girl on a date was even in pain at all. Watching him throw up, watching him wither away after his treatments—nothing prepared me for that. Not even losing our parents first. Because when they went, it was a quick, clean slash of lightning. With Ian, it was a relentless downpour.

For years.

“Hey,” she says softly. “Do you need anything before you go?”

I wiggle my eyebrows. “A couple more?”

She looks around the cafeteria and shakes her head. “Shh.”

“Just kidding.” I’m not kidding at all.

She walks me out to my car and gives me a hug in the parking lot. “I’m here if you need anything. If you have questions, text me.”

“I will, Trina.”

She takes a breath. “I found a picture. Of the three of us. That night we were all up late studying, and you convinced Ian we needed to go to the pier and ride the roller-coaster.”

“He was always a sucker for the roller-coaster.”

She reaches into the pocket of her white coat and takes out an envelope. “I had a copy printed.”

She hands me the envelope and says goodbye. When I get in the car, I slide my finger along the seal, opening it. Ian’s leaning against the pier, looking casual, Trina’s smiling, and I’m right next to them, laughing at who knows what. I don’t look like the kid brother who tagged along. Ian never made me feel like I was four years younger, or like I was an obligation.