Page 84 of The Warmth of Our Closest Star

“You gave me time,” Dr. Bradley said, writing a note in a file, “And I haven’t hurt you. I just want you to give him some of your time, too. He won’t hurt you, either. That’s all I ask.”

“Just time?”

“Yes,” he said, dropping his pen to turn and look at me. “I think if you meet with him, you’ll find he agrees with me. And I think he might convince you that one last surgery will bring you the results you’ve been looking for your whole life.”

“I’ve used up all of my hope,” I said.

“That’s okay,” Dr. Bradley smiled. “You can have some of mine.”

Alex was waiting for me in the car, as he had promised. He had the window all the way down on the driver’s side, his arm laid on the sill, a cigarette dangling from his fingertips. Music was playing softly on the car stereo and he had his head laid back against the headrest, sunglasses on his face. How he was able to sit in the oppressive Texas summer heat in a hot car was lost on me, but he seemed perfectly content with his decision to wait in the car. I hadn’t been in Dr. Bradley’s office for more than thirty minutes after Alex had stepped out, but that was still too long for the summer heat. Possibly, if one lives in such a climate for long enough, one becomes desensitized to it.

When I’d arrived at the airport, an hour before my appointment with Dr. Bradley, I had immediately been struck by how hot Texas in July could be. In North Central Texas it wasn’t a dry heat, either. Thick and humid, the air was like a weighted blanket. Or an anchor. If the concrete wouldn’t scald one’s skin, it would be tempting to merely lie down and wait for autumn. Stare at the world through the haze that rose from every surface that the sun’s light touched. The sun, blazing and white-yellow, was high in the noon-time sky. Everything was so bright and hot and disorienting. I could barely think from the heat and light.

But maybe that was a blessing. The heat and blinding light distracted me from thinking about all that Dr. Bradley had to say. The bombs he had dropped in my lap about my medical history.

The hope.

Alex didn’t even move when I opened the passenger side door and slid into the seat beside him. It wasn’t until I had shut my door that he brought his hand to his face and took a puff off of his cigarette. Without prompting—as if he could read my mind—Alex turned on the car, pushed a button to roll up his window, and blasted the air conditioning.

Relief.

The walk from the front door of the doctor’s office to the car had been a mere six yards. Every step had felt like death was waiting.

“Well?” Alex asked. “Good news?”

I shrugged. “I suppose. Yes. And no. But yes.”

“That’s clear then.”

We both chuckled.

“Everything I knew was wrong,” I said. “About my life. And now I…how I see the future has changed.”

Alex watched me for a moment as he tamped out his cigarette in a portable ashtray in the cupholder on his side. He cracked his window and waved his hand rapidly to assist the vents in dispersing the smoke. It has always amused me how smokers—myself included—feel we can hide the evidence of our crime.

“In a good way or bad way?” he asked.

“I think good.”

“Good,” he said. “What now?”

For a moment, I had no answer to that question. What now? What now, indeed. Certainly, I’d meet with the neurosurgeon in Chicago at some point. I had promised Dr. Bradley that I would. However, this would be a journey with an incomplete map. I knew the next step, but I had no idea of the destination.

“I promised to meet a neurosurgeon in Chicago.”

“That’s good, right? Promising?”

I turned my head to meet Alex’s eyes.

“Hope isn’t something that I know how to deal with anymore.”

Alex watched me for a moment, then turned his head to lay it against the headrest once more. So, I turned my head to stare out the windshield as well. We sat there, the wonderfully icy air from the vents slapping against our faces. Gooseflesh rose on my arms, and a chill ran up my spine. For once, being cold didn’t bother me.

“Hope is,” Alex’s face was screwed up in thought when I looked over at him, “the belief that some course of action we take—some decision—will make our lives better. You know, we’ll say or do the right thing that fixes everything. But that’s not really what hope is.”

I watched him for a moment before answering. “What is it?”

“It’s the resolve to see everything through to its end. To keep trying. Because at the end of life, what matters isn’t that one thing we said or did—it’s all of the things we said and did. Hope doesn’t work on a timetable—and if it did, it’s not ours. So, hope is continuing to do what you think is best, based on the information you have, believing that, in the end, things will work out. Having hope that talking to Dr. Bradley will fix everything is stupid. Believing that if you take the next step, and the next, and the next, that it will lead to an improvement, is wise.”