Unbreak My Heart(47)

Most of all, her.

Beads of sweat drip from my forehead. I reach for the bottom of my gray T-shirt and wipe my face with the fabric. When I look up at the time, I see the temperature outside the Bank of Tokyo. It’s ninety-one degrees, and it’s balls hot, but I don’t care.

I’ve figured it out. I’m pretty sure I know what the doctor is going to tell me.

More than that, I think I’m ready for it at last.





29





Andrew



After the temple and the teahouse, I expected a short Zen master in some traditional Asian garb, maybe in a feng shui-ed garden office.

Instead, the doctor is surprisingly tall and also impeccably dressed in a gray business suit.

He doesn’t offer me tea, like I expect. Instead, he gestures to the crystal bowl in front of me, filled with lemon and orange hard candy.

“Please. Have one,” he says as he pops a lemon candy into his mouth and takes a seat across from me. “I am a candy connoisseur.”

I’ve never been to a shrink’s office, but I suspect it feels like this. Like someone trying to make you feel comfortable when you feel displaced.

“Though, truth be told, it’s really an addiction,” he adds. “I can’t stop myself when it comes to candy.”

Is he really talking to me about candy? I take an orange one to be polite and put it in my pocket for later. “How was Tibet?”

“Uplifting. I treat the poor and indigent there who are suffering. They are grateful for the help.”

He sucks on the lemon candy, his cheek pouching out as he does.

“What else do you do in Tibet?” I ask, because it is so much easier to say that than, Can you please tell me something I don’t know about my brother, or confirm what I suspect to be true?

He tells me about his work overseas. I hear maybe every three words because I’m focused on what I wish he’d say instead.

“But I suspect that’s not why you are here,” he says gently, and I want to thank him for putting me out of my small-talk misery.

“No. That’s not why I’m here, Dr. Takahashi. You treated my brother. You sent him to drink tea and see temples. Do you believe in that legend, then? The one about the tea, about the emperor and his wife?”

“I believe that sometimes if you believe you are healthy, you are healthy.”

“Mind over matter?”

“There is something to it, Andrew. There is something to the energy in the universe, the energy you put out, the energy you take in.”

Does he truly believe that? I ball my hands into fists. “And does that work for cancer treatment?”

He leans back in his chair and scrubs a hand over his chin as if weighing his words, easing into it. “If you have someone who wants to heal, sometimes they will respond to the unconventional. Their minds are more open to healing, so their bodies become more willing. I believe medication, while a wonderful thing, has its limits. There is value in the unconventional. And Ian wanted that. He asked for that when he initially came to me when he was in remission, and then when we first saw the signs that the cancer was likely returning. I treated him with conventional cancer medicine to try to stave off the return, but also with Chinese herbs and acupuncture. And yes, I encouraged him to go to the teahouse and to see the temples and to keep his mind and heart open to new ways of healing.”

“But in the end, he didn’t heal,” I say heavily, trying desperately to keep a grip on my emotions.

Takahashi presses his hands together and leans forward in his chair. “Your brother was one of the bravest, most resilient people I’ve ever known. I’m sure you can recall that he was well more than he was not in the last year?”

I picture breakfasts at the fish market, walks with Sandy, and Dodgers games flickering before me. They mingle with new moments, ones I’ve only been privy to recently—the dates with Kana, the concerts he took her to, a piano bar somewhere—everything that I imagined yesterday when I walked around the city.

A few weeks ago, I wanted to believe Ian went to the doctor for the possibility of a miracle.

But I’m certain now that’s not the case. “He didn’t come to you for a miracle, did he?”

The doctor shakes his head, and a sad smile seems to tug at his lips, as if he’s pleased that I connected the dots on my own. “He knew time was running out. He knew he was dying, but he wanted to heal in his own way, in the only way that he could heal at that point.”

And so now I am here. The last question. “And he stopped taking the meds because he wanted to . . .?”

But the last word sticks in my throat. I can’t get it out because I know that’s not the why.

He shakes his head. “No. He didn’t want to die. But he was at peace with it, Andrew. Once the cancer returned earlier this year, that’s when he made a choice to finish out his days as free as he could be. He wanted to experience the rest of his life and his death on his own terms.”

My throat is clogged with emotions, and my heart hurts, aching with the swell of memories. But I’m almost there. This is what I figured out last night—the truth of Ian’s final choices. The why is something that I also know I can finally handle. “He came to you first for treatment then for release.”

He nods, the sage nod of a wise man. “He asked to be weaned off his meds in a way that was safe.” He pauses, bowing his head briefly then meeting my eyes once more. “We spend so much of our time fighting death, as we should. But sometimes the greatest gift we can give ourselves, and in turn the ones we love, is to let go.”