As I traversed the halls, I wondered how difficult it could possibly be, to track down a wheelchair-bound man in a hospital. Sean wasn’t in any of his usual haunts, so I stopped for a minute and considered thoughtfully: if I were Sean Phelan in need of a cool-down, where would I go?
Well, he was a serious javaholic, just as Ronan and I were, and the cafeteria wasn’t far away. Maybe—
But the place was nearly deserted in the lull before supper, and Sean would have been easy to spot, if indeed he had been there.
No trace of him in any of the lounges, either. Where else—?
A little sign with an arrow caught my eye: “chapel.”
I knew he was a religious man, especially when distraught, so the chapel might well be the place to find him. I started off in that direction.
Dim lights shone through the narrow stained-glass windows on either side of the wide doorway, but the double doors were closed. I went up to one of the windows and peered in, wondering if there could possibly be a service going on. It seemed I could hear voices, but it was hard to see anyone in the shadows. My eyes adjusted slowly, and—yes, there was Sean, and—he wasn’t alone. The other person’s profile looked familiar, though I wasn’t sure why. I raised my hand to knock, then leapt back quickly as a fast-moving blur approached the door. It burst open, flung with force, and a man came storming out. I couldn’t get out of his way fast enough, and we collided. He grabbed hold of me to keep me from falling, but the sheer momentum of his flight carried us both to the floor, and I found myself sprawled on top of him.
It was Matt Curran.
“Jesus, God, I’m sorry!” he exclaimed breathlessly. “Are you hurt?”
“I—I don’t think so. Dr. Curran?”
“Ms. LeJeune?”
“I thought,” I said shakily, “that we had decided to dispense with formalities.”
“Given the position we’re currently in, I’d say that’s wise. Did you happen to notice where my glasses landed?”
I rolled off him and sat up, hot color flooding my face. “I’ll look for them. Are you all right? Seems as if you took the worst of that.”
“Yeah, I know. I kind of rolled in mid-air, so I would’t fall on you.” He sat up, wincing. “Jesus, my shoulder!”
“Let me see. Which one?”
“The left.”
“Can you move your arm?” I asked, probing gently.
He made an attempt and gasped.
“I think you’d better get that checked out.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” he agreed, his voice sounding strained. “Were you able to find my glasses?”
“Hang on.” I searched and found them a few feet away, with one lens cracked and the other in pieces on the floor. “I’m afraid they won’t do you much good.”
He took them from me and put them on anyway. “I have a spare pair in my locker, and I can see well enough with these to find my way there. Thanks.”
“And then you’re going to have that shoulder looked at, right?”
“Right. Help me up, would you?” Matt held out his hand and I grasped it firmly, and he clambered to his feet. He appeared to be favoring the left one, but made no comment about it.
“Matt, would you like me to walk down to the E.R. with you, to make sure you get there O.K.?”
“Nah, I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”
“Promise you’ll go?”
“Well, I kind of have to. I can’t function with my shoulder the way it is now.” He cupped his right hand under his left forearm. “I don’t think anything’s broken, but there’s definitely an injury. If I had to guess, I’d say I’ve dislocated it, but I can’t get a good enough look at myself to tell. I need another doctor for that. Do me a favor and tell Liam I’ll be a bit delayed in getting back to him, but I’ll make sure he gets his meds right on schedule.”
“I will. And you’ll let us know how you’re doing?”
“I won’t be able to avoid it. I still have a good twenty hours left on this shift.”
“Even if you’re hurt?”
“Yup. It’s not as bad as it sounds. I have time to sleep here and there, and as far as my aches and pains go, if I keep moving, I won’t stiffen up, and I won’t hurt as much.”
“If you say so.”
“I’ll see you later,” he assured me, and started down the hallway, limping.
I turned to enter the chapel and found Sean in the doorway, looking shocked and bewildered. “What in hell—?”
“I was trying to go inside the chapel to talk to you when Matt came flying out, and we went a journey together.”
“That was some fall you took! Are you all right?” he asked, concerned.
“A little shook up, but otherwise I’m fine. Matt broke my fall, but he hurt himself in the process.”
“Ah, well, he’s always been resilient. He’ll live,” Sean remarked coolly.
“Sean, I don’t know what the problem is here, but I’ve never seen you like this before. It’s not especially flattering. Would you mind explaining?”
He sighed. “I’ll tell you as much as I can stand to, if you really want to hear it.”
“Of course, I want to hear it! I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t, and besides, how am I to understand any of this if you don’t tell me? As far as I can tell, Matt’s an awfully nice fella, and he’s already proved himself to be very good with Liam. They were even speaking Irish together a little while ago. The other doctors I’ve seen around here are all business, with little to no bedside manner. This man is different, and—well, how many people have you met in this life who would willingly allow themselves to be hurt to spare someone else?”
“It’s true, he does have a gift for taking care of people. No doubt about that, but he also has a penchant for martyrdom. Well, come in here and close the door behind you.” He wheeled back far enough to let me inside, and followed me up the aisle to one of the front pews, and parked in front of me as soon as I had settled myself.
“Well?” I prompted, looking at him expectantly.
“I’m sorry this isn’t the most comfortable place to hang out, but—”
“Get to the point, Sean,” I commanded sternly. “I don’t want to stay away from Ronan much longer, and besides, he wants to see you.”
“He’s awake, then?”
“Yes, and lucid, too.”
“Then I’ll come with you and say hello.”
“He’ll appreciate that. Now, stop stalling and talk already.”
His eyes pleaded with me. “You’ll not let me off the hook?”
“After the scene in Ronan’s room, and after what just happened? If you were in my place, would you back down?”
Sean passed a hand over his eyes and sighed. “Probably not,” he admitted.
“So, let’s hear it.”
“All right, but where do I begin?” He considered for a moment. “O.K. Do you remember what I said earlier, about fooling around with my friend’s skateboard?”
“Yes.”
“Matt was that friend.”
“Your homey?” I ventured.
Sean managed a lopsided smile. “Yeah. My homey. Both of us came from the wrong side of the tracks, and at one time, he was headed for a serious career in juvenile delinquency. I spent years trying to be a positive influence, and eventually it sank in, with a little help from some other folks who also loved him and saw his potential. But he backslid a lot, and when he did it, he did it in a big way. Sometimes I was caught in the crossfire and got myself in trouble, too. We bunked school quite a bit, but the most significant occasion was a big outdoor rock concert back in ’69. I liked music well enough, but I wasn’t so heavily into it back then. My prime motivation for going was simply to keep an eye on Matt and make sure he didn’t get himself into a bad situation. We were found out on that occasion and quite a few others, of course, and spent a lot of hours in detention, but that concert was worth every second of the punishment I endured.”
“Why?”
“It was an epiphany for me. I saw Rory Gallagher play with Taste, and after that, nothing was ever the same again. Playing guitar as well as he did became my sole mission in life. Don’t know if I ever quite got there, but the journey has been an interesting one.”
“There’s no doubt that you’re talented, Sean, but stylistically you’re a vastly different player.”
“Yeah, now I am, but I wasn’t always, and it was Rory who got me started. It was also Rory who saw something about Matt that I didn’t see.”
“So, you really did know him, then.”
“Rory? Yeah, but our first meeting nearly went disastrously wrong. He busted us while we were climbing over a fence to sneak into that concert. We didn’t know who he was, and Matt figured we could roll him easily enough if he wouldn’t let us go where we wanted to. Rory was a little guy, y’know, and at that point in time he was very slim and wiry, and didn’t look like he had an awful lot of muscle. There were two of us, and one of him, and we really wanted to get into that show! I wasn’t as keen on bullying him into submission as Matt was, but if that was what Matt decided to do, I wasn’t going to let him do it alone. Thank God we all got to talking before Matt could make his move! If there was one thing Rory understood better than anything else, it was hunger for good music. He told us he could help, and asked us to come along with him, so we did. When he handed us a couple of guitar cases, we figured he must be somebody’s roadie, and he was kindly allowing us to join his crew for the day. Then he introduced himself. It still didn’t mean much to us, but he seemed a nice fella and we were intrigued. Did he really front a band, or was he bullshitting us? Well, needless to say, we made sure we were right up front when Taste played. It totally blew my mind. Here was this shy, unassuming, quiet little guy turned madman on stage. And to think we had only decided to go because there was a rumor circulating, that Janis Joplin might show, and Matt adored Janis. Well, she did show, and she was great, but I was still reeling from Rory’s performance and couldn’t fully appreciate hers. We were standing with him at the side of the stage watching her, and she was ripping her way through ‘Ball and Chain’ when Rory noticed that Matt wasn’t watching Janis. Or at least, that’s how Matt tells it, and considering what followed in later years, I have to believe him. He was listening to Janis and watching me. Rory caught that, and while he didn’t address it directly, he somehow managed to let Matt know that he’d figured out what was what, and had empathy for him.”
“You’ve lost me, Sean.”
“Unrequited love. Rory obviously had some understanding of it, being as that’s what the blues is all about, when it’s not about getting laid, drinking too much, or riding the rails.”
“What are you saying?”
“Matt’s gay, Sarah, and for years he was head over heels in love with me. I couldn’t love him the way he wanted me to, so it was unrequited. And even then, before I knew anything about it, while Matt cherished thoughts of what might be someday, Rory knew it would never come to pass. None of this was ever said in so many words, but with hindsight, over time—” Sean sighed. “If we could only know in youth what we know in middle age!”
“Do you think maybe Rory was—?”
“Hell, no. He was different, yeah, but not that kind of different. He was married to his music the way a good priest is married to the church. There just wasn’t room for anything else.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, Matt being the way he was really challenged our friendship over the years, to put it mildly. I could forgive him for that, and in fact I have forgiven him for that, time and time again, but—the coup de grace—God!” Sean flung his hands up and let them drop back into his lap. “I still don’t understand how he could have done it!”
“Done what?”
“Well, it all started back in our college years. He had graduated and gone on to med school, and I had been out for two years, trying to get myself known in the music world. I didn’t travel too far at first—couldn’t afford to! So, I was often home on the same weekends as Matt. Of course we got together in spite of everything. We were still homies, after all. But on one of those weekends everything went screaming straight to hell. Matt got drunk and came on to me, and it wasn’t that he just tried to kiss me, like he’d done other times. There was that, but he also pinned me against a wall and got hold of my—well, I wasn’t happy about it. I spat in his face and socked him in the gut. Not a proud moment, but he had his hand down my pants, and I couldn’t think of any other way to make my position clear, short of kicking him in the nads or breaking his arm. But I loved him in my way, and we’d been through so much together over the years, I couldn’t bring myself to do him that kind of harm. I just wanted him to back off. When I left, he was on the ground, puking his guts out and crying. It was horrible. I wanted to help him, to apologize, but I knew if I did he would think I’d relented. Leaving him there like that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life. I spent weeks agonizing over it, and just when I was starting to let it go, I got this letter from him, saying he had dropped out of med school and enrolled in seminary, hoping he’d eventually take Holy Orders. On the surface it sounded like a noble thing, but his real reason for doing it was, as he put it: ‘If I can’t have you, then I’ll have no one.’ It sounds like something a spurned heroine in a Victorian novel would say, doesn’t it?”
“Kind of. So, what happened?”
“He did his time in seminary, graduated, and was ordained a priest. He was a damn good one, too. Ironically, he ended up as pastor of my home parish in Somerville—the one we both grew up in—so there was no way I could avoid him when I was in town. But he seemed at peace, as if his vocation had changed him.”
“Hadn’t it?”
“Well, I believed it had, and I persisted in believing that for a long time. It was easy enough, ’cause I only saw him once or twice a year. I always tried to spend Christmas and Easter with the family, and there was one year when I visited a third time, when my mother passed away. Matt was brilliant at her wake and funeral. No one could have made a better job of it. I’m still amazed when I think back on it. But a few more years went by, and then I had to come back to stay with my sister.”
“Why? No work?”
“If only it had been that simple!” he replied, wistfully. “I’d actually been doing quite well for myself, living in Colorado. I’d backed down to semi-pro status, musically speaking, and had a day job in construction. It was a nice life for a single guy. But a couple of years after Ma died, I finally had to admit that I wasn’t feeling well. My voice had gone funky, and I was hoarse all the time, and exhausted, and I couldn’t sing. I took a few too many sick days, and my boss said I had a choice: go get a physical, or head for the unemployment office. So, I went for the physical, and I had some tests, and found myself out of a job, anyway. I had thyroid cancer, and it wasn’t long before I was just too damn sick to work. I figured Boston was as good a place as any for treatment, and I’d have my family to help me. But when I told the doctor what I was planning, he said it was too serious a thing for me to put off. He refused to let me leave without having surgery and getting a head-start on my chemo. At that point in time, I still believed I’d get well again in pretty short order, so I agreed. The operation didn’t go as well as the doctor had hoped, but he started me on chemo anyway, and as soon as I’d gotten over the worst of the nausea, I flew home. The doctor had arranged for me to continue chemotherapy there, but we both knew it was pretty hopeless. My jig was up, and I was dying, though I tried to deny it, and fight it. Matt came back into my life then, and it was traumatic for both of us. Probably more for him than for me, ’cause I looked every bit as sick as I was, and nothing like the man he remembered. I’d lost my hair and a frightening lot of my physical substance, and most days I could barely lift my head off the pillow. But Matt came and visited me every day, faithfully, and he brought me Communion and heard my confessions, and showed how deeply he still loved me, in the best, most acceptable way, despite the visual horror that greeted him every time he set foot in my room. I thought God had really wrought a miraculous change in him and, ill as I was, I never failed to give thanks for that.”
“And then?”
“Eastertime came, and I’d finally had enough. Too much chemo, too much radiation, too many operations. I didn’t want to fight anymore. I had no more reserves, and I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Still, I was determined to celebrate the greatest feast of the church year, and so I went to the vigil Mass at a church where I knew the music would be good.”
I was horrified. “By yourself, Sean? In that condition?”
“Yeah. I still don’t quite know how I managed it, but I did it. I felt compelled. Something was drawing me, and it was harder to fight than the cancer. So, I went to the church and sat towards the back, in the dark, and had it out with God. Really poured out what was in my heart and felt at peace. It was out of my hands: no longer my responsibility. Well, with that blessed, peaceful mindset, I made it through most of the service and received Communion, but when I got back to my pew afterwards, I collapsed. I’ve been told that they stopped the Mass for a time, until the ambulance came and carted me off to the hospital. But it was too late. I was D.O.A.”
“What?” I gasped, not quite believing that I’d heard him correctly.
“Dead on arrival,” he affirmed. “I don’t know if it happened at the church, or en route to the hospital, but it’s true. I died that night, and the doctors couldn’t bring me back. My sister called Matt to come and give me the last rites. He got there as fast as he could, but I’d been gone at least a half hour by then. No one knows why I revived, or how I escaped brain damage, but—” He shrugged.
“A miracle?”
He nodded. “That’s what we all believe, and at Matt’s hands! Of course, I didn’t know any of that until a few years later. They all thought I wouldn’t be able to handle the news, and it’s true that I was still far too ill to accept something that sounds so preposterous. But in time, they did tell me, and I did know, and I accepted it without question. God, as we all know, does tend to channel His power through some very unlikely conduits. And I was finally able to fully accept Matt as a man reborn, and we became close again.”
His story had moved me, and I dabbed at my eyes with a tissue. “That’s amazing, Sean. I should think something like that would have created an irrevocable, lifetime bond, but instead there’s this acrimony between you. Why? What happened?”
Sean frowned, his brows drawing together. “Well, the very night I was having exploratory surgery to deal with the damn spinal tumor, he did a couple of really stupid things. For starters, he told Mary he was still in love with me, and firmly believed I was being used by God, as an instrument to punish him for his failure to stop being in love with me. Now, Mary already knew our history, and by then she also knew Matt pretty well, so it didn’t shock her as much as it might have. She did her best to reassure him and calm him down, and thought she’d managed it. However, instead of going back to the rectory and having tea and going to bed, as he’d promised, he headed over to the gay neighborhood and got himself some whiskey instead. And then he ended up in the midst of a street brawl, and got the tar beaten out of him. He maintains that there was nothing to it, beyond his wanting to intervene to stop a gay-bashing that happened to be going on when he left the bar, but the fact remains, he was in his work clothes, collar and all: a Catholic priest in a gay neighborhood. The church sent him away on a three-month sabbatical, so he could recover from his injuries and re-examine his commitment to the church.”
“He was that badly hurt?”
“Well, not as badly as he could have been, but badly enough. A broken jaw isn’t exactly an asset in the pulpit. He’d also torn an Achilles tendon and broken some ribs, and had a concussion, so he was really in no fit condition to manage anything having to do with his work. Normally, none of that would have been an issue, and he could have stayed in the rectory while he recuperated, but given the situation, the diocese was terrified that the papers might get hold of the story and create a scandal. I think there must have been an awful lot of hush-money dispersed, but no one can say for sure. It’s just my hunch. But they sent Matt off to Block Island, and he stayed there for three months, and only left when he had to go see one of his doctors for a check-up. He wasn’t supposed to make contact with any of his friends in the city, but he was worried about me, and he risked his career more than once, to come see me and Mary. And God knows I needed him. I’d just had that horrendous operation, and I was flat on my back in a cast, in more pain than words can tell, and terrified of facing life as a paraplegic. I didn’t dare say any of that to Mary. The situation was already stressful enough, and I didn’t want to upset her further. She was carrying Rory at the time, and had been through one miscarriage a few months before, and we were both afraid she could lose him, too. So, I put a good face on it for her, and only Matt knew the whole truth.”
“But that still doesn’t explain—”
“I’m getting to that, believe me,” he said grimly. “So, in between visits to Boston, Matt went back to Block Island, and the day after he got his jaw wires out, he went to a local joint on the island and got rip-roaring drunk. One of the fishermen who had happened to shoot pool with him earler in the evening took pity on him, poured him into his car, drove him home, and put him to bed. A few nights later, when Matt was sober and not intending to drink a drop, he went back to the bar, found the fisherman, and apologized. Pretty soon they were meeting up for pool whenever the guy wasn’t out at sea. Then the guy got hurt on the dock and couldn’t work for a few weeks, and they started meeting every night. And they played pool. And they had drinks together. And they talked. And they got to know each other. And pretty soon they discovered that they had more in common than a fondnes for whiskey and a good game of pool.”
The further he got into the story, the angrier he looked and sounded.
“Sean, you don’t mean—?”
“Yeah. They got involved with each other. Physically. And decided they loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. When Matt returned from his sabbatical, he knew he wouldn’t be staying in the priesthood much longer. He did stay for awhile, though, to take care of us—me, Mary, and Rory. I was still quite debilitated, and he didn’t want to upset me. So, he remained a priest until after he’d baptized Rory and officiated at my wedding. The day after the wedding—a Sunday, and Mary and I were there to witness it—he stepped into the center aisle for the homily, instead of going to the pulpit, as he usually did. Right then and there, in the middle of high Mass, he confessed to us all, offered his resignation, took off his vestments, and walked out with a parting, ‘Please forgive me. I’m no longer fit to serve you.’ And that was that. He simply—disappeared.”
“And that’s why you’re so angry with him?”
“He renounced his vows. It wasn’t right.”
“And maybe it wasn’t right for him to take those vows in the first place.”
“He should have thought about that beforehand. Renouncing Holy Orders is no trifling matter, especially when the reason is—augh!” he snorted, at a loss for words.
“He may have given up Holy Orders, but don’t you think his return to medicine is a noble atonement?”
“If he’d left because he was in love with a woman, I might believe that, and I might understand a lot better than I do.”
“It’s not up to you to understand his choices, Sean. You say you believe in God, so why don’t you just accept that God made Matt as he is for a reason, and God understands Matt’s choices?”
“You don’t understand!” Sean flared, his eyes blazing. “I want to understand Matt’s choices! I want to understand how he could have become the way he is now, after all those years of acting like he’d left it behind!”
“Those years were just part of his journey, Sean. They had to happen, and they were right at the time, but they’re not right anymore. God understands. What you need to do is accept Matt as he is, and forgive him.”
“Even if he’s going to hell for it?”
“Oh, Sean! You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“I don’t know! But it’s what we were taught about mortal sin, and breaking a promise to God is a mortal sin, and—” Sean hid his face in his hands, and I could tell from the sound of his breathing that he was crying. “I’m afraid for him, Sarah!”
“And you’re angry because you think he’s deliberately put himself in harm’s way by leaving a way of life that was no longer true for him.”
Sean’s voice was barely a whisper when he replied. “Something like that, yes. I think so.” His anger was leaving him, slowly, and it was clearly a painful process.
Priests weren’t the only segment of humanity who had to hear confessions. I had just heard Sean’s to the bitter end, but had no power to absolve him. Absolution could only come from within now, from himself.
I sat with him for a time, until he seemed calmer. Then I got up and laid my hand on his shoulder. “I hate to leave you like this,” I said softly, “but I’ve got to get back to Ronan. Will you come up for a few minutes?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “As soon as I—” He hiccupped. “—get hold of myself.”
“I didn’t mean to make you angry, Sean, and I certainly didn’t want to hurt you. Will you be all right?”
He nodded, wiping his tears away with a handkerfchief. “You’ve given me food for thought. I appreciate that, but—” His mouth twisted in an ironic smile. “It was good for me, but I didn’t much like the taste of it.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not angry. This needed to come out. I’ve been carrying it inside far too long. Thank you for having the patience to listen. I’ve unloaded a lot of shit on you today.”
I put my arms around him and held him close. “If it brings you some peace of mind, then it was worth it.”
He clasped me in return, and I felt his shoulders heave with another sob.
We stayed like that for a few minutes, and I stroked his head as I would a child’s, if I had ever had a child that needed consolation.
“Let it go, Sean,” I murmured. “Let it go.”
He took some deep breaths, the first ones shaking and shuddering, then broke away from me, dried his tears, and blew his nose. “I think I’m all right now,” he said, as he pocketed his handkerchief.
“You’re sure?”
He nodded. “Give me a few minutes, though. I need to throw some cold water on my face and make myself presentable. I don’t want Ronan to see me like this. He’ll know I’m upset and it’ll worry him, and he doesn’t need to carry my problems in addition to his own.”
I nodded, thinking to myself that Sean, like Matt, also had a penchant for martyrdom, always thinking of sparing others the way he did. I patted his shoulder. “I won’t say anything. This was between you, me, and the four walls. It doesn’t leave this room.”
“Thank you. Now, go on back to Ronan. I’ll be along in a bit.”
