Proof of Heaven (2 page)

B
y the time he was five and a half, Colm had experienced various versions of this first encounter with death. There was the time on the subway platform, when his mother, carrying their groceries in a large burlap bag, was making polite conversation with a stranger. Colm began to notice the all-too-familiar sensation—the
prodrome,
he heard his doctors call it. “It's when you know it's about to happen, Colm. A prodrome is your warning sign to get down to the ground as soon as you can.” But there was little time for thinking, noticing, let alone getting down. When he felt this way, he would forget what the doctors told him to do, because his mind would go blank.

The first thing to go was his hearing. He could see his mother's soft lips moving and the chalkiness of her fading lipstick, but he could not hear what she was saying. He squeezed the robot he held in his hand and held it up to get his mother's attention. But then his vision went, and he knew by the small tightening feeling in his chest, the rapid fire of his heart, and the empty feeling in his brain that it would all be over soon. And then, without further warning, Colm entered a state of black nothing.

Cathleen dropped her groceries and called out for someone for help. Even though this was the fourth time he had died on her, she was not any more composed than the first time. Each time Colm collapsed, all the fear that someday he would not awaken returned and pierced her heart.

On the subway platform, Colm lay absolutely still. Everyone on the platform (witnesses for whom Cathleen secretly thanked God) watched as Cathleen felt for his pulse and asked the stranger with whom she had been speaking to begin chest compressions while she breathed into Colm's mouth. Meanwhile, without oxygen, Colm's brain slowly began to shut down. As each minute passed, images of his mother's face, his yellow Tonka trunk on the floor of his bedroom, the sandcastle he had built at Coney Island in June with his uncle, and nonsense dreams of cities built out of layered cakes and Legos slowly began to disappear. With his heart no longer beating on its own, he entered a realm of complete and utter darkness. And then he was gone.

By the time the medics arrived, Cathleen had lost her initial composure and was out of her mind. Screaming and crying and yelling for all the world to hear for Colm to wake up.

“Dammit. Dammit. Dammit,” she shouted.

She wanted to shake him. One of the police officers who had arrived with the medics wrapped his arms around her from behind and pulled her off Colm. She fought with him to let her go to her son's side. Two medics worked to squeeze air into Colm's lungs, while another pulled out portable shock paddles and injected atropine into Colm's bloodstream. After two shocks, Colm's heart started beating again on its own. His eyes opened wide and he slowly turned his head, found his mama's eyes, and began his all too familiar empty, soulless stare.

Cathleen knew she had lost a little bit more of him that day on the platform. But it didn't matter. She would take whatever part of him was left.

By this, the fourth time Colm had died, Cathleen had built up a steel reserve—not in the face of Colm's collapses, but in the face of the doctors who failed to provide a logical medical explanation for Colm's condition, and who quickly considered the possibility that she was harming her own son. She could see it in their eyes, but before they openly accused her of any wrongdoing, they sent Colm to hospitals all over, some out of state, for tests. EEGs for seizures. Scans for tumors. CT scans and MRIs for malformations, ECGs for coronary heart defects. EKGs, EP, and heart studies for abnormal rhythm patterns. Every test came back with no clear indication of a heart condition. For a while the doctors diagnosed Colm with nothing more than syncope—a vasovagal disorder—in which his blood pressure dropped with changes in temperature, pain, and other autonomic reflexes. No blood could get to his brain, and he simply fainted. But typically those who faint regain a heartbeat as soon as they fall into the supine position, and blood can make its way back through the heart to the brain.

The blood never flowed for Colm, though. Everything in his body simply stopped.

Nonetheless, Colm had been released from the hospital three previous times in five years with the same diagnosis: syncope. His mother had been given her own diagnosis: hysteria. However, this time, with so many witnesses on that subway platform who saw him collapse and saw that his heart did not begin beating for several minutes, no one ever could say again that it was just a fainting disorder.

D
r. Gaspar Basu was named one of the country's best electrophysiologist-cardiologists by
U.S. News & World Report,
and after ten years of mostly treating elderly patients with congestive heart failure, smokers with hardened arteries, and obese patients incredulous as to why their hearts were not functioning, a bit of morbid curiosity arose in him when one of his nurses dropped a child's chart onto his desk late one evening.

“Dr. Jakes from Children's Hospital wants you to look at this five-year-old boy's chart. He's been in asystole four times in five years. Came to the hospital DOA a couple of times. And the other times, he was DOA when medics reached him, but they were able to revive with shock. He's been diagnosed with vasovagal syncope.”

Gaspar slid his turkey on whole wheat and his grape juice out of the way in one smooth swipe of his forearm across his desk and made way for the chart.

“Doesn't sound like syncope if they had to use paddles. Have the parents set up an appointment yet?”

“Parent.”

“What?”

“Just a mom. She hasn't yet. Do you want me to call her?”

“If they can make it, yes, I want to see him. Tomorrow.”

“I'll do it now. Then can I go?”

“Sure.”

Gaspar spent the remainder of the night looking at the long thin streams of paper that were Colm's EKG readings, measuring out heart rates and searching for the tiniest aberration or dropped beats. He gazed at the films from echocardiograms and marveled at the beauty and perfection of the human heart, even one that seemed to be failing this small boy. He loved the heart in all its wonder, its mystery, even its weakness. For he knew that no matter how many tests, no matter how many diagnoses, no matter how many miles jogged or apples eaten, a person would never know, could never know what the heart would do next, what it was truly capable of doing.

After some time, Gaspar closed the chart and returned to his sandwich. He sat staring out the window at the night sky, noticing only a few small stars overhead that were powerful enough to outshine the city lights. He remembered his life in India, something he allowed himself to do only when everyone was gone for the day. If he closed his eyes, he could almost hear the sounds of young children running and shouting in the streets along with the fury of the carts and animals. He thought of the fateful river that carried with it his entire past. A world away, it still flowed under the same stars that shone above him all the way here in New York City. If he sat long enough in his office, he would see the sky turn to night, the blackness and eerie quiet of a city asleep. He still relished seeing the stars—all two or three of them that made their way through the reflective light and smog of the city. He thought of their electricity, their form, and their matter and how parts of humanity had been a part of the stars at one point, a vast interconnection and exchange of energy. There was such beauty in nature and science, an answer to every riddle in the universe and an explanation for everything. All of it went back to the stars, and in his cardiological mind, the heart.

He finished his sandwich, swiped the crumbs into his hand, and stuffed them in his pocket as he headed out of the office.

Out on the sidewalk, Gaspar dropped the crumbs for a group of pigeons pecking around a fenced ginkgo tree. In that moment, he was reminded how all of it—the stars, the earth, and the rivers that flowed through it and the ginkgoes that grew out of it—had been here so much longer than he, and that they would be there after he and everyone on the planet had ceased to be. And that constancy, that firmness, that rootedness in all of eternity, and his small part in all of it, made it all the more bearable for him to continue his journey home alone.

I
don't know why we have to go to another doctor. I'm fine,” Colm protested. He sat defiantly with his arms crossed as he tried to inch as far away from his mother as he could on the bus bench. It was the last place on earth he wanted to be. Actually, it was the second-to-last place. The last place he wanted to be was where they were headed.

Cathleen knew he was right. There was absolutely no point in shelling out more money for another doctor who wanted to put them through more pointless testing for another vague diagnosis. But since Colm's first collapse, she had had a singular mission in life: to save her son. Any hopes of improving her stalemated career as an interior designer, rekindling romantic prospects with his father, or even finding another man to take his place fell off her list of priorities as soon as the possibility that she might lose her son had presented itself in her bathroom that evening five years earlier. When she had come home later that week with baby Colm laughing in her arms, she had privately vowed to do anything, pay any amount, go anywhere, pray to any saint—any God—whether she believed in him or not, if it meant she could keep her son with her always.

But experience had taught her that this doctor would most likely be like all the others she had met before. He would breeze into the examining room after she had read the whole of a two-year-old
Newsweek,
while listening to him describe yesterday's golf game in a phone conversation that reverberated through the paper-thin walls of the cheerless office. Colm would have climbed up and down the examining table so many times that he would have exhausted himself and might be lying sideways off it—his head hanging midair and upside down while his legs spread out in a V up against the wall. She would hear the rustle of a chart being opened just a second before the doctor came in and introduced himself with a
well, well, well, what do we have here
? And she would have to explain it all over again. And then he would say,
Hmmmm, I'll have to order some tests
. And after a quick listen to Colm's heart, a few brief questions about what Colm felt like before and after he collapsed, she would be at the front desk pulling out her checkbook and scheduling the next appointment. In spite of all this, she knew she couldn't show any doubt in front of her increasingly obstinate son.

“This time it could be different, Colm. This guy is supposed to be the best.” Cathleen tried to sound encouraging, despite her own misgivings.

“So why's he seeing someone like me?”

“Because you're special.”

“Uncle Sean doesn't say I am special.”

“Now I am sure your uncle Sean has said you're special.”

“No, I am pretty sure he's never called me special. He calls me a little shit though.”

Cathleen gasped, shocked by her son's language, but not by her brother's. She knew him too well.

“Colm, watch your mouth! You know he's kidding, right?”

“Yes. I know.” Colm smiled, thinking of his wild uncle Sean.

She could just kill Sean sometimes. But he was the only father figure she could provide for Colm, so she put up with some of the crazy things he said and did because Colm loved him, and he loved her boy.

“Well, you're special-special,” Cathleen repeated aloud.

“To you maybe.”

“Yes to me. But to this doctor, too. And to lots of other people.”

“We'll see about that.”

Colm laid his head on the bus window and considered the possibility that his mother might be right. Maybe there was someone out there who might think he was special enough to be worth fixing. Still, Colm had his doubts because surely if there had been something remarkable about him, his father would have come to find him by now. Colm didn't know anything about him, but he knew how sad his mother's eyes looked whenever she answered Colm's questions about why his father and his mother weren't together and why his father was not around.

I thought I could do a better job raising you on my own, that's all. He loved you like crazy. He did. He'd be here if he could. I just do a better job on my own. It's how I do things. You know that, Colm.

Even his five-and-a-half-year-old self could tell there was something she wasn't saying. It made him wonder if his father had taken one look at him and decided he wasn't cute enough or strong enough. He imagined various scenarios in which his father had looked at him or even held him, and then Colm wondered at what point it was that his father had rejected him.
Was it after he collapsed the first time? Was it because he was sick?
Colm thought of every possibility. He combed through the scrapbooks his mother made for him every year for his birthday. He scrutinized every old picture looking for his father's face, anywhere.
Is it this guy, Mama? Is this him? Is he my father? No, Colm, that's your uncle's friend. No, Colm, that's just a cousin.
Colm didn't stop there; he went through her jewelry box and scoured the hidden nooks he found throughout the apartment. Surely, he thought, there had to be some evidence of his father. He had to have met him at some point. At least once, he thought. His mother always explained that his father had been long gone before he was even born, but Colm didn't believe that. If she lied about why he left, he thought, she probably was lying about when, too. Besides, Colm knew it was his fault because
what man would ever leave Mama?

All he wanted to do was become better, stronger, more wonderful in every way, because surely if he got better, if he was as good as he could possibly be, surely his father would come for him and his mother. And if he couldn't get better, if there was no way to fix him, he knew he had to find his father more than ever.
Somebody has to take care of Mama when I'm gone,
he thought to himself.

When the bus stopped in front of Good Samaritan Hospital, Cathleen grabbed her purse and nudged Colm, who she thought had fallen asleep. Without speaking, he took her hand and followed her down the aisle. As the bus pulled away, they stood on the curb and waved good-bye. When Colm was no more than two, he used to jump, shout, and clap every time the bus arrived and sob when his mother told him it was time to get off. The bus, like the subway, was a magical thing, a home on wheels—large, rumbling, and filled with strangers and so much awkward silence that a hiccup was an event worthy of a stomach-grabbing giggle. For three years, they had kept up their routine, but at five, Colm was much more interested in cars. Cathleen, on the other hand, believed Colm still wanted to and needed to wave good-bye. She had no idea her son had long since stopped crying over the loss of his large steel-framed friend.

“I promise this won't be a long visit,” Cathleen assured him.

“You always say that.”

“When we're done, I'll go home and make you shepherd's pie—and we can build something together with your Legos.”

“You're not very good at it.”

“What? Cooking shepherd's pie? I thought you loved Nana's recipe, and the way I make it with extra whipped potatoes for you?”

“No. The pie is good. You're just not good at Legos, Mama.”

“Well, I can try.”

“No, thanks. I'll just do it by myself.”

Cathleen bristled a little, but she didn't want to push him. She knew this was as boring and tiring for him as it was for her, and she knew he had every right to be cranky.

“OK, suit yourself. But I make a mean moat.”

Colm knew he was hurting his mother's feelings. He knew it as the words came out of his mouth. But these days when Colm played, he liked to imagine his father was right there with him building castles or robots. He pretended his father was everywhere, watching everything and telling him what to do, and he was immensely proud of everything Colm did. Colm would smile back at his father, nod, and say,
Thanks, Dad, I couldn't do it without you.
But the most wonderful thing about his imaginary father, Colm thought, was that he was there at night, lying right beside him, telling him not to be afraid, and assuring him he would wake up in the morning, and when he did, his father would be there waiting for him, ready to look after his mother.

“What if this doctor sends us home and says nothing is wrong with me?”

“That's not going to happen. I don't want anything to be wrong with you. But you and I both know, what's been happening to you isn't exactly ordinary.”

“I know. What if I don't wake up?”

“What do you mean?” Though Cathleen had spent hours fretting over the same question, she had never heard Colm himself express the same fear. She had no idea he even knew that was a possibility. “Of course, you'll wake up. You always do.”

“But what will happen to you if I don't?”

“That's nonsense. You'll always wake up. In fact, this doctor is going to make sure you never ever collapse again. We won't leave his office until we get a straight answer.”

Colm didn't say anything. He knew his mother was promising something she would never be able to deliver. But he knew a lot of things, things he couldn't yet explain or tell her, because he knew it would hurt her. There were things, he believed, he just could not say to his mama. He couldn't say he longed to be with his father or longed for his father to come and protect his mama so he didn't have to anymore. He couldn't say that he didn't think his mama was strong enough to live without him. He couldn't say that he needed to find his father to protect them both. And he couldn't tell her his biggest secret of all. The biggest one he knew would break her heart. No, there were thoughts and feelings and deeds that mamas couldn't see or hear or know, because it would break them both and tear them apart forever. Mamas always say they will love you no matter what, until someday the what is just too much for them, for anyone, to bear.