Guilty conscience

Guilty conscience

Richard tried to pretend it was just another ordinary day. The driving and the clients just about kept the gnawing suspicion at bay but the call came, the sentence dropped. Madeleine rang from the hospital and announced tearfully: ‘they have to amputate’. He stopped on the side of the country road, slumped against the wheel, and dropped his head, surrendering to sorrow.

His son, his beautiful gifted son, maimed forever, where it hurt the most. He knew he was too proud of him, he was aware he had been living for his son, soaking all the praise like a parched desert ground. Each time someone paid a compliment about him, he was so overcome with emotion he could hardly control his facial expression. He celebrated each of the boy’s victories vicariously. Football was his passion. When he was a little older than Seáinín, he himself had entertained great hopes of a career in the game but he never made it beyond amateur level. He had a hard time handling pressure or maybe he had joined the wrong club. Seáinín’s coach though had stated loud and clear that he surely had a future in football. He was only ten and he was already enrolled in a special training academy.

Richard drove straight to the hospital, to distraught Madeleine. There were no words. They hugged and cried together but collected themselves before entering Seáinín’s cubicle. He loved to hear how the boy was ‘a carbon copy of his father’ but today he only resembled a very grey and drawn version of himself. He was sitting up with a drip in his arm to fight the pain. He gave them a wan smile. He was so brave. Richard averted his eyes from the bandaged foot even though it looked bigger than the boy’s head. It had gotten mangled yesterday: a bus reversed over it.

Now the surgeon was extending her hand to them:

“Ciara Buckley, I will be operating on Seáinín.”

She was a mature woman with distinguished grey hair and kind eyes. Her hand shake was firm; this lady inspired trust. She took them to a separate room and went on to explain the procedure, the reason for it, the ins and outs, and the risks. She needed them to fill in the consent form of course, their son was a minor.

The moment the surgeon introduced herself, the guilt trip started for Richard. Surely, Ciara Buckley was a common enough name but… could it be a sign? Was he being punished? And didn’t the accident happen around the anniversary of that shameful day?

Madeleine could not help herself. She started crying. Ms Buckley understood the shock of it all but there was no time to waste. She was a no-nonsense, kind, but matter of fact surgeon. They signed and they went back to Seáinín where she gravely repeated what she had just said to them. He listened and nodded, so dignified it was heart-breaking.

There was no doubt Richard loved his wife and adored his son but the other Ciara Buckley, young Ciara Buckley at work, had ensnared him with her bright eyes and dazzling smile. She had a quip for every time he called to the office, she brightened up the room and flirted with him unequivocally. He had felt flattered. Fleeting thoughts of lovely Ciara had turned into more frequent daydreaming which had developed into daring fantasies, until he could not help touching Madeleine without imagining Ciara in her place.

Several nurses and an anaesthetist succeeded one another, taking blood, measuring blood pressure, asking questions. It was obvious they did not want to make promises, but they were all keen to be cautiously reassuring.

“Ms Buckley is the top surgeon in the field. She is the best.”

“We’ll take good care of him.”

“Sure, he’s as healthy as a trout, it will all go well.”

No one blundered, no one commented that he’d be ‘back on his feet’ in no time, they did not even say he would be ‘back to normal in no time’. They all knew the road to recovery would be tough. The surgeon had said that nowadays artificial limbs were fantastic; ‘There would hardly be a limp, might even not be one at all!’ But “disability” hung thickly in every one’s mind. Everyone knew Seáinín had been served a sentence of pain and discomfort. He had been dealt a life time of looks, discreet and not so discreet, a life time of questions, direct or indirect. He would have to overcome so much. No doubt the football “wonder kid” would turn into a different kind of champion someday but for now, he was facing broken dreams, and a series of ‘what might have been’. Each of these thoughts pierced Richard’s heart like an arrow hits a bull’s eye.

He was a serious man, he was not a charmer and he was not given to seductive moves. He had never cheated on his wife or even thought about it but after many sleepless nights, the man with zero experience in straying acted on his infatuation, on one fateful evening.

Richard and Madeleine were devastated when the time came to kiss their son before he was taken to the operating theatre. They were told to be back in about two hours and they headed to the cafeteria of the hospital. A television screen was showing replays of famous goals and even if you were not a football fan, it made for spectacular viewing. Before they even sat down, Madeleine grabbed Richard’s hand and pulled him away: no need to twist the knife.

The day after that fateful evening, when Richard arrived at the office with a million butterflies in his stomach, he heard Ciara reading out loud in a theatrical voice to her two colleagues:

‘I cannot sleep for thinking of you. I will be in room 30 in the Marriot at 1pm today. Meet me there if you feel the same’ she then added in her normal voice: ‘This was at my desk, unsigned; I don’t even know which one of those randy goats left it there last night. You didn’t happen to see anyone hovering, did you?

That’ll teach you to flirt with every Tom, Dick and Harry! Was there a trace of envy in Nora’s answer?

I don’t flirt, I’m just friendly! Gosh, I’d love to know all the same. Can you recognise the handwriting?

A little confab followed and then Richard could make out Nora’s voice asking:

So, are you going?

You must be joking! There are 7 guys working here! What if it is fat Billy O’ or Martin with the big teeth? Anyway, whoever it is, the whole thing’s far too sleazy!

Dying a thousand deaths, Richard made himself scarce and stayed away from the office as much as possible after that. Needless to say, he did not show up at room 30. This had been one of life’s best learnt lessons. He had thought the searing inner embarrassment was punishment enough. But apparently not! Watching his son’s suffering was a hell of a reminder!

‘Let’s go outside for a cup of coffee’, Madeleine said. They walked in the park nearby, trying hard to comfort each other, drawing hope from the surgeon’s and all the staff’s encouraging words. They sat on a bench. It was a typical cloudy April day with a few sunny spells. Richard pointed to some blades of grass and a tough dandelion growing through a very thin crack in the cement path. ‘Our Seáinín is even more resilient than that! He might never score for Man United but he’s a winner.’ He wanted to cheer up Madeleine but he also needed to convince himself.

As they were waiting for the lift back up to the ward, Richard had to pinch himself to believe it. Bright eyes and sparkly smile young Ciara Buckley in the flesh stood next to them to go up to the second floor. Was there no end to the torture?

There was no need for an introduction as Madeleine and Ciara had already met at the company’s Christmas party. Without going into details, they said their son was undergoing a procedure. Madeleine asked:

Do you know your namesake is a surgeon in this hospital?

‘So I heard, but it is pure coincidence.’ Ciara explained she was volunteering in the paediatrics ward every Wednesday on her day off, reading stories to the sick children or playing board games with them.

On their way to the third floor, Madeleine commented:

Such a lovely girl! Isn’t she great?

Richard agreed.

‘Voluntary work at the hospital! There’s an idea,’ Madeleine went on. ‘We should learn from that, shouldn’t we?’

Richard agreed again. Thoughts were jostling in his head. Both Ciara and Madeleine had been standing in his presence. He knew he had wronged both of them but neither knew it. Maybe this was another sign, a hopeful one. They were actually showing him an out, a chance at redemption. Regret, shame, guilt, they were all pointless unless you redeemed yourself; he started to glimpse a way to atone and forgive himself; maybe he should volunteer somewhere.

Seáinín was still groggy but they said everything had gone ‘as well as could be expected’ when they got to his bed. The boy looked ashen and so utterly helpless, with tubes in his arm and a drain at the site of the missing foot. Richard was not a religious man but he had grown up with religion all around him. The famous bible quote resonated in his mind: “The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children.” This could not be true, he just could not accept his innocent darling son being so horribly punished for a sin his father committed. He preferred to believe it just was all an awful accident. But then, if he pursued this logic, there were no signs, just meaningless coincidences. It really all boiled down to whether he wanted to believe, in God, in punishment, in good and bad, in having a conscience, in karma. The mind boggled.