Page 37 of Full Tilt
“Okay, thanks, Theo. Thanks for looking out for me.” I mustered a smile and smacked his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get to work.”
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Theo could’ve been a glass artist if he’d wanted to. He was talented, and utterly fearless. He loved the fire but hated the fragility of the glass afterward. Theo liked permanence. He worked with thick black ink that punched the skin, made it bleed, then remained imbedded forever. Our father thought he was wasting his incredible ability to draw and sketch by working with tattoos, but it was just right for my brother.
We worked in near silence; but for the roar-hiss of the furnace, the hot shop was quiet,and my thoughts drifted to our conversation, to Theo, who had been with me through my illness, through Audrey’s betrayal. She hadn’t broken up with me, she’d told Theo, and then skipped town, leaving him to break the news.
I rolled the pipe in my hand, watched as the flames enveloped it, made it glow hot and white…
I sat on a chair in Dr. Morrison’s office. Not the white exam roomwhere he usually saw me, with its long, white-papered table and the little tray of instruments, latex gloves, and individually wrapped syringes. That room was for patients who were receiving treatment. Patients still in the fight.
Today, I was in the private office of Dr. Conrad Morrison—cardiovascular surgeon and cardiac transplantation specialist. Rather than a battlefield, this was where victory champagne was popped…or where white flags of surrender were thrown.
Theo sat next to me, slouched down, gnawing on his thumbnail, his leg jouncing. I could feel my younger brother’s energy radiating out. He took the yellow glow of his fear and burned it until it was red hot and ready to combust.
I expected to be wracked with dread. I felt nothing. No dread. Not even fear. I was beneath fear. Numb.
We waited for five minutes in that office—I watched the clock circle off each one. Five minutes that felt like years and also no time at all. The door opened and Dr. Morrison walked in, a file folder tucked under his arm and a grim look on his face. My borrowed heart slammed against my rib cage, shattering the numbness. I immediately wanted it back. Feeling nothing was better than this bone-deep terror.
Dr. Morrison had the appearance of an eighth-grade social studies teacher—late fifties, receding hairline, tall and somewhat lanky. His eyes were sharp. Surgeon’s eyes, with a vast wealth of medical knowledge and expertise behind them.
He offered me a thin smile and extended his hand to shake. “Jonah. Good to see you. Sorry to have kept you.”
I half-rose to my feet on watery legs and shook his hand. “No trouble,” I said, eyeing the file folder tucked under his arm.
That file that told a far-fetched story of a perfectly healthy young man—who’d never been sick in his life but for a bout of tonsillitis in the fifth grade—struck down by a virus that destroyed his heart. It was thick now, filled tissue-type analyses, diagnostics, blood work, lab work, an urgent surgery, a mile-long list of immune-suppressant medications, and finally, biopsyresults. Seventeen of them. Number eighteen was the day before. Its results would be on top.
“Theo,” Dr. Morrison said with a nod. He didn’t offer his hand and Theo didn’t rise from his seat, only nodded in return. His leg jounced faster.
Dr. Morrison moved behind the large mahogany desk to sit in the leather chair. He set the folder on his desk but didn’t open it. He folded his long-fingered hands. Those hands had removed my diseased heart from my body fifteen months ago, and then cradled a new one. They’d gently lowered it into the empty space, reattached all that needed reattaching, put my rib cage back in its rightful place and sewn me back up.
Instead of welcoming the new heart, and despite the various cocktails of immunosuppressant drugs I’d been taking religiously for the last thirteen months, my body attacked. A slow but relentless attack, hacking away at this foreign intruder piece by piece, leaving behind wounds that became scars. Ultimately it was the scars that were killing the new heart. And killing me.
Dr. Morrison inhaled. “The results of your latest biopsy are not what we were hoping for…”
He spoke and I heard the words, a string of medical jargon that I had become infinitely familiar with over the last year so that I didn’t require a layman’s translation. Words like atherosclerosis, stenosis, cardiac allograft vasculopathy, and myocardial ischemia. A bunch of Latin spliced with English, sewn together with science and authority, and distilled into the most final of bottom lines.
“I’m sorry, Jonah,” Dr. Morrison, his voice heavy and low. “I wish I had better news.”
I nodded mutely.I’ll have to tell my mother.
The thought burrowed deep into my guts like a boiling poison, burning the last numbness away. I nearly puked in my lap. Somehow, I spoke instead.
“How long?”
Dr. Morrison steepled his fingers on his desk. “Given therapid progression of the CAV, six months would be a generous estimate.”
I nodded, mentally doing the math.
Six months.
My art installation was due to be finished for the gallery exhibit in October, five months from now.
That’s cutting it close…
Theo bolted from his chair, bringing me back to present. He paced behind me like a panther, his dark eyes fixed on Dr. Morrison. The anguish in his voice struck me with every syllable.
