The Senator and the Priest Read online

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  It was pure patriarchalism, absolute and undefiled. Whatever they may have thought, there wasn’t a husband at the dinner who didn’t know that it was a pipe dream.

  Finally he shut up.

  I realized that I had to do something or someone in the family would grab the mike. So I did.

  “There is one more toast,” I began, “from the bride to the groom.”

  My remarks had not been scheduled because I feared I would end up sobbing or laughing hysterically. Well, I wasn’t going to sob now.

  “First I want to assure Father Moran that I accept completely his prescription for a happy marriage. I will confine myself to decisions about the small matters and leave to him decisions about the important ones. I’ll decide where we will live, the names of our children, how many we will have, our career plans, the kind of home we will have, where our kids will go to school, where we will go on vacations. And you, Tommy dear, can make the major decisions: our stand on tax reform, Social Security, the cold war, our relations with England, and how we will vote in elections, so long as it’s for the Democrats.”

  Laughter from everyone except Tommy’s brother and mother and father.

  “Tommy, my groom, my husband, by beloved, my true love, my wonderful bed-partner-to-be, I was twelve when I fell in love with you. I have not changed my mind since then and I never will. Rosie told me that I was too young to make such a choice and then admitted that she made a similar one when she was ten. I asked her if she ever had any regrets. She just laughed and said certainly not. I won’t have any regrets, either, Tommy love. As long as God gives me life, Tommy dearest, I will stand by you and support you and be faithful to you and hold you in my arms every night we are together. With the help of God I will never go away and I will never let you go. I will love you and be your love always and forever and even after that.”

  Tommy stood up and absorbed me into his arms and we lost ourselves in a passionate kiss.

  Everyone stood up and applauded. Except Tommy’s family.

  We didn’t have the money for an elaborate honeymoon. So we went up to my parents’ house at Grand Beach to consummate our marriage on the same bed where they had consummated theirs.

  “Eventually, dear, when Chucky sobered up.”

  I had packed a bottle of Bushmill’s Green in my suitcase, because everyone knew that I was something less than a strong hitter when that was present. I poured a glass for each of us after we had undressed and we drank a toast to each other. A glass of it on the dresser at night has always been one of our little hints.

  One that we haven’t used in a long time.

  Perfectionist that I was (and am), I was determined to be the perfect lover on our wedding night. I wasn’t, but neither was Tommy. We bumbled and stumbled around—which might have been a paradigm for our marriage—but we laughed at ourselves and had fun—another paradigm.

  We don’t laugh much any more.

  CHAPTER 6

  “GENERAL ROLFSON,” I said to the commandant of the Air Force, “we have at least one thing in common. We both have three daughters of roughly the same age, do we not?”

  The youthful-looking four-star general with closely cropped hair and darting, angry, eyes regarded me with undisguised suspicion and distrust, an enemy agent who had violated the security of the command compound. The chairman of the subcommittee—Senator Samuel Houston Crawford of Texas—had sung his praise about the reforms at the Academy in Colorado Springs. Sam claimed to have been a jet pilot. In fact, he had washed out in training and served in the logistics department or whatever they called it. I was not about to use this information in the current context, however. If I did that I would have broken all my own rules.

  “If you say so, sir,” he replied.

  “Would you recommend that any of them should seek an appointment to the Air Force Academy?”

  “No, sir, I would not.”

  He had told the truth which in the present context for him was a mistake.

  “May I ask why not?”

  The junior officer next to him whispered in this ear.

  “I must distinguish in my response to your question, Senator, between my feelings as an officer in the United States Air Force and my feelings as a father. As an officer I accept the policy of the government on sexual integration in the military. As a father, I have personal reservations about what would be proper for my own children.”

  “I see. You mean gender integration, don’t you?”

  He blushed and said in a tight voice, “Yes, of course, Senator. Thank you for the correction.”

  “I would share those reservations, General. I would not like to see any of my daughters at the controls of a jet fighter, as you were and as well as my distinguished friend from Texas.”

  “I still fly jets, Senator.”

  “For which I admire you greatly, General, though I will be excused, I trust, from imitating you … But could not young women serve well in, let us say, the logistical and supply components of the Air Force?”

  I dared not look to see if the Senator from Texas had squirmed.

  “Perhaps, I did not make myself clear, Senator. I support the policy of the American government but I personally do not believe that women belong in the military even when they are not in harm’s way.”

  He was dead now, poor man. Whatever hope he had of being chairman of the joint chiefs had slipped away. Still he could retire on the salary of a four-star officer and work for some Texas oil company.

  “Might I ask why, General?”

  “I personally believe that the kind of men we need in the military are aggressive, dominant men, the only kind that can really fight wars. Women make it more difficult to sustain such an attitude.”

  “The Air Force wants warriors you mean?”

  “You never served in the military, did you Senator?”

  “I did not, General. But I remind you that the American tradition is that the military is under civilian control.”

  “I understand that, of course, Senator. The military needs fighting men, I’m sure you agree with that.”

  “Warriors?”

  “If you wish to call them that.”

  “And in a warrior culture, women are more likely to be in danger of assault?”

  “We will do everything we can to prevent that, sir. But it will almost certainly happen.”

  This exchange would make national television tonight. I felt sorry for the general, but more sorry for the victims of the culture of rape at the Academy.

  “Warriors are more likely to rape women if they are available victims and warrior officers are more likely to wink at such attacks?”

  “I didn’t say that, sir. I said we would do everything we can to prevent such attacks. But women in the service should understand the dangers and not act provocatively.”

  “Women in a warrior culture sometimes seduce rapists?”

  “You’re putting those words in my mouth, Senator.”

  “Let us think a moment, General, about a company like, let us say, Microsoft. Why are they not troubled by the emergence of a rape culture?”

  “Because they hire different kind of men, Senator.”

  “Not the kind of men you need to fight a war? A little less savage perhaps?”

  “The senator’s time has expired,” said Sam Houston, whose adulteries were notorious in the Senate.

  “I thank the senator. I also thank General Rolfson for his candor. American parents will understand better the risks of a daughter enrolling at any service academy.”

  I sank back in my plush chair, sick to my stomach. I had destroyed a man’s career and his reputation and warned people that the military culture as it currently existed tolerated a “boys will be boys” attitude about rape. That culture could change eventually, but not in the present culture of the United States Senate.

  Robbie who was sitting behind me leaned over and whispered, “Will you talk to the media afterwards?”

  Her pe
rfume was enticing.

  “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  “Are you proud of what you did to General Rolfson, Senator?” the first question from the media.

  “It is the duty of the committee to oversee the armed services. I ask questions with that duty in view.”

  “You seemed to suggest that rape is encouraged in the current culture of the military?”

  “Suggest? I said it outright.”

  “You think this cannot be changed?”

  “The difference between General Rolfson and me is not over whether we want our daughters at the Air Force Academy. Neither of us do and for the same reasons. The difference is whether we believe that some warriors are necessarily rapists. However strong the sexual urges of young males might be, I believe that a society has the duty to impose sanctions that prevent them from attacking women.”

  I returned to my office deeply discouraged. Our pension bill would languish in the house. Rape would continue to be commonplace in the military. I was wasting my time. Our struggle to defend private property from Wal-Mart big boxes had a chance, but why did it all have to be so difficult?

  Some of my colleagues were drifting back into the office building after their return from their constituencies and families. I envied them. I didn’t belong here. Maybe my brother was right. No, certainly he was right.

  The headline in the Examiner the next day said it all.

  TOMMY ATTACKS WAR HERO

  CHAPTER 7

  MARY ROSE joined us the day after I took my bar exam. I was twenty-four years old. Markam, Kean and Howe agreed that I didn’t have to begin working till after Christmas. Tommy, who also passed the exam, started to work at the public defender’s office. Our future looked bright and complicated, but the complications didn’t seem insurmountable then. In fact, they were both brighter and far more complicated than we could imagine. Our tiny little redhead was bright and sweet and cute. We both adored her. She adored us. And, bless her little heart, she slept at night.

  We were still deeply in love with one another, well matched and alert to the problems our two careers would cause. Or so we thought. Tommy was unfailingly patient with my enthusiasms and at the same time grateful for them. We were fine until his brother came around to hector and harass us. He had already become, so it seemed, an important person in his order, traveling back and forth from Rome and around the world to tend to its affairs. His parents had become reconciled to us when I announced my pregnancy and especially when they had their first peek at our little charmer. We postponed her Baptism until after the first of the year so that Father Tony could pour the water after his return from an “important inspection of the African mission.” He favored us—or more precisely me—with a sermon about risking an eternity in limbo for the little girl because I didn’t love her enough to bring her over to Church.

  “Do you really believe in limbo, Father Anthony?” I asked. “St. Augustine cheerfully assigned unbaptized babies to hell.”

  This was a quote from my priestly brother Ed, who warned me that the Clementines were a particularly old-fashioned order.

  “You shouldn’t take chances, Mary,” he insisted.

  “I can’t believe that God’s love would be constrained by my irresponsibility.”

  I was now in a mode where I argued with him all the time. It wouldn’t change his mind because, as my husband said, he was basically clueless. But it made me feel good.

  “You shouldn’t take chances,” he replied, “not with people’s immortal souls.”

  “Next time we won’t wait till you return from Africa.”

  He ignored me but lectured us for fifteen minutes about the terrible conditions in Africa, utterly unaware that Rosie and Chuck had produced a book of photographs and essays about Africa.

  He then insisted that Rose was not a “saint’s name.”

  “Don’t we call Mary ‘Mystical Rose’ in the litany?” I asked.

  Our little darling smiled happily as he drenched her with the Baptismal water. He addressed her as Mary, just as he did me on our wedding day. Nonetheless the Baptismal records at St. Agedius tell posterity that she is Mary Rose.

  “I’ll send you a book that my mother and father wrote about Africa, Father,” I said when the ceremony was over and I was nestling my adored child in my arms.

  He ignored me. I sent him the book. He never acknowledged it. Naturally.

  “I wish you wouldn’t argue with my brother, Mary Margaret,” Tommy said to me later after we had put the wonder child down for the night. “I know he’s all wrong but he means well.”

  “He still has a stranglehold on you, Tommy dear.”

  “Only when he’s around.”

  That was true enough. Tommy continued to live his own life and loved me far more than he loved his brother. Yet he suffered terribly during incidents like the one that afternoon. I realized that his brother would be with us for the rest of our lives and that was part of the package into which I had bought.

  “I shouldn’t have taken him on. I’ll try not to do it again. But he is such an asshole.”

  I do not use such language. Never. I have banned it, along with fuck, shit, screw, and other inappropriate words, from our home. Yet I had said it.

  Tommy laughed, delighted that I had fallen from grace.

  Our two more clones—Mary Ann and Mary Therese—arrived when I was twenty-six and twenty-eight. They were sweethearts too, though somewhat more rambunctious than their big sister. I promptly plunged into a spectacular postpartum depression after Marytre.

  Markam, Kean had decided early on that I was a gold mine for income-producing billable hours, which is why law firms exist. Even though I was young and pregnant and allegedly sexy, I was very good at appellate work in both the state and federal courts. In such a context I did not have to convince juries but only judges. The arguments were with very smart lawyers, though as one of my senior colleagues said, “Few are as smart as you are, Mary Margaret, and none as charming.”

  I was very excited when I told Tommy that in the evening.

  “Haven’t I been telling you that all along?”

  In the early stages of my pregnancy with Mary Therese I pleaded before the United States Supreme court—mostly an unimpressive group of narcissists, it seemed to me—and actually won a partial victory.

  “Not bad for a peasant kid from the West Side of Chicago,” Tommy said, as he hugged me. Struggling with the impossible job of public defender at Twenty-sixth and California, he wasn’t getting much emotional satisfaction. Yet it was his vocation as much as his brother’s to the priesthood. At least for a time. Yet he was a rock of stability for our marriage.

  It was his idea that we accept the loan my parents offered for us to buy a home in River Forest, which we could pay off at little more cost than the rent for our now crowded apartment in Rogers Park.

  “I know you have this principle about being independent,” he said. “But you also have one about keeping your parents happy. Besides, we want our kids to go to the same school we went to.”

  He was very skillful at manipulating my principles. But, as I have said, he was a very smart lawyer, even if his billable rate was not as high as mine.

  He also installed a small gym in the basement of our Dutch Colonial home on Lathrop Avenue and decreed rules on how often we must both use the equipment.

  We were faced with career decisions of the sort that so many families with two professionals face. Markam, Kean wanted me back. I was a cash cow, though they were careful not to use that term, even if I wasn’t always around or occasionally brought a small redhead into the office to nurse. The money would be nice but I didn’t want to leave my children with a baby-sitter or a nanny during these precious years.

  “That’s no problem at all,” Tommy said. “I’ll be the house-husband.”

  “TOMMY! That’s absurd.”

  “No, it’s not. Your daughters will bond with their father and we’ll all have a wonderful time, living off your i
ncome. And I’ll be able to finish my book about the decline of civility in American politics.”

  “You’ll be the laughingstock of the Chicago bar.”

  “And that will bother me a lot!”

  “I know it won’t, but …”

  “But nothing!”

  “And it will drive your brother crazy.”

  “Too bad for him … I have had it with Twenty-sixth and California. Daugherty and Klein will take me on as an ‘of counsel.’ I’ll help out on cases I can analyze at home, maybe make an occasional court appearance, mostly talk settlement with opposing lawyers from home.”

  “And take care of the kids and write a book.”

  “No big deal.”

  “You want to steal my daughters from me.”

  “You’ve got it … but seriously, by the time mommy comes home in the evening they’ll be so fed up with daddy that they’ll love mommy even more.”

  He was right again. It was our solution, not one I’d recommend for anyone else, but then I don’t recommend anything for anyone else. It’s against my principles.

  He was also right when he agreed that we should spend a month in Mexico every summer. It would be a wonderful educational experience for them and for us. Learn a different language, be part of a different culture. Right?

  It was mostly my idea because I had powerful if hazy memories of West Germany when I was a little girl and Chucky had been Jack Kennedy’s ambassador there.

  It would mean limiting our trips to Grand Beach, so much of my life when I was growing up, to an occasional weekend. But Chucky and Rosie, much to my surprise, insisted it was a wonderful idea. I was still dubious. How would our pale white gringa daughters with the brilliant crimson hair fit in with kids their age in a professional-class neighborhood in Hermosillo? However, I didn’t realize even then that our kids were adventurers, a band of explorers. They loved the shy, sweet Mexican girls their own age who came over to our bungalow to welcome them. They delighted in new places and new people and traveled as a gang of three, leaving behind all the spats that kids, especially girl kids, have with one another. This experience would pay dividends in years to come.