Box

III

You think excessive horniness shouldn’t be a factor? Does the mere suggestion give you the impression I’m thoughtless, shallow, insensitive, selfish?

I fix kids for a living.

Broken kids.

Kids with congenital heart defects so severe, no other surgeon in the world would agree to operate on them. Kids so ill their own parents have given up all hope for their survival!

These are the kids they send me.

You think I’m selfish?

I give them everything.

Forty-nine hopeless cases have entered my operating room with zero chance of leaving alive. How many survived?

All of them.

So I’m good at what I do.

But like I said, I have issues.

I cheat death time and again, but not without substantial cost. Death takes a toll on me. On my life.

Death owns my soul.

It’s not what you think.

I haven’t made a pact with the devil, or anything like that. It’s just that I can’t stand being me. Can’t stand the stress. Can’t handle the pressure. Wish someone else could do these operations.

But there’s no one.

So four days ago I set out to meet these three women, starting with Faith Hemphill, who lives in Ralston, Kentucky. I flew to Nashville, rented a car, got within two hours of Ralston…

…And met a young waitress named Trudy Lake.