Free Proof of Angels by Mary Curran Hackett Page B

you.”
    â€œHelp me do what? Huh?”
    â€œGet better. We can make sure you get the best care. We can make sure you’re not alone . . .”
    Sean averted his eyes and tried not to look at Gaspar. He seemed to be bracing himself. Sweat poured down over his eyebrows. He gritted his teeth.
    â€œSean? What’s wrong?”
    â€œIt hurts.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œEverything. My back. My legs. All of it. The pain meds . . . they wear off and I can’t take any more drugs. They have limits on them. But it just hurts so bad.”
    â€œSean, please. Please, we beg you. Your sister wants to help you. You know her. She loves you. Come home and let us help you.”
    â€œI’m not going anywhere. I’ll find my own help. I don’t want to be a burden. You, Cathleen, the boys, you have your own lives now.”
    â€œSean, you’re not a burden. You’re family.”
    â€œI got this. Okay? Drop it. I got this.”
    â€œWhat if I got you help here? What if I got you out of here and got you a nurse and a physical therapist?” Gaspar said quickly, trying desperately to appease him.
    Sean’s eyes turned back toward Gaspar.
    â€œYou’d do that?”
    â€œOf course I would. I want you to get better. If you want to get better, if you want to go see this woman, Chiara, and make it right, then you have to get better.”
    â€œChiara? So you’re going to help me with that, too? You can get me to Italy?” Sean asked, confused. “But last night . . . last night . . . you basically said it was silly. You thought it was a dumb idea.”
    â€œI was wrong, Sean. I see that now. This is your life. Yours. Not anyone else’s. Sometimes I forget that. Sometimes when I am doling out advice I forget that I am not the one who has to live with the consequences. Someone else does. As a doctor, I do it every day. I make informed decisions and I suggest things that make sense to me, on paper, but sometimes, some decisions can’t be made by someone else, no matter howmuch experience, no matter how much knowledge he or she has. I don’t know what’s in my patients’ hearts. I had a plan for Colm. I was so sure my plan would be the plan to solve everything. But you remember, Colm had another plan. I didn’t know, back then, what was in his heart any more than I know what’s in your heart now. If there is one thing this life has taught me it’s that our choices have to be our own, Sean. Whatever we choose for ourselves, the choices have to be entirely our own, otherwise we’re living the consequences of another’s decision, another’s judgments, consequences that the one meting out the advice doesn’t have to live with five months down the road, let alone five years. And it’s usually advice the giver won’t even remember giving. I don’t want you living your life based on what I think you should do. I think the first step in getting you better will be you owning all of your decisions. From here on out, that’s what you’ll do. Ten years from now, it won’t matter to me in the least if you do or don’t find this woman. But it could mean all the difference in the world to you. So you make that choice. You.”
    Sean sat for a second and said nothing. He wanted to think about what Gaspar had just said. He wanted to go back and think about how many decisions he’d made in his life based on the insights of others, based on what other people thought of him, expected from him. He thought about how many times he’d listened, and how many times he hadn’t. He thought of his mother and his sister, who both gave him advice knowing they would be the ones living the consequences right along with him. He thought of his mother’s voice, the joy in it, when he told her he wanted to be a priest and how that joy, thatpleasing her, meant more to him than anything else in the world. He thought of