Golden Years Page 19

  After the shoot was over, his secretary brought in a large box of White House souvenirs for our family. We thanked him for his thoughtfulness. None of us hinted that some of the family—especially Father Ed—would not want a remembrance from this particular White House.

  “We’ll send them off to you in Chicago,” he said. “No point in burdening you with more luggage … You must come back sometime for dinner … Mrs. Reagan would love to meet you … Have you ever been here for dinner, Mrs. O’Malley?”

  “Only once, Mr. President. On the night John Kennedy said to a bunch of artists and writers that the only night there was more talent, in the room was when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

  “Then you must certainly come again.”

  None of us were about to hold our breath waiting for an invitation, yet no doubt his offer was sincere. At the moment.

  On our way back to the hotel, Tom Deming said, “You won’t find many people in the government who believe that the Soviet Union is about to implode.”

  “None at the embassy in Moscow,” I replied.

  “You said in effect that thirty years of Cold War has blinded us to the weakness of our enemy?”

  “I don’t doubt that the facts are reported accurately,” I replied. “I doubt that the dots are connected.”

  “This administration will never believe it, even if all your predictions turn out to be right.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  At the Hay-Adams, my wife informed me that I needed a nap, a “nap nap. You’re always exhausted after a shoot … Mary Margaret and I will do a little shopping. We’ll call Peg and talk to Shovie.”

  A limo would pick us up at seven. We’d fly out of National at eight-thirty and arrive in Chicago a little before ten.

  I did need a real nap. My hormones were quiescent.

  The United States, I realized, was slipping into another era of peace and prosperity, both deceptive. However, the public wanted to be tranquilized. Our new president was the perfect leader of the time.

  The JFK dinner that Rosemarie had mentioned to the president belonged to a different world. We were fortunate to be part of it. Then I glided away to the land of Nod, wondering how come a punk kid from a two flat on the West Side could become as familiar with the White House as I was.

  I solved a lot of international problems before I was wakened by a demanding telephone. I couldn’t quite figure out where I was or what time it was as I reached for the phone.

  “Chuck O’Malley.”

  “Peg, brother. Mom’s in the hospital. They think she’s had a heart attack.”

  Was this message nightmare or reality?

  “what happened … ?”

  “She had pains in her chest and trouble breathing. I called for the ambulance. Friday afternoon, not too many doctors around. She’s resting comfortably. They’re controlling the pain with medication and watching her closely. Mike Kennedy was playing golf at Butterfield but he’s on his way in.”

  “Are you at the hospital?”

  “Sure. Father Ed is here too. Rita is taking care of Shovie. When do you get home?”

  “Peg, where am I?”

  “You’re at the Hay-Adams hotel in DC. You photographed the president this afternoon.”

  “Indeed we did,” I admitted, not at all sure the charge was true.

  “Is Rosie there?”

  I looked around the bed.

  “No, I think she and Mary Margaret went shopping.”

  “Have her call when she returns. We’re in Room 414.”

  Naturally. I hoped the smell of roses was still there.

  “Our flight is at eight-thirty,” I said. “Maybe we can get an earlier flight.”

  “They say there’s no immediate danger.”

  I struggled out of bed and took a shower to wake up. It didn’t do much good.

  I sat in an easy chair in the parlor of our suite. We had a suite because Rosemarie had arranged the travel plans. I had long since given up arguing about the cost of such luxury. I began to leaf through another file in Joe Raftery’s story about Bride Mary O’Brien.

  I couldn’t concentrate on the story. The image of the vibrant young flapper who had snatched Dad out of his Irish bachelor’s life would not leave me. Why did any of us have to die?

  Rosemary charged into our suite, filled with vitality and descriptions of the brilliant shopping coups she and Mary Margaret had accomplished. She was, I knew, ready for more love.

  “Call Peg at Room 414 at Oak Park Hospital,” I said. “Mom’s apparently had a heart attack.”

  Rosemarie slumped into the chair next to the telephone.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Rita’s taking care of Shovie.”

  She punched in the number with which we were all too familiar. Her conversation was brief and whispered.

  “She’s had another attack,” Rosemarie murmured. “Serious. Dr. Kennedy is with her.”

  “Can we get on an earlier plane?” I asked.

  “Too late for that, Chuck. We’d better start to pack. I’ll tell Mary Margaret.”

  She picked up the phone.

  “Better tell her face-to-face.”

  She put down the phone and smiled.

  “Right as always, Chucky Ducky.”

  It seems likely that Bride Mary O’Brien entered the United States illegally. She had somehow obtained a student visa on the grounds that she had a scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley. In fact, she had earned no such scholarship. All she had was an admission to the comparative literature department at the university with no promise of aid. In those days there was a steady stream of young Irish university graduates who outsmarted the consular bureaucrats of the State Department, who were probably not too interested in barring such bright and charming young people from the United States.

  She seems to have predecessors already in Berkeley because she easily found a job in a bookstore and a bed in an Irish commune. Apparently the “commune” was not ideological and did not encourage sexual relationships. She matriculated at the University of California at Berkeley in a literature department which, even at that time, was more interested in radical political action than in academic matters. The Free Speech Movement, it will be remembered, began in Berkeley in 1963, long before campus demonstrations spread to most other campuses in the country. Already an Irish radical, Bride Mary fit in with the spirit of the time at the university and in her department. She seems to have marched in demonstrations, blocked cars, shouted obscene epithets at police. We know this from testimony of a young woman, also an illegal Irish immigrant who shared a room with Bride Mary after they both had earned enough money to move out of the commune. Our investigations were unable to uncover other members of the commune. Like so many radicals of the day, they quickly melted into the mainstream of American life.

  Bride Mary was arrested for disorderly conduct on at least one occasion. She almost certainly would have been deported if she had not persuaded the Irish-American cop who had arrested her to give her a second chance. After that, her friend tells us, she avoided all demonstrations where there might be arrests. Yet in those turbulent days on the east side of the Bay she had some close calls.

  She dropped out of school and out of the radical movement at the same time. She began working full-time at the bookstore, then sometime in 1965 went to work part-time for a real estate company that catered to people who wanted to move into the East Bay area. She must have been very good even at the beginning because she was able to buy a condo in the Berkeley Hills, some distance away from the university.

  Her roommate had no explanation for this sudden change in lifestyle and profession. She said she wanted to make some money so she wouldn’t be just an impoverished Irish immigrant. The roommate thought there was a possibility that one of her faculty mentors promised her a job in the department if she would sleep with him. Shortly after she left the university she told the roommate that the radical faculty
members were not interested in principles or ideals, only in exploiting as many women as they could collect. All this radical shite, she said, is about using women who think they’re rebels. They’re a bunch of frigging hypocrites.

  After this it becomes more difficult to trace Bride Mary O’Brien. She worked for several different firms. Her colleagues said that she was friendly enough, but reserved. Her brogue indicated she was from Ireland, but she refused to say where she came from or when. She was scrupulously fair to her customers, warning them away from properties that were overpriced or had hidden problems. In fact, an employer said that she went beyond the ethical requirements of the profession in protection of her customers. Yet no one wanted to fire her because she was so successful. Her charm and integrity were transparent. All her clients liked her. About her private life, she said almost nothing. They thought she lived with a man for a while but ended the relationship quickly. She did not socialize with her professional colleagues. She did take classes at a local community college in accounting and finance and also in wine making. When she moved on to another company, they were all sorry to see her go. Characteristically she took none of her clients with her.

  Then they heard that she had married Joseph T. Raftery, an extremely successful developer in Marin County, in a small church wedding, though she had never seemed all that much interested in religion. He was ten years older than she was. Later they set themselves up in the wine-making business and had a child.

  To a person they were sad when they heard of the probable death of her and her child. They couldn’t imagine who would want to kill Bride Mary O’Brien unless it were some drug-crazy hippies.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mary Margaret

  Rosie and I had a great time shopping in DC. Chucky was back in the hotel sleeping and we didn’t have to worry about him getting lost. So we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves, even if we didn’t buy much—and only some things that were on sale. We decided that we didn’t much like the new president. He was a nice man with a lot of charm, but he wasn’t very bright and didn’t seem like he’d work very hard at being a president. Jack Kennedy, Rosie said, would have listened very carefully to what Chuck had to say about the Soviet Union, because he knew Chuck was very smart and almost always right about political things. Lyndon Johnson, when he was looking for solid advice before he withdrew from the presidential race, called Chucky in with a bunch of much older men. He also wanted Chuck to go to the UN, as did Jimmy Carter. Bonzo over there wasn’t curious enough to pursue Chuck’s notion that the Soviet Union would implode in between five and ten years.

  “What’s more, when it happens he won’t even remember that Chuck predicted it.”

  “You think he’s getting senile, Rosie?”

  “Not yet, but I don’t think he bothers to listen to things that don’t fit his impressions about the world.”

  “Scary!”

  “Maybe not. The United States has been lucky so far in our history. Maybe our luck will hold out.”

  “It’s a shame that no one will pay attention to Chuck.”

  “Don’t count your father out, Mary Margaret. We’re going to make the argument pretty loudly in our book and in the article I’m doing for The New Yorker.”

  Then we arrived at the hotel, a totally neat place, and Rosie went upstairs to wake up Chuck. Then she came back to my room to tell me about Grams.

  “Damn crazy Aunt Jane!”

  “My very thoughts, hon.”

  Dad called again from National Airport. Aunt Peg said that Grams had had a second attack and was in intensive care. We tried to work on the flight back to Chicago, which seemed to go on forever. He called again as soon as we landed at O’Hare. Aunt Peg said things did not look good. We should come right to the hospital. Shovie was sleeping soundly at their house and Rita was keeping a close eye on her.

  Rosie drove us to the hospital, of course. Aunt Peg and Uncle Vince and Father Ed were waiting for us in the intensive care room. Grams was breathing on a ventilator. A monitor was beeping above her. Aunt Peg had been crying. Her eyes were red and her pretty face was lined with sadness.

  “They say touch-and-go,” Father Ed murmured. “At least another day or two before she’ll be out of the woods.”

  “Peg,” Rosie said, “why don’t you and Vince go home and get some sleep. If there’s any turn for the worse, we’ll call you right away.”

  “Damn Crazy Jane,” Peg whispered.

  “I know how you feel, Peg,” Father Ed said. “I feel the same way, but it won’t do us any good to blame anyone, especially since poor Janey is out of her mind.”

  “It’s not easy being a Catholic, Aunt Peg,” I said, not having enough sense to mind my own business, especially since I wanted to kill crazy Aunt Jane too.

  Aunt Peg hugged me and said, “You and Rita are the only ones in the family with any Catholic sense left.”

  “Maybe,” Chucky said, “we can say the Rosary, then Peg and Vince can go home … Maybe, Mary Margaret, you can lead us since your aunt thinks you have some Catholic sense left.”

  This was Chucky at his deft best. He gave us something to do and he put a time limit after which Aunt Peg had to go home. I am as capable of leading the Rosary as anyone else. Halfway through, Grams lips seemed to move. Maybe it was a turning point. I thought I smelled roses, which wasn’t possible because there weren’t any flowers in the room.

  Chuck and Rosie were a mess all weekend. They didn’t sleep much and were back and forth to the hospital every couple of hours. I told them not to worry about Shovie. I’d take care of her and make sure her homework was done and take her to Mass on Sunday. Poor little kid needed to have someone around from her family, though Erin, our probably illegal babysitter, was now almost a member of the family.

  Seano was hanging around the house when I arrived to pick up Shovie for Mass on Saturday afternoon.

  “You look terrible, Seano,” I said. “What’s the matter? Maria Anastasia drop you?”

  “Yeah,” he said sadly. “She decided to marry a boy who is Luong like she is. Her parents talked her into it. He seems to be a good guy. I haven’t had much luck with my romances, have I, sis?”

  “Bitch!” I shouted.

  “Sis!”

  “Too much pent-up anger,” I said. “And too many geeky people picking on my family!”

  “It’s for the best,” he said. “Esther is happier with her Israeli pilot, and Maria Anastasia is better off with her Luong prince. Neither one of them ever made any promises to me.”

  “Everything but …”

  “That doesn’t count, sis … I’m pretty low now, but I’ll pull out of it … Maybe start looking for someone Irish … Just like you.”

  “I’m NOT, totally NOT, looking for anyone from any ethnic group!”

  We both laughed.

  Sean Seamus would be all right. I just hoped that whoever his next love would be, and of whatever ethnic group, would appreciate what a wonderful young man he is.

  By Sunday night Grams was off the ventilator and talking.

  “Well, I’m just so sorry to have caused so much worry. I’m fine now … . I started to feel better when I heard poor dear Mary Margaret leading the Rosary. Wouldn’t she make a wonderful priest!”

  “They’d have to ordain her a monsignora!” Chuck, always the wise guy, had to say.

  So that was the end of that. Now all we had to do was finish the proof sheets for the Russian book, work on the portrait of President Bonzo, and write thank-you notes to all the mourners. The family was not ready for another death, though we wouldn’t have much choice about it. Grams was back in her flapper mode, but she didn’t look like she’d last too long. Everyone dies someday.

  On Monday afternoon I walked from school to my appointment with Dr. Ward, so I could think over what I would say. Her office was at Lake and Harlem in an old building in which every doctor in Oak Park seemed to have an office. I wore the fawn suit I had worn to the White House. You go see a shrink for
the first time, Rosie had told me, you look your best. I figured she knew what she was talking about.

  Maggie Ward was a gray woman—gray hair, gray eyes, and a gray dress. But it was a happy kind of gray, a gray that made you want to relax and maybe smile a little. She had to be really good to deal with Rosie.

  “I must ask you one question at the beginning, Mary Margaret,” she began. “Is it your mother’s idea that you should come to see me?”

  “You must know Rosie better than that, Dr. Ward. Dr. Kennedy said I might need some counseling. It seemed to me that he might be right. Rosie is sky-high on you, so I knew you’d be good. I asked her whether she thought you would see me and she said I should call and ask. Which I did.”

  She smiled and I knew we’d be friends.

  “You have not been entirely absent from our conversations. I’m happy to meet you in person.”

  “I know Rosie would say only good things about me,” I said, “so I’m not worried … The thing is I totally want to kill my Crazy Aunt Jane. She hit me over the head with a lamp and might have killed me. They thought I might have a fractured skull, but it was only a brain concussion, which is bad enough, and she beat up on my poor grandma and probably caused her heart attack. I hate her so much that if I were a vampire, I could already taste her blood.”

  “You would not actually kill her, would you Mary Margaret—even if you could get away with it and not be caught?”

  “No, of course not. I’m a Catholic. We don’t kill people. I even believe that the Pope is right: we don’t kill people in wars either.”

  “But, if the Pope gave you permission, would you kill Crazy Aunt Jane?”

  “She’s a sick lady. Bipolar. She won’t take her medications when she’s on her high, which she was when she hit me … I hope I will take my meds when I go bipolar.”

  “May I make a small prediction about you, Mary Margaret O’Malley?”

  “Be my guest!”

  “Whatever else you may do in your life, you will never, I repeat, never go bipolar.”