Proof of Heaven

by Mary Curran Hackett

“About?”

  “Do you think we can go home tomorrow?”

  “I will see what I can do,” Dr. Basu said, patting the boy on his knee.

  Colm jumped off his chair and launched himself into Dr. Basu’s lap, snuggling comfortably into his chest. “Thank you, Dr. Basu. Thank you so much.”

  Overwhelmed, Dr. Basu wrapped his arms around the boy and held him tightly.

  “Dr. Basu?”

  “Yes, Dove.”

  “I am tired. Do you mind if I don’t eat anything?”

  “That’s fine, son. Do you want me to carry you back to the room to your bed?”

  “Can I just rest here for a while?”

  “Of course, Dove. You can stay here as long as you want. I am not going anywhere.”

  Chapter 21

  Colm got at least one wish in Italy. Dr. Basu convinced his mother to take him home right away.

  Despite having several days planned for other church visits and healing rituals, Cathleen listened to Dr. Basu when he came to return the sleeping child later that same morning.

  “My goodness, Gaspar!” Cathleen said, looking at the doctor who was cradling the sleeping boy.

  “I’m sorry; did I wake you?”

  “Yes, that’s fine. I just needed a little nap. No big deal. I feel better now. How long has Colm been asleep?”

  “He fell asleep about an hour ago. I sat with him for a while, like he asked me to do. But I think he’ll be out for the day. I thought I should bring him back and put him to bed.”

  “Yes, of course,” Cathleen said as she pulled back the sheets so Dr. Basu could lay the boy down.

  “Cathleen, Colm has asked me to ask you to take him home soon, preferably tomorrow,” he whispered as he pulled up the sheet to tuck Colm in.

  “Why? I thought he liked it here. He’s been laughing and so energetic these past couple of days. I swear, he looks fantastic. Sure, he’s tired now, but that’s only because he stayed out last night. I am sure he’s already getting better. I am positive.”

  Dr. Basu didn’t want to crush Cathleen’s optimism. She wanted so badly to believe. But he remembered Colm asking him to promise not to tell his mother that he didn’t believe in God or in miracles.

  “No, it’s not because he’s feeling badly. He hasn’t said anything to me about feeling sick—or sicker than usual.”

  “Then why?”

  “I just think he’s homesick, Cathleen.”

  “Homesick? I am his mother. He’s home when he’s with me.”

  “He’s just a boy, Cathleen. He misses his toys, his things, his school . . . his uncle Sean.”

  “He said these things—to you.”

  “Not in so many words. But, yes, he told me he wants to go home. We did do what we came for—didn’t we?”

  “Yes, but there is so much more we could do . . .”

  “Cathleen, please. I know you are only thinking of him. Believe me I do. But I am just telling you what the boy told me. I know you would do anything for him. Anything at all.”

  “Yes. You’re right. We did do what we came to do. I just have to wait and see now.”

  “Yes. If you like, I can make all the arrangements—change the flights.”

  “That will be expensive. I’m not sure I can do that.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Cathleen. I’ll handle everything. I’ll leave now and see if Brother Rocco can take us back to Rome tomorrow to catch a flight home.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Basu, for everything.”

  “My pleasure.”

  The following morning Cathleen, Dr. Basu, and Colm headed back to Rome with Brother Rocco to catch their evening flight back to the United States. But since Cathleen agreed to cut the trip short, Colm and Dr. Basu thought it wouldn’t be a big deal if Cathleen got to stop by the Vatican and take a look.

  “We’ll have about five or six hours to kill in Rome. Why not make the most of it? We can look at the Vatican and maybe even drive by ruins and maybe even throw a coin in the Trevi? Doesn’t that sound like fun?” Cathleen asked excitedly.

  “Do we have to go to another church, though, Mama? Really?”

  “When in Rome . . .” Cathleen said, smiling, but Colm didn’t get the joke.

  “Colm, I am sure your mother won’t take too long in St. Peter’s, right, Cathleen?” Dr. Basu said, as if reminding her of their conversation the night before about Colm’s desire to leave.

  “Yes, sure. Just a quick stop in. It would seem a shame if we came all this way and missed one of the world’s most famous pieces of architecture. Besides, Colm, you said you’re feeling better, right?”

  “Yes, Mama,” Colm lied, looking at Dr. Basu.

  Brother Rocco took the minivan packed with their luggage to the walls of the Vatican and dropped them off several blocks away from St. Peter’s Square. “I will meet you right here in an hour, OK? Then we’ll head out for a quick local drive-by tour, before heading to the airport. Sound good?”

  After quite an ordeal getting Colm with his pacemaker, not to mention his dark-faced companion, through security without going through the metal detector line, the three finally entered the humongous building. It seemed like an impossible task to take it all in. Colm thought he was dreaming. He stood motionless in the middle of the basilica with his head flung back. The morning light broke through the three windows above the church’s central doors and cast huge white streaks of light along the long marble floor that spanned the length of the enormous church. Colm spun in every direction. He looked up toward the altar under the giant, snakelike pillars of what his mother called Bernini’s magnum opus. Everywhere he looked there were giant things—stone men carrying staffs and wearing large pointy hats, enormous depictions of pictures and stories. After staring for a long time, his eyes burned; he squinted, rubbed them, and continued to look all around.

  As they walked toward the central door to leave, Cathleen saw something out of the corner of her eye. She walked across the width of the church as if pulled by some unknowable force.

  In a small chapel on the right of the church was Michelangelo’s Pietà—carved from a large block of white marble. Cathleen stood motionless before it. Her own mother had inherited a small porcelain copy and had it set upon an Irish linen doily on her bedroom dresser. Cathleen had never thought twice about it. Growing up, she saw the replica every day. But she could not believe she was in Rome standing before the real thing. It was the first time in almost three days she felt herself firmly rooted in Italy and in the original reasons for her trip. Suddenly her knees began to buckle. She lunged toward the kneeler in front of the statue. The face that Michelangelo carved—she could tell—he had known well. She remembered from her own art classes in college that Michelangelo’s mother, who died when he was only five, was the face of many of his sculptures. For the first time Cathleen contemplated what it would have been like to be a boy a bit younger than Colm’s age trying to make his way in the world without his mama. For all these years she had worried about herself. She worried about how she would make it without her son. It never occurred to her that her son, and children all over the world, might have to endure without their mothers.

  The first thing Cathleen noticed was the statue’s strength. The Madonna sat with her legs wide, supporting her lifeless son’s body across her lap. One arm held his heavy head while the other lay open to whatever might come her way. She was young and beautiful, and Cathleen stared at her face tilted toward her son’s. She had imagined her as angry or in overwhelming despair, but no. In the real statue, the grieving mother did not look hopeless. She possessed a quiet resignation that her work as a mother was done. That this was the fate she had always known would be hers. She had the rest of her life to live, and she would have to do it without her only son. Cathleen couldn’t help but think of Niranjana. She herself had begged for a miracle for her own son. Please take me instead, she beseeched.

  Colm followed his mother into the chapel and stared at the sculpture of the sad mother and he
r dead son. He thought he knew what his mother was thinking.

  He knelt beside her and held her hand.

  “Mama?”

  “Yes, Bud.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Can we go now?”

  “Yes.”

  Cathleen pushed her body off the kneeler, took Colm’s hand, and walked away from the statue. They left through the center door, stopping briefly to turn one more time to look at the magnificent church. As they exited, the morning sun blinded them, and it took them several minutes to see clearly.

  “OK. Let’s head back and meet up with Brother Rocco, and maybe he can swing us by the major sites. Maybe we can even get out and see the Trevi fountain and perhaps eat in a café nearby instead of at the airport?” Cathleen said eagerly.

  Colm heard all of this and recoiled. He was exhausted, and every joint in his body ached. Every time he inhaled, he felt a stabbing pain in his chest. His head was throbbing, and he had difficulty seeing more than five feet in front of him. The noise on the street was intolerable. The thought of eating revolted him. His legs began to tingle. For days he had felt this coming, this overwhelming fatigue that was impossible to escape. It was all he could do . . .

  He looked at his mother who had a broad, light smile across her face. The tiny lines around her eyes, he thought, looked like angel wings carrying her eyes upward. He had never seen her as happy as she was in Italy. He knew it was because she came here for a miracle and she believed she was going to get one, but Colm knew better.

  So Colm thought it best to keep his mouth shut, and he followed the grown-ups down the steps and across St. Peter’s Square.

  While Brother Rocco was driving around Rome at rapid speed, Colm felt sick to his stomach. He was so grateful when the car stopped and he could get out and walk in the fresh air. They made their way to the Trevi, cutting through the mass of people and tourists and heading toward the sound of rushing water. Cathleen held tightly to Colm’s hand, fearful that he would be pulled away by the crowds and lost forever. There were hundreds of people coming from every direction, mostly tourists taking photos, throwing coins, and talking. They could barely get close enough to turn around and throw their coins in. A newly married couple stood and posed for pictures in front of their massive family. It was impossible for Colm to see the full length of the fountain and to take it all in. Even though the fountain was enormous, he could not understand the point of it all. His mother and Brother Rocco went on and on about the carving.

  As the four walked away, a boy with no legs pushing himself on a skateboard pulled on Cathleen’s pant legs, then extended his hand up to beg. Colm looked at his mother and pleaded with her to give the boy some money, but their guide warned against it.

  “If you give him something, he’ll only expect more. He’ll follow you throughout Rome,” Brother Rocco offered rather pragmatically.

  Cathleen dropped a euro in the boy’s open hand anyway. Her mother’s heart could not deny a child. Dr. Basu also dug into his pockets and pulled out several euros to give to the boy.

  Colm and Cathleen were several steps ahead by the time Dr. Basu finished trying to talk to the boy on the skateboard. He was trying to find out if the boy was in need of help, water, or food—and where he lived. But the boy, afraid he was in trouble or that Dr. Basu was a police officer, did not understand and tried to get away from him. When the doctor looked up, frustrated that he could not help the legless, homeless boy, he noticed Colm’s gait. The boy was dragging a leg, and Dr. Basu fought through the crowd to catch up to him.

  “Colm, what’s wrong? Does your leg hurt you?”

  “No. It doesn’t hurt, Dr. Basu.”

  “Then why are you walking like that?”

  “Because I can’t feel it at all.”

  “What?”

  Dr. Basu was about to turn and say something to Cathleen. He was about to tell her that this would be enough of the sightseeing.

  But he couldn’t finish his thought. He tried to catch the boy as he fell, lunging past Cathleen to get to him. Cathleen let out a shriek, and everyone around the fountain fell silent. Even the boy on the skateboard stopped and turned.

  Colm’s world went black before he hit the ground. He was gone.

  Cathleen began to pray. Dr. Basu worked to revive him—pressing his chest over and over and breathing into his mouth periodically. Someone in the crowd came up to the guide and began to speak something in Italian.

  “The ambulance is on its way,” Brother Rocco assured Cathleen and Dr. Basu.

  The crowd was enormous. They formed a tight circle around Cathleen and the boy as the doctor kept working. Cathleen could hear the whispers of prayer in Italian and various languages. She heard the familiar cadence and rhythm and knew instinctively that the whole crowd was praying for her son.

  The minutes dragged on before Cathleen heard the sirens trying to cut through the dense crowd.

  Once they arrived, the Italian medics were aggressive. There was no wasting time. They came quickly to the boy and put him on an orange board and told the mother and doctor to back away. They spoke in furious Italian, shouting at each other, and moving rapidly to rip open the sterile shock paddles. They warned everyone to stay back as they fired away. And for minutes they tried to revive him. They fired again and again and again.

  There was nothing. Colm was gone. Cathleen looked at her watch. It had to have been nearly twenty minutes now. It’s over. She came all this way, all the way to Rome to save her son only to lose him. She nearly collapsed. The guide braced her with his own trembling arms.

  The medics looked up at Cathleen and then at the doctor. The doctor nodded, assuring them that they had done enough and that there was nothing left to do. They stood up slowly, looking weary and sad. Cathleen walked toward her lifeless boy to bend down and kiss him. His shirt was torn. His arms spread out away from him as if he were making snow angels on the cobblestone. But she could not do it. Not like this. Not without his soul inside him, she thought. She turned back to the doctor and threw her body against his, pounding her arms on his chest, over and over and over and over. The doctor took the blows. He didn’t fight back or try to defend himself. He blamed himself, and he wanted so badly to feel someone punish him. He could have done more to help the boy. He wanted her to pummel him into a million pieces, until he dissolved completely into the rushing fountain.

  Mothers around them began to weep, but most of the crowd remained silent. Some young people took out their phones to take pictures and video, not fully grasping what was happening around them, not aware yet of a parent’s pain. For them it would be another memory for their scrapbooks or blog, a story to tell when they returned home. Cathleen could hear the crashing fountain, the noise of life returning to normal, the crowd breaking up, and people walking slowly away. But still she thought she heard her name, the only name she knew was hers.

  Mama.

  She turned away from the doctor and looked down at the boy.

  “Mama?” Colm whispered again.

  Cathleen ran toward him while Dr. Basu stood stunned. The medics stopped and looked at each other and then back at the boy. The remaining crowd burst into huge cheers and exaltation—thanking God in Italian, English, Polish, French, German—and languages Cathleen could not decipher. Mothers and their children hugged and kissed. People everywhere were embracing, crying, clapping, and screaming.

  Incredibile!

  Meraviglioso!

  È un miracolo!

  Brilliant!

  Colm had risen again. Cathleen pulled him close to her, squeezing him mightily, kissing him on his forehead, cheeks, and hair. She wanted to consume him, wrap him tightly inside of her, where she could protect him for all time. She was delirious.

  Dr. Basu was speechless. He pushed his hands through his hair and cupped his hands to block the sun as he looked at the sky, as if somewhere above him he would find the answers. He closed his eyes and listened again to the sho
uting and rapid conversation of the people surrounding him, so much louder and more magnified than it had been in Assisi. He squeezed his eyes tighter and listened to the rushing of the fountain, and it felt like it was running through him—like the river that carried his Dhruv and Niranjana. It flowed and surged, its waters breaking at every turn inside his body, rising up through him as if when he opened his mouth, water would pour forth. But instead the power and force of that water rose higher still and brimmed within him. An overwhelming wave crashed through him. He did not care who or what was responsible for it. All he felt was joy. A supreme joy, a joy only known to him once before. And for a brief moment, he did not let his mind do what it was apt to do, which was stop himself from feeling because it knew logically what that joy ultimately wrought when it was taken away—an eventual and inexplicable grief. For a moment, before he could fully comprehend the feeling and stop himself, he walked over and embraced the boy too.

  Sean was sitting at the downstairs bar in Eamonn’s in Brooklyn, watching the end of the Yankee game.

  He was at Eamonn’s after every shift lately. It sucked, he thought, to cross the river and head into Brooklyn when there were perfectly acceptable bars right next to his apartment—but none of his crew members would find him here. He could sit and drink alone to his heart’s content and no one, especially his sponsor, would recognize him.

  He hadn’t talked to or seen his sister and nephew in weeks. They were in Italy now—with the faithful, reliable doctor. He was happy Colm had him. At least, he consoled himself, Colm had one solid, good man in his life. At least one guy the boy could count on.

  He was about to order up another shot of whiskey when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. The number was unrecognizable. He thought of ignoring it for a brief second, before he thought, perhaps as impossible as it seemed, it might be his sister calling from Italy.

  “Sean?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “Dr. Basu.”

  “Oh, crap,” Sean said, assuming the worst as soon as he heard Dr. Basu’s, and not his sister’s, voice.