She pointed at one line.
“What?”
She read aloud:
If the gray-bearded idiot starts acting like a substitute father, remind him he cannot keep a cactus alive.
The young man stared toward the biker.
“Can you?”
The biker looked offended.
“It was a difficult cactus.”
The mother laughed harder.
The biker muttered:
“Bad soil.”
The young man folded the letter again.
Then something unexpected happened.
He handed it back.
The biker frowned.
“It’s yours.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“It was written to you.”
The biker stared.
The young man continued:
“I have the part I needed.”
“What part?”
“That Dad was scared.”
The biker’s eyes filled.
The young man smiled.
“And that he knew you’d come.”
The biker looked away.
“Take the letter.”
“No.”
They argued for ten minutes.
The mother finally solved it.
“Make a copy.”
Both stared.
She shook her head.
“Men.”
Copies were made.
Civilization survived.
At nineteen, the young man returned to the children’s hospital for the first time without a medical appointment.
He had avoided the place after follow-up care moved elsewhere.
Too many memories.
But the hospital invited him to speak privately with a small group of adolescents undergoing long-term treatment.
He almost refused.
He hated survivor speeches.
He told the coordinator:
“I’m not telling them everything gets better.”
“We don’t want you to.”
“I’m not saying fighting attitude cures cancer.”
“Please don’t.”
“I’m not calling anybody a warrior.”
“Excellent.”
He stared.
“Then what do you want?”
“Tell them what you wish someone had told you.”
He agreed.
The gray-bearded biker drove him.
Not because he needed transport.
Because he asked.
They entered the fifth floor together.
The windows were unchanged.
The boy who had once sat in a wheelchair no longer existed exactly.
A nineteen-year-old stood there.
Tall.
Still thinner than his father had been.
Hair thick.
A faint scar beneath the collar from a central line.
He touched the window.
The biker stood behind him.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
The young man smiled.
“You still say that.”
“Works.”
He looked down at the hospital entrance.
“No motorcycles.”
“Thank God.”
The biker laughed.
The young man met five patients.
No speeches.
They sat in a circle.
One fourteen-year-old asked:
“Were you scared?”
The young man smiled.
“Yes.”
“Did you think you were going to die?”
“Yes.”
“What made you stop being scared?”
“I didn’t.”
The room went quiet.
The young man continued.
“I just learned being scared wasn’t the same as knowing what would happen.”
A girl wearing a knit cap looked toward him.
“People keep telling me to be positive.”
He nodded.