Rescued Hearts

By Michael Foley

Rescued Hearts tells the story of Matt Toomey, a grizzled veteran with years of service with the Boston Fire Department, who has grown increasingly bitter and cynical as the decades have passed. His experiences in life not only have driven a wedge between him and the Catholic Church, they have led him to turn his back on God altogether. When his sister, a Catholic nun, becomes the victim of a violent crime, Matt initially finds his attitude toward life confirmed by the tragedy. But, in time, he discovers God is at work to lead him down a path to renewal.

Drawing upon his own experience as a firefighter who returned to a life of faith after undergoing a spiritual awakening through the mercy of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Michael Foley has crafted a fictional spiritual biography that captures the truth of how God works his mysterious ways in peoples lives.

You may find yourself drawn to stories of how lives can change radically, how Gods grace can work for the good even in the depths of despair, and how a moment can emerge as the pivot point upon which a whole life swings from one direction to another. If thats the case, then Rescued Hearts will lead you to walk along the path of such a life and to celebrate Gods generous acts of healing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490876177

Michael Foley

Michael Foley was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, but since 1972 he has lived in London, working as a Lecturer in Information Technology. He is the author of two previous books, of which one, The Age of Absurdity, was a bestseller.

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Copyright © 2015 Michael Foley.

Author photo credit: Fan Club Photgraphy, Braintree Ma

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-7618-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7620-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7617-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015905676

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/30/2015

Contents

1 Terre Haute, Indiana

2 Dorchester, Massachusetts

3 Dorchester, Massachusetts

4 Charleston, South Carolina

5 Summerville, South Carolina

6 Summerville, South Carolina

7 Summerville, South Carolina

8 Mercy Hospital, Charleston, South Carolina

9 Mercy Hospital, Charleston, South Carolina

10 Mercy Hospital, Charleston, South Carolina

11 Mercy Hospital, Charleston, South Carolina

12 Summerville, South Carolina

13 Mercy Hospital, Charleston, South Carolina

14 Mercy Hospital, Charleston, South Carolina

15 Boston, Massachusetts

16 Hingham, Massachusetts

17 Summerville, South Carolina

18 Charleston International Airport, Charleston, South Carolina

19 St. John’s Roman Catholic Church, Charleston, South Carolina

20 Spada Rehabilitation Center, Charleston, South Carolina

21 Mercy Hospital, Charleston, South Carolina

22 St. John’s Roman Catholic Church, Charleston, South Carolina

23 Hingham, Massachusetts

24 Hingham, Massachusetts

25 Hotel Eysser, New York City

26 Hingham, Massachusetts

27 Mexico City, Mexico

28 Mexico City, Mexico

Epilogue

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This work is humbly dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the mother of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. She is my inspiration for all that is good, and I have found a lifetime of peace in her words to St. Juan Diego:

Do not be troubled or weighed down with grief.

Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain.

Am I not here who am your Mother?

Are you not under my shadow and protection?

Am I not the fountain of life?

Are you not in the folds of my mantle?

In the crossing of my arms?

Is there anything else you need?

1

Terre Haute, Indiana

September 15, 4:40 a.m.

The devilish Billy Sanders, two years older and two grades ahead of Amanda in school, ambled over to where she was standing and, with no warning at all, kissed her full on her eight-year-old lips. With a confident step backward, he knelt down on one knee, spread his arms wide and, in his best Barry White voice, sang, Can’t get enough of your love, babe …

Standing on the back porch now on a cool September morning thirty-seven years later, coffee cup in hand, forty-five-year-old divorcée Amanda Holland—pretty by any standard and a dazzling, accomplished illustrator of some local renown—chuckled to herself as she stared absently through the still pitch-black Indiana morning toward the scene of Billy’s crime—the old barn that stood in the backyard some two hundred feet away. Happy to summon a slice of her childhood, she chuckled again as she recalled feeling Billy’s lips on hers and how shocked she was.

But Amanda’s memory quickly turned to sorrow when she remembered Billy as the US Air Force lieutenant colonel whose jet fighter had crashed in Afghanistan in 2010; to make a heartbreaking situation even worse, it was his forty-third birthday. His death was a shock to everyone in Terre Haute. His full-honors military funeral was a local event, a happening—as much as it is possible to consider the burial of a fighter pilot in the same way as, say, a church picnic. Hundreds of mourners, including many close friends, some not-so-close friends, and some who didn’t know Billy from Adam, all tried to squeeze into a church not even close to large enough to accommodate everyone.

Amanda’s most enduring memories of that mournful day were a trio of heart-wrenching images: Billy’s beautiful wife, Eileen, trying to hold it together as she and her four children huddled closely in the front pew at Saint Margaret’s Church; the long ride to the cemetery; and the worst, an explosion of tears and emotion when the commander of the honor guard handed Eileen the flag from her dead husband’s coffin.

Still staring at the old barn, trying to force her happy memories of Billy to the forefront, Amanda’s memory was attacked by a black-hearted series of events:

Boston.

Christmas Eve.

1981.

For what had to be the millionth time, Amanda saw the fire race across the ceiling above her head and then, through the smoke, the red lights flashing on top of the fire engines parked at disorderly angles on the street below and the ladder coming toward her. She imagined herself back inside the burning house and under the raging fire, struggling to survive. A single heartbeat later, she heard the loud bang on the wall and felt the room shake. Through the swirl of smoke that built like an anvil cloud, she shuddered in terror under the sill and saw the top of the ladder land in her window. She was trying to kneel when strong arms appeared from nowhere and grabbed her. Suddenly, she was flying through the air, freezing, her terrified eyes affixed on the ground thirty feet below.

Amanda shivered as the movie played in her mind, and she pulled her sweater tighter around herself. It was there, she knew, in her Boston experiences, that she concealed a very personal, private, and inner intensity. It was fervor of the kind that no one would regard as true for her because Amanda was the stereotypical midwestern girl: honest, hardworking, caring, if a bit naive in her willingness to trust too many people, too many times.

To support the typecasting, Amanda had an easy and gracious outward manner, while the disparate inner intensity took a different tack in her life, one that had never emerged in a professional sense to make her reach for the proverbial stars.

No, this inner intensity was something altogether different, a rampant and recurring turmoil of guilt and shame that she had never shared with anyone. It forced her more deeply inside her personal cocoon, one that grew tighter and tighter around her existence and protected her from the outside world.

Amanda was safe in Terre Haute because she was far away from Boston. Yet as she looked out into the wee morning hours, she stood at one of life’s crossroads, accepting that even though she said she never would—and knowing it would not be easy—in less than an hour, she would do the unthinkable: she would leave Indiana.

Until recently, Amanda had steadfastly rejected the plaintive, incessant entreaties from advertising heavyweights in Chicago and Los Angeles, all of whom promised fame and fortune, if only she would move. Leaving Indiana again, especially after the Dallas experience—a failed marriage of five years—was simply not on her radar. Yet despite all the reasons not to leave, she had decided to accept a new job—not in Chicago or LA but New York City—as the national creative arts director at her company’s home office, located in a high-rise with a prestigious Midtown Manhattan address.

When they had first asked her to take over the Creative Arts Department, Amanda was hesitant. But all her friends told her she was crazy to let the opportunity slip by, saying, It’s New York City, Amanda! The Big Apple! How many times have we said that we would love the chance to get out of Terre Haute? But how many of us have done it?

So after some determined pleading from the company—the corporate wonks begged her to transfer to the home office, ostensibly because they wanted her midwestern know-how on Madison Avenue—she relented, with one proviso: the move would be temporary. I will try it for a year. One year, that’s it, she told them.

Amanda fully understood that she would be the proverbial small fish in a big pond, but after a lengthy deliberation and with her dad’s encouragement, she decided it might be fun to try New York on for size, to test herself and see how she stacked up against the best—as long as there was an expiration date on her commitment.

The joke in the office was that within three months, Amanda would have them eating out of her hand and then, in another three, have them building an Indiana silo in Times Square to provide some down-home balance to the high-rise landscape.

Amanda, however, wasn’t too sure what she would bring to the table, because New York City was, after all, New York City. It’s where the advertising business went to birthing school, where selling products and services became an art form.

There would be significant differences. To begin with, there was the question of housing. Never having been to New York, Amanda would need to live somewhere close to the office because she certainly didn’t have any interest in driving to work, to say nothing of looking for a parking place—she had seen enough pictures of the traffic and had watched enough episodes of Law & Order.

I need to live close, she told them.

The company wonks stepped up and took care of everything, finding her a small apartment within ten blocks, if she wanted to walk, and one stop away if she rode the subway—a treat that didn’t interest her—and offering her taxicab vouchers for days when there was inclement weather. The apartment also came with a parking place in an underground garage that, she shuddered when later finding out, pushed the monthly charges to a shocking six thousand dollars.

But unknown to anyone but her father, the underlying reason Amanda had decided to go to New York was a quest that could be traced back to Christmas Eve 1981, one that would rival scaling Mount Everest while wearing Daisy Duke’s, a T-shirt, and sandals. And whether or not her quest had a happy ending was not the overriding issue. It was deeper than that, much deeper.

The redemption was in the attempt, she reasoned.

If she found him, yes, he might decide not to forgive her, but in making the effort to set things right, Amanda would be free of her guilt and shame. Until now, she had always been more than one thousand miles away from where she knew he was. Or believed he was because, well, he could be dead and buried, for all she knew. But Boston was only four hours away from New York City. She could go there, find out what she wanted to know, and return, all in one day. And assuming she could find him, maybe the man who had saved her life would agree to see her and accept her apology. Maybe he would let her put these thirty-three years of guilt and shame to rest, once and for all.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

The roots of the Boston saga went back to 1981, when Amanda was eleven, and her mother died unexpectedly. Her heart just stopped, she had overheard her father say to someone in the funeral home.

But life went on, and during the next few years, her widowed father did everything he could to be both mother and father for his only child. But deep down, he knew Amanda needed some motherly influence in her life. So, uninterested in seeking another relationship, he sought help from his kid sister, Eunice, an untroubled, devil-may-care, tough-as-nails but firmly grounded woman who lived in Boston and knew how to survive during every six-month stretch that her merchant marine husband was at sea. After some prodding from her brother, in August 1981, Eunice came to Terre Haute for an extended visit, her infant son in tow. She had a gift for her niece, a book about the city of Boston and its rich colonial history. But she also arrived with a proposal for Amanda’s dad: would Amanda like to move to Boston for a time? There was much to consider, Dad had thought. For one thing, there was the obvious distance. And it was big city living versus semi-rural—the area of Boston where Eunice lived, Dorchester, contained twice the number of people as Terre Haute. And when was the last time anyone saw a TV show about a police department’s homicide unit in Indiana? he’d thought. Certainly, there were advantages in Boston, but in the long run, he wondered about the disadvantages, not in moving to Boston but of moving away from Terre Haute.

Dad’s basic concern, however, was that Amanda would see the proposal as a way to move her out so that he could get his life back together, even though he had a hunch that she would understand his interest in her future; she would realize that the single most difficult thing he could possibly do would be to watch his only child—the spitting image of her late mother—step out on her own where he could not see it happen. But Amanda would be entering seventh grade—the perfect age to experiment, Dad concluded. Eunice concurred.

Nonetheless, he would only agree to let Amanda try it as long as she understood that she could come back home whenever she wanted. So it was set, as far as the adults were concerned. As they contemplated how best to make their proposal to her, they had no idea Amanda had accidentally overheard one of their planning sessions. As such, they were surprised when Amanda brought it up on her own, not as a suggestion but as part of a verbalized wish list. It happened at dinner.

Aunt Eunice, what’s it like to live in Boston? I know about the history from the book you gave me and that would be fun to see but … well, what if I lived there? I know I would have to go to school. What would that be like?

Eunice glanced at her brother with wondering eyes, nodded slightly, and replied, It would be fun, I should think.

So the stage was set, and in late August, with her tearful father’s blessing, Amanda left Terre Haute on her thousand-mile, eastbound adventure in Aunt Eunice’s aging Oldsmobile. For an eleven-year-old who had never been farther away than Indianapolis, about seventy miles east, this was indeed a great adventure.

Amanda marveled at sights along the brand new highway called Interstate 70 and, at her Aunt Eunice’s urging, even stuck her head out the window and looked up as they drove under the huge arch that welcomed them to Ohio. They rolled along easily through Dayton, around Columbus, north to Akron, and then turned east again into the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania along Interstate 80. Unknown to Amanda, Aunt Eunice had a big surprise because instead of taking Interstate 81 up into Pennsylvania coal country, through Scranton and Wilkes Barre, and on into New England by way of I-84—the easy way—she remained on I-80 as it raced through the hustle and bustle of northern New Jersey, to the place where it abruptly stopped and joined the heavily traveled I-95, the main thoroughfare coming up from Florida, the Carolinas, and Virginia. Aunt Eunice giggled to herself as they drew closer to the moment of truth because she knew what was going to happen.

Right on cue, Aunt Eunice pointed out the passenger window and said, There it is, Amanda. New York City! The greatest city in the world!

The carefully planned surprise had its desired effect when Amanda looked out through the passenger window and was presented with her first-ever view of the famous Manhattan skyline.

Amanda was stunned to near silence. She had never imagined a city could be so big! Wow! was all she could mutter. Wow!

Then came the ultimate cherry on top—a bumper-to-bumper ride across the George Washington Bridge into the Bronx and then on to the bedeviled Cross Bronx Expressway, where there were millions of more things to see. Amanda kept her eyes glued to the passing landscape. In all her life, with all her imagination, she could barely dream that the things she saw even existed—so many buildings, so may cars, so much traffic, so many things that her Indiana upbringing could never have prepared her for. Eventually, over an hour later, eleven miles beyond the bridge, they reached Co-op City, an immense housing project that served as home to almost sixty thousand people.

Look over there, Amanda, Eunice said, pointing to the sea of high-rise buildings. There are almost as many people living in those building as live in all of Terre Haute.

In utter disbelief, Amanda shook her head back and forth. I never thought anything could be so big, she replied.

Well, enjoy the view because that’s the last part of New York City we’ll see, Eunice offered. We’ll be in Boston in about three hours or so.

Amanda leaned back against the headrest and sighed. Her young mind was still processing all she had seen in the past two hours. Finally, she said, Wow, Aunt Eunice. I never knew how big New York was. That was really cool.

Eunice turned the radio on and motioned for Amanda to choose the station. Smiling, Amanda settled on Betty Davis Eyes, the Kim Carnes hit from earlier that year. Enjoying the music, they drove in silence as they headed north toward Bridgeport, New Haven, the by-pass around Providence, and eventually, into Boston.

When they finally arrived on the outskirts of the city, it was late evening, and the rush-hour traffic had subsided. Drawing closer to their destination, Amanda saw congested streets and tall, three-story buildings. They’re called three-deckers, and we live in one exactly like those, on the third floor, Aunt Eunice said, pointing out the window. Things are closer together around here, don’t you think?

Amanda had never seen the likes of it—she was amazed! Aunt Eunice was right—everything was so close together and as Amanda later would learn, if she stayed very quiet, she could hear people talking in the house next door.

Stricken with only a mild case of culture shock but undaunted, Amanda’s budding personality flourished in her new surroundings. Her initial trepidation disappeared, never to appear again. In fact, the adjustment was almost no adjustment at all for Amanda. The radio stations played the same music by the same singers; the clothes in the stores were the same; the food in the supermarket was about the same; the landscape was rich with fast-food restaurants, just like Terre Haute; and the kids in the neighborhood, although more desensitized to city life, were just like the kids back home.

Amanda made fast friends with everyone she met but landed lightly amid a small group of three special girlfriends, who would mentor her in all the important areas: which boys were the cutest, which were the best baseball players, and which ones liked which girls. She toured many of Boston’s historic sites with her friends and their families and in no time became a staple presence in the small neighborhood enclave carved out of Dorchester, the largest section of Boston. Soon, Amanda paired off with the like-minded Sandy, and the two became inseparable. They would sit on the front steps of Sandy’s three-decker with a small transistor radio, listening to music as they whiled away the late-summer hours with thoughts of dashing young princes who lived in castles in faraway places, which teachers gave the most homework, and what time the ice cream truck might happen by.

One late August morning, Sandy took Amanda to the nearby baseball diamond to watch the boys play their half-field game, called Clear Fielder, a curious game that didn’t require base-running. After the boys chose sides, they gathered in a small group and did something Amanda could not see. Suddenly, a loud groan went up from half the boys, while the other half howled with laughter.

What happened? Amanda asked Sandy.

They bucked up and one team lost, Sandy said with a giggle. "Now they have to be the Yankees."

Amanda shrugged. What’s ‘bucked up’?

They hide their hands behind their backs and on the count of three, they snap either one or two fingers or, if they want to be extra tricky, a no-finger fist out in front of them. One side picks even, the other gets odd. If there are two or four fingers, even wins. If it’s one finger or three fingers, odd wins. The winner gets to be the Red Sox. The loser has to be the Yankees, Sandy explained.

Why does it make a difference?

Happily, but in a very serious tone, Sandy explained the inbred importance of being a Red Sox fan and, by required extension, of hating—no, despising!—the New York Yankees. We hate the New York Yankees, and the boys hate having to be the Yankees. Sometimes they even strike out on purpose so the ‘Yankees’ will lose.

Amanda pretended she understood the explanation, but in truth, she didn’t understand at all. She thought she might have heard of the Red Sox and Yankees, but their rivalry meant nothing to a Terre Haute girl. But—and this surprised her—she did enjoy watching baseball. Although she would never quite remember all the details, history would record that she saw her first live major league baseball game at Fenway Park on August 28 after she was invited to accompany Sandy and Sandy’s parents to what turned out to be a stereotypical Fenway slugfest: Sox 12; Athletics of Oakland, 5.

There were, however, more pressing issues for the pubescent friends to consider, for while the action and excitement on the field produced seventeen runs, it was clearly more important to speculate on which of the two resident dreamboats, Glenn Hoffman and Dwight Evans, might not yet be married and therefore available.

Summer vacation chugged along into September and past Labor Day, and it was suddenly time for the school year to begin. The lazy days and evenings disappeared and made way for homework and regular bedtimes. The kids in the neighborhood hung out together after school but sometimes didn’t come out after supper. It was an odd time of year because it was still warm and sunny, and the body just wasn’t ready to be cooped