Proof of Angels

by Mary Curran Hackett

  Libby gave in to the hug and let James’s enormity wrap itself around her and envelop her completely. She felt instantly safe and cared for and she squeezed back to let James know she liked the hug.

  Tom and Sean looked at each other, stunned by James’s unabashed expression of emotion.

  “Thank you, James,” Libby said, pulling away. “I’m glad you’re here, too,” was all Libby could think to add. Both, it seemed, were at a loss for words.

  As the days turned into weeks and then months, and meals spilled over into shared afternoons and shared revelations and intimacies, Sean had come to recognize something in each of them, something he, too, was experiencing, a feeling he’d had in some form or another his entire life. Each of them was always wanting. Something more. Though none of his friends had been addicted to alcohol, they each had, in their own way, their own broken spine, their weak link. They each had a certain crack that, like his, needed to be reinforced. For Tom it was work. He was, Sean was discovering, incapable of resting, incapable of the slightest imperfection. Work would see him through this existence, even if it was the very same thing that was destroying his life as he knew it—one wife and one child at a time. For James it was food. He buried himself in it, filling up bowl after bowl of pad thai, moo goo gai pan, pho, pesto, paninis, pizza, pasta, filling up an empty space; Sean wasn’t sure even James knew how it had gotten there. And if James did, he hadn’t found the words to tell anyone why. Then there was Libby, or a former version of the woman she was now. Somehow she had managed to overcome her heroin addiction, but the wanting was still there. It was in her eyes. Sean could see that there was more to the story. That there was something behind it that she wasn’t even willing to admit to herself. Sean knew because he had fashioned a similar story, the story he told his sister or AA members, but then there was the one buried deep down inside him.

  Everyone, Sean knew, had a demon or was once a demon, and if not either, could easily become one given the right conditions. Then again, he thought, demons were nothing more than fallen angels like himself and his new friends.

  Chapter 13

  ONE EVENING, SIX MONTHS INTO SEAN’S RECOVERY, Tom and his wife, Melissa, took Sean out onto Ocean View, on Venice Beach, with Chief to meet Libby and James at a nearby Mexican restaurant. It was James’s birthday, and James insisted on La Cabaña that had, according to James, tacos that were, no shock to anyone, the bomb.

  When James spotted Tom assisting Sean, with his walker and leg braces, coming through the door, he jolted up from his chair and ran the length of the restaurant to his friend. The last time he’d seen Sean walk was when he’d grabbed the ax off the engine, tipped his hat toward James, and headed into the house that eventually almost consumed him. James shook the memory off.

  “Happy birthday, James!” Sean said loudly, indicating to James that standing and walking was his gift.

  “Oh my god, man. Oh my god. When did this happen?” James said excitedly, walking around Sean and inspecting him.

  “We’ve been working on it for a month now,” Tom said proudly. “Sean here wanted to keep it a secret until he was sure he could do it. He’s on his way now. He still needs his chair. But he can take a few steps here and there.”

  Tom’s wife pulled up behind them both with Sean’s chair. “So this is the crew I’ve heard so much about?” A tall, thin blonde who looked as equally fit as Tom stepped forward and shook James’s hand.

  “I’m Melissa, Tom’s wife. I’ve heard a lot about you, James. Happy birthday! Thanks for including me. Tom comes home every night with stories about you three. Libby said this. James said this. And Sean did this . . . I’m almost jealous. You get him more than I do. Seems like you guys have more fun than do actual work,” she said, a hint of passive aggressiveness in her tone. Almost jealous seemed like an understatement.

  “Well, so glad you could come and hang out with us,” James said, surprising her with his sense of familiarity and hugging her.

  James looked over at Sean. “You tired, man? Want to sit down in your chair for the rest of the way? It’s a long walk to the table.”

  “Nah, I’ve come this far,” Sean said, inching forward.

  James stood back and couldn’t contain his joy. Despite the braces and walker, his friend almost resembled his old self. Sean seemed to be putting on some of the weight he had lost. It wasn’t quite twenty pounds, but close to it. The bandages had been removed from his head for weeks now and Sean’s hair was finally covering the long, jagged scar that crossed his skull. His right ear was still lost, now somewhere in the melted folds of skin, but the swelling had gone down, and with the hair grown he could hardly tell he had been burned when looking at him from a certain angle.

  James noticed Sean’s biceps, which Sean relied on for everything, to haul his weight from chair to bed, bed to chair, and everywhere in between. The muscles were bulging out of his white shirt and his skin even looked tan. His color was returning. And not just to his arms but to his face as well. James realized Sean’s hands were fitted with clear plastic gloves that almost made them look completely normal. From a distance, James guessed, no one could tell his friend had nearly been burned alive.

  Yes, James had seen him every day since the fire. But he hadn’t recognized the small changes. He knew Sean and Tom worked out every day. He knew Sean spent hours in the gym and James had witnessed small advances. He was there the day Sean’s heavy casts were removed. He was there the day they removed the bandages around his head and showed Sean the scar on his skull and the large burned section on the right side of his head and neck. James looked away himself, repulsed and sickened by the sight and unable to witness his friend’s cry when he saw his own ear, or lack of one, for the first time. But all those memories washed away when he looked at Sean standing before him. Sean had been completely transformed. Sean was well on his way to being healed. It was the best birthday present James had ever had.

  “What the hell are you wearing, James?” Sean asked, breaking James’s obvious reverie.

  “What?” James said, feeling above his head. “Oh? This? It’s a sombrero! I got one for each of us to wear! Come on. There at the table! Libby is already wearing hers . . .”

  “Fantastic,” Tom said, rolling his eyes.

  “Oh, lighten up, hon. Have a little fun,” Melissa said, patting Tom on the arm.

  As the group approached the table, Libby, wearing a sombrero, stepped out of the bathroom and took Sean in, putting her hands up to her mouth to shriek.

  “Sean! You can walk!” Running toward Sean, her sombrero flew off and she left it behind.

  Libby, Sean noticed, looked transformed as well. She was not the same person he had grown familiar with, seeing her by day—the girl-woman who wore her faded tight jeans, faux retro T-shirts purchased from Target, and Converse sneakers like a uniform. But tonight she was wearing a short floral sundress and thin cotton sweater that covered her tattoos. She had put on a bit more makeup than usual and even taken out several of the silver hoops in her ears, only leaving a set of small diamond studs—remnants of a former preppy, boarding school life. Something else about her had changed, though Sean couldn’t recognize exactly what it was at first. James looked different, too. His face appeared a bit thinner. Sean started to make out cheekbones. His Tommy Bahama shirt fit loosely over his slimmer chest, and his blond hair was a bit longer. Sean couldn’t put his finger on any of it, but something was entirely different about James, too.

  “Libby, you look beautiful,” Sean said quietly, blushing.

  James looked at Sean and then at Libby and saw, too, what Sean saw: Libby, gorgeous and smiling. Happy and clean.

  “Here, let me get your chair,” Tom said, coming up behind Sean with it. “It will be easier for you to cross the restaurant. Come on.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Sean acquiesced and let Tom push the chair behind him and help position him into place.

  “I just can’t believe it. I can’t,” James said, shaking his head. “
How do you feel? You okay? Tired?”

  “I’m okay, James. Tom’s been great. I couldn’t have done it without him. He knew what I needed.”

  Tom shook his head. “It was all you, Sean. All you. I just told you what to do and you did it. But don’t get too cocky, you have a long way to go.”

  Melissa nodded knowingly. “It took Tom almost a year to walk again after his accident.”

  “What?” James said, turning and looking at Tom.

  Tom knocked on the part of his leg below his knee, under his jeans. “Iraq. About nine years ago. Transport truck I was riding in ran over an IED. Took some shrapnel. Was cut up pretty bad, but they didn’t have to cut my legs off. I was lucky.”

  “Jesus. Lucky?” James asked. “I had no idea. I couldn’t even tell. You barely limp. I just thought you had a knee injury or something.”

  “He nearly died,” Melissa added. “We almost lost him. But he did the work, too. Hasn’t stopped since, actually,” Melissa said, shaking her head while recalling it all.

  “Melissa, stop. This dinner isn’t about me. It’s about James. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  James, Libby, and Sean exchanged knowing glances. They knew instinctively that they would talk about this later. Would snag Tom after Melissa had gone and drill him for details.

  “No wonder you’re so badass,” James said, squeezing Tom by the neck. “I knew it. No one gets as tough as you without going through some shit. That’s for sure.”

  While Tom, Libby, and Sean had ordered and then nursed their iced teas with lemon, James and Melissa had each downed three margaritas and were finding the comfortable drunk spot when one still feels optimistic and uninhibited, and not yet depressed or crapulous. While Melissa grew sleepy and rested her head on Tom’s shoulder, nodding her head in and out of consciousness, James was at the stage when he felt he could say and do anything without consequences. It was his birthday after all, he kept reminding everyone at the table, and so he could order what he wanted, drink what he wanted, and ask anything he wanted and everyone had to answer. “No cop-outs,” James said with a slur. “I ask. You answer. Deal?”

  Tom, Sean, and Libby exchanged eye rolls in mock exasperation, but all were rather enjoying James being even more uninhibited than his usual garrulous self, which seemed impossible.

  “First, Sean. Batter up,” James instructed.

  “What do you want to know that you don’t already, James?”

  “Chiara. Start talking. Tell me more about her. Tell me she’s got hair made of gold and that she’s a princess due to inherit a spectacular fortune. Please tell me that she has yachts, a house on the Italian Riviera, and crap like that. I want to hear all about her and why she is so damn amazing that you’re willing to give up everything here to go be with her.”

  “I’m not obsessed. I just know what I want.”

  “Don’t listen to the boys,” Libby said, shaking her head. “They’ve got no sense of romance. Of possibility.”

  “He’s obsessed,” Tom added. “Sometimes when he naps, he shouts her name.”

  Sean looked at Tom as if hearing this for the first time. “I do?”

  Tom nodded and his lips formed a long flat line across his face as he shrugged.

  “Well, I want to hear all about her,” Libby said. “James is right. She has to be special for you to be carrying a torch this long. I just want to understand it. What is that kind of love like?”

  “I don’t know if I can explain it properly. But I think we had the kind of love that knows it exists before the people in it do. It was the kind of love that, I think, would have existed here on earth even if she and I did not. It was the kind of love that has always been here and always would be for the right people who fall into it. It was already here. It didn’t take long before we were both consumed by it.”

  “Oh my god, Sean, that’s beautiful,” Libby said, reaching out and touching his arm.

  “It’s horseshit,” Tom said. “That means absolutely nothing,” he added, shaking his head.

  Melissa was jolted a bit awake by Tom’s outburst. “I married such a romantic,” she slurred before closing her eyes again and adjusting her head to find a more comfortable spot on Tom’s shoulder. Tom gingerly moved his arm around her to cradle her, while explaining to the group, “She’s a lightweight drinker, and on top of it our youngest doesn’t sleep at night.”

  “Poor thing,” Libby said sincerely, but then narrowed her eyes. “But how can you say that it’s horseshit, Tom? Ignore him, Sean. Tell me everything. How did you meet? I love how-we-met stories. They’re always filled with so much hope!” she said excitedly, pushing her fork into a triple-layer chocolate cake.

  “From the moment I laid eyes on her, I knew everything I had ever known before would be different. I just knew. I can’t explain it. But I knew there was something about her. I saw her one day while I was on a tour of Florence with my seminary class. I had only been in Italy a month when I was walking through the Santa Croce church and stopped suddenly in front of the gaudy tomb of Michelangelo. I was looking up at it and I thought I was standing behind a small child. But then I heard the child speak. She was talking in furious Italian to a friend. She was explaining that Michelangelo would have been horrified by the tomb, that it stood in direct contrast to everything he stood for as an artist or something like that. Her girlfriend disagreed and the two were arguing over the merits of Michelangelo’s art. I knew then she was no child. No, she was not some diminutive little wisp of a person, but a force to be reckoned with. I was so busy listening in, I didn’t realize how close I had approached them, and when Chiara turned sharply on her heel, she bumped into me and her angry tone dissolved into a contrite, ‘Mi dispiace, Padre.’ I laughed, not just because of how quickly she could turn, on a dime, but because it was the first time anyone called me Padre. I wasn’t even a priest yet, and to be honest, I was going through the motions. I didn’t even want to be a priest. I was doing it out of some obligation to my dead mother, who I’d promised I would. I had one of those revelations, right then and there, and I turned on a dime, too. I knew in that moment I was hers. I corrected her, explained that I was just a seminarian not a priest, and she and I walked out of the church together, talking. I, of course, told her I totally agreed with her assessment of the tomb. We had a coffee. I thought we had talked for only twenty minutes, but four hours had passed. She missed her class. I missed my train back to Rome. Very long story short: we spent the rest of the day talking and meandering through the streets of Florence. And I couldn’t bring myself to leave the city, leave her. So I didn’t. By the end of that day, I’d shoved that collar in my pocket. I spent the evening with her, and then the next, and then the next, and before I knew it, just as those twenty minutes had disappeared into four hours, four hours disappeared into six months.”

  “Very Thorn Birds,” Libby said. “So juicy. Go on. I gotta hear more,” she said, leaning forward and saying, “This is better than watching the season finale of Downton, even the one when Matthew finally got on his knees and asked Mary to be his wife.”

  “Nah, there’s not much more to tell,” Sean said, folding and refolding his napkin and then resting it on the table.

  “Sure there is! Tell us what happened,” Tom, surprising everyone with his curiosity, begged.

  “Yeah, Sean, what happened? If you were so in love, how come you left?” James asked.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Everyone says that.” James shook his head as if to say he wasn’t buying it. “Except that it’s usually not. Sometimes it’s as simple as one of you cheated, or one of you lost respect for the other, or one of you grew tired of picking up the other’s socks, or the love you thought you’d ‘walked into’ just wasn’t enough come time to pay the rent, man. Everyone wants to make it out to be complicated, but it always boils down to this: me over you. One person is selfish, and if you want a relationship to work, both have to be all in. And it always is complicated for the selfish
one and simple for the one who was all in.”

  Libby looked at James, surprised by this rare instance of insight. “You talk from lots of experience, do you?”

  “Pretty much. Un-forch,” James said, cutting his word in half as he often did, as if it would have been thoroughly exhausting to come out and say the entire five-syllable word.

  “But it was complicated, James. It was. It’s hard for me to explain, but there came a point when I started to believe I wasn’t worthy of her. She was so beautiful, so ambitious, and so filled with this energy and light. She was an artist and a brilliant student with all of these highfalutin friends, all these ideas and opinions. I felt like I couldn’t keep up. I had dropped out of college. Dropped out of the seminary. I had no idea what I wanted out of life. And she did. She knew exactly. And the only thing I knew was that I wanted her. I wanted to be with her. And I felt like I was losing her. When we went out, I started to drink. Just to loosen up at first. Just to get comfortable, but then I couldn’t stop. God help me, I couldn’t stop. And I wanted to. I wanted to stop. I wanted to be as clean and alive and sober as I could be when I was with her. I wanted to feel every moment when I was with her, but at some point I wanted the wine more. Until it was all I thought about.”

  “Like I said.” James nodded. “Me over you. It’s that simple.”

  “But I didn’t want to be selfish. I didn’t,” Sean shot back and then looked up at the ceiling tiles as if one of them hid his explanation and he needed to punch it out to get to it. When Sean looked back at each of them, they were locked in a communal stare. And he knew they understood. They knew. Even James put his fork down and pushed his plate toward the middle of the table.

  Yes, Sean knew, they understood just how hard the simple really was. He knew that no matter how many meetings, no matter how many daily affirmations, no matter how many promises made to the self and others, that every simple no to the bottle, the food, the work, or the heroin was complicated. And if another person was at the table it would have been something else. Sean knew they knew. Everyone’s got something that makes existing complicated. That makes them put the me-over-you in motion.