In short, there were a lot of ways this surgery could kill him, and all of it was out of his control. It was why he called for a priest. If he died on the table, he wanted to be right with God before he went.
He lay on a gurney outside in the surgical waiting room, dressed in a thin cotton smock and shaking from the cold. Was he really trembling from the cold, or was it because he was scared out of his skull? The throb in his leg ached so badly he was certain the doctor would probably lop it off.
A nurse with one of those folded caps approached, smiling down at him. “Dr. Sullivan is ready. I’ll just wheel you in, all right?”
He grasped her arm. “I asked for a priest. I want to make a confession before they put me under.”
“Father Patrick hasn’t been in to see you yet?” He shook his head, and the nurse frowned. “I’ll see if I can find him.”
Finn turned his face to the wall. This wasn’t how he wanted to die. For the most part he’d lived a decent life, but he had regrets and it was time to quit running from them.
Father Patrick arrived a few minutes later. “You asked to see me?” The priest wore a clerical collar, round spectacles, and spoke with an Irish accent.
Finn nodded and got straight to the point. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been six months since my last confession. But the thing is...”
His mouth went dry, and he clenched his fists. Confession was never much fun, but he had often gone since leaving the orphanage. He had confessed the sin of theft when he stole from Delia and for the sin of lust. Delia again. He had confessed to his bouts with envy. Heck, he had all the normal sins of any man, but there was one he’d never been able to confess.
“The thing is, Father, I’ve never been able to confess my biggest sin. I’ve always been too ashamed to admit it.” And it had nagged him for twenty-one years. When he was eighteen, he told Delia about it. She’d said all the right things, but he still hadn’t been able to forgive himself.
The scrape of metal sounded as Father Patrick drew a chair beside his bed and sat. “Let’s hear it then.”
Finn clenched his fists and averted his gaze. It was hard enough to resurrect shameful memories without looking a priest in the face. “When I was a kid, I wanted people to think I was a hero, and I ended up getting my mom killed because of it. I was twelve when a fire broke out in the tenement where we lived. It was a cooking fire that had started on the floor above us. The whole building wasa firetrap, and it spread quickly. My mom and I got out okay, but I saw a little yellow cat yowling on the fifth floor.”
The cat belonged to a girl Finn liked. The girl’s name was Daisy, and she loved that cat. Daisy stood in the alley and cried as she looked up at her cat, trying to encourage it to jump.
“I wanted to be a hero,” Finn said, gripping the cold metal of the gurney rail. “I raced inside to save the cat so that Daisy would like me.”
His mother had tried to stop him. She raced inside the burning building after him, yelling at him to stop being a fool and get outside. He ignored her, running up the staircase. She followed him. The two of them were able to get to the cat and scoop her up. Clouds of smoke billowed up the stairwell, and the heat was scorching. They had almost made it to safety when his mother got clobbered by a falling timber. She was trapped, and Finn couldn’t get the beam off her. He tried, but he wasn’t strong enough, and the heat was getting to him. His right hand got burned, making it impossible to keep trying. He ran outside for help, but she died before they could get her out of the building.
He told it all to Father Patrick. “My mother was the best,” he finally concluded. “She looked after everybody in the building. She was the only one everybody trusted because she was smart and funny and wise. And she died a horrible death because I wanted to impress a girl.”
“You were only a child,” Father Patrick said, but Finn cut him off.
“I was old enough to know better,” he said, unable to block the bitterness in his tone. “I did it because I wanted to be a hero, and my mom paid the price for it. I’ll never forgive myself for that. I keep thinking that I owe the world for killing my mom. I try to do good. I stand up to bullies. I went to France so I could shove the Jerries back where they came from.”
“So you’re still trying to be a hero?”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Maybe,” he admitted. Itwasn’t so much for the glory. It was because a good woman had died, and it was his fault. He owed it to the world to keep proving himself.
Father Patrick’s voice was understanding. “My son, if you are genuinely repentant and ask Christ Jesus for forgiveness, you are forgiven. You don’t need to perform acts of heroism to earn that forgiveness. He gives it freely. Your pain and regret are valid, but remember that Jesus came to save us sinners, to save us from our pride, foolishness, and vanity.”
Finn turned his face to the wall, wishing he could believe it. The priest said his final blessing and left. Guilt still ate at his soul as the nurse wheeled him into the operating room.
His leg hurt. A heavy, dark fog surrounded him, making him weightless except for the sharp ache in his leg. Did that mean he stillhada leg? Or had they lopped it off?
Finn groaned, trying to shake the haze of drugs from his brain and open his eyes.
“Shh,” a woman said. “Stay still. You don’t want to injure your leg further.”
“Do I still have it?” he croaked.
“Yes, of course,” the woman said, and he sank back to the mattress. A tear leaked from his eye, and he didn’t have the strength to brush it away. He didn’t care. He still had his leg.
But he couldn’t move it. Panic set in again, and this time he managed to open his eyes. “I can’t move my leg.”
“It’s in a cast. Here, have some water.” For an old lady, the nurse was surprisingly strong as she lifted his head. Cool water soothed his throat, a blessed trickle of relief, and he wanted more.
“That’s enough for now,” she said, lowering his head. He didn’t have the strength to reach for the glass and soon slipped back into a doze.
