Second Spring Read online

“Totally shitty weather,” she announced. “ … What’s wrong with Rosie, Chuck? You beating up on her again?”

  My husband and I dissolved into laughter.

  Father Ed came back for Christmas and our anniversary. Afterward he and our parents escaped from the blizzards to their house in Tucson. He seemed much better.

  The anniversary was fine, even though I was a nervous wreck, just like I had been on our wedding day. Msgr. Raven preached at the Mass. I was too spaced-out to hear most of what he said. A lot of it was about me, too much probably. When he finished, everyone in the church—and we had filled St. Ursula—rose and cheered. Chuck rose, lifted me to my feet, and waved. Then he sat down. They continued to cheer. The kids ran up and hugged me. John must have made me sound like the strong one in the marriage. That wasn’t true and it wasn’t fair. I tried to be graceful, however, and waved back.

  At Butterfield, Chuck began the ceremonies by saying, “You all know that the weather was about this bad when Rosemarie and I began our marital pilgrimage. I kind of remember that someone had said a few years before that it would be a cold day in hell when someone as classy as Rosemarie Helen Clancy would agree to go to bed with an insignificant little punk like me. He might well have added that it would be even colder when she stayed twenty-five years in the same bed. I was astonished then and I’m still astonished. I have reason to believe that if I continue to behave, I’ll continue on probation in this relationship.”

  My turn. I forgot what I had planned to say.

  “It’s a year-to-year thing, Chuck. You have improved a little bit since 1950, so I think I’ll keep you, on approval of course.”

  It wasn’t very funny, but it brought the house down.

  Then we began our usual duet of “Rosemarie.” After twenty-five years everyone knew the lyrics all too well. We sang most of the rest of the day.

  Then we drove down to the house on the lake where we had consummated our marriage twenty-five years before.

  “Well at least you’re sober this time,” I told him, as we entered the house.

  “Just as hungry,” he said.

  We played around a lot, then sailed the skies with love.

  I remembered to thank God before I fell asleep. And Christopher Kurtz, Chuck’s friend whose body still lies in the frozen ground near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. He had been, I always believed, the good angel in our marriage.

  As the bicentennial year began at the Biltmore in Phoenix, where it was warm and wonderful, I discovered that I was pregnant with what would become Siobhan Marie. Chucky and I wept with delight.

  It was of course crazy. However, for all my “elderly” status we wanted another kid around the house. The Irish are sometimes that way.

  It was the easiest of all my pregnancies and the easiest childbirth too.

  “When do we have another?” my husband asked.

  I threw the latest issue of the New Yorker at him.

  Before we returned to Chicago we visited Dad and the good April in Tucson and took them and Father Ed to supper at El Charro. Father Ed seemed better, a touch of the light was back in his eyes. Msgr. Packy had arranged with the personnel board to reassign him to St. Agedius.

  “I knew he’d be fine if he had a long vacation,” the good April whispered contentedly, as we walked out into the soft Tucson air, “he’d be just fine. Poor boy works too hard. He should relax more like Chuck does.”

  She knew better than that. She usually knows better than that. There are, however, in her oracles many layers of meaning.

  Chuck did not bring a camera with him to Arizona, the first time in our marriage he had traveled without one.

  “I finally beat the mistress,” I said, as we lolled by the side of the pool.

  “Mistress?”

  “The camera.”

  “Please put more sun cream on my back,” he asked as he rolled over.

  We were lying in the shade of a vast umbrella, a precaution that I insisted on because of Chuck’s Irish skin.

  “Why no camera?”

  “I divorced it.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s become boring.”

  I decided not to push, as I usually would have. Nonetheless I worried.

  We returned to Chicago, which was soaking wet from a late-January thaw. The melting snow sought out all the watercourses, natural and artificial, which drained our city on a swamp.

  We announced our good news and the welcome-home party turned into pandemonium. No one protested.

  “Just when I’ve outgrown dolls,” Moire Meg observed, “I’ll have a live one to play with.”

  As the celebration wound down, Jimmy, my second rider in Phil Sheridan’s cavalry, joined us in my office—now the conference room for the family—saxophone still in hand.

  “You guys got a minute?”

  It was something important, scary. I didn’t need a new crisis.

  “As many minutes as my favorite second son needs.”

  He sat down on the red leather couch and rested his sax next to himself.

  “I think I’ve made a career decision,” he said uneasily.

  “You’re not planning to get a job just because you’re graduating from college,” my husband said. “That’s against the rules, isn’t it?”

  “Not for a while yet … I want to be a priest.”

  God help us, that’s all we need.

  “A monk like those up in St. John’s?”

  “Nah. They’re good guys, but it’s too cold up there. Besides, I don’t want to break up the jazz group.”

  “That’s certainly an important consideration,” his father said, probably half meaning it.

  “What kind of priest?” I asked.

  “An ordinary priest,” he said, as though I had asked him a silly question. “Like Msgr. Raven or Msgr. Packy, you know.”

  “That shows a good taste in role models,” Chucky continued. “Msgr. Raven made me marry your mother, which was an excellent choice even though I didn’t have much to say about it.”

  “And like Father Ed?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure. I don’t think I could ever be as serious as he is. The good thing about the priesthood is that there is room in it for all kinds of people. As Joyce said, Catholic means Here Comes Everybody.”

  “You know what Uncle Ed is going through now?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah.” He picked up the sax and began to finger the keys. “The Cardinal is obviously a psychopathic paranoid, poor man. Jesus never said a perfect Church or a perfect priesthood. I’d never get mixed up with someone like him, though I admire Uncle Ed for trying.”

  “Don’t you want to marry?” I pushed the point.

  “That would be nice. Still, I want to be a priest. If they change the rules, I might marry. I don’t know. I think it will be a long time before they change the rules. The guys who are running things want to hang on to their power.”

  “And,” Chuck said, “if they let people like your mother anywhere near power, those guys would be dead.”

  “You better believe it.”

  He raised the sax to his lips, then put it aside.

  “I want to be able to help young people like Msgr. Raven helped you.”

  A spear to the heart. There was a new breed aborning.

  “You told your siblings already?” Chuck asked, while I was trying to control my tears.

  “Yeah sure, all of them, except the little guy, and I can’t tell him yet, though M.M. says it will be a she. They think it’s totally good, especially that we will keep the jazz group together.”

  I burst into tears of pride and hugged him.

  “I’m so proud of you, Jimmy.”

  “You might go easy on the bachelors in your parish,” his father warned him. “Poor guys never have a chance once the clergy and the monster regiment take over.”

  “As Mom always says, you’re misquoting poor John Knox. Still, I take your point.”

  “Did you think we’d disapprove?” I asked, wi
ping my eyes.

  That really surprised him.

  “Gosh, no! Why would you do that? … I better tell the guys.”

  He stood up, slung the sax over his shoulder, and left my office, playing “When the Saints Come Marching In!”

  In the recesses of the house, the band joined in.

  “We can’t escape from the damn Catholic Church,” Chucky complained. “It won’t leave us alone.”

  “What will Fr. Ed say?”

  “He’ll be happy like everyone else. His grandparents will be delighted.”

  “Chuck, Msgr. Raven didn’t make you marry me.”

  “Actually, he kind of did. He pointed out that you were the best deal I was likely to find. It helped that since I was ten or eleven I wanted to see you with your clothes off.”

  I blushed as I always did when he said something like that.

  “You’re being lewd!”

  “Just lascivious. That means wanton. Little boys, as much as they pretend not to be, are always wanton when they think of little girls.”

  “The little girls don’t know that.”

  “Yes they do,” he insisted. “In fact I wanted to see you with your clothes off and kiss you everywhere.”

  “And you finally did?”

  “Come to think of it, I did.”

  “And were you disappointed?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “You can sit here and talk dirty if you want, I’m going to join the celebration.”

  In April Chuck and I flew to Washington because some national Catholic group was honoring him. Chuck loves to be honored.

  To our surprise the Apostolic Delegate was there. To everyone else’s surprise too.

  “Ah, Dr. O’Malley,” he said to Chuck with a charming French accent, “your work is very interesting. I was particularly impressed with your portrait of the Cardinal of Chicago. He was good enough to send it to me.”

  “My brother-in-law was the Cardinal’s secretary at that time,” I said, with my nose tilted into the air.

  “But of course. Father Edward Michael O‘Malley … He is well now?”

  “He’s much better, Archbishop,” Chuck said tentatively. “He’s back in a parish near where we live.”

  “Oh, yes. St. Agedius parish. You of course go to St. Ursula because your father was the architect there. Perfectly understandable. I am told that he won a prize for it. He is well, I trust?”

  “Very well.”

  “And madam your mother?”

  “Indestructible.”

  “Excellent … I would like to meet your brother. However, protocol prevents me from inviting him. If you would be so good as to ask him to drop me a note requesting a meeting, I would then be delighted to invite him to lunch at the Delegation.”

  I showed him our family photo display.

  “And this young woman, how does she call herself?”

  “Moire Meg—Margaret Mary actually.”

  “She will soon have a little brother?”

  “She claims it will be a little sister.”

  “Excellent. God bless all of you … And you will relay my message to Father O’Malley?”

  “Yes,” Chuck replied. “We certainly will.”

  What a marvelously Irish way of doing things.

  “He came to meet us,” I said to Chuck later in our hotel room. “And just to send that message to Father Ed. What do you make of it?”

  “I think Rome is worried about your good friend on North State Parkway.”

  “And wants to collect documentation about him?”

  “That man knows a lot, Rosemarie. He wasn’t afraid to admit that he had checked us out carefully.”

  Two days later, I called Ed at St. Agedius.

  “Your brother and I want to talk to you and Msgr. Packy. This evening.”

  “Anything up?”

  “The Apostolic Delegate wants to see you.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to see him.”

  “Your call, Ed,” I said. “He seems to be on the side of the angels.”

  “I don’t know that I believe in angels anymore.”

  “You and Packy will be home?”

  “I guess so.”

  “We’ll see you at seven-thirty.”

  “He doesn’t seem much interested,” I reported to my husband, who was sitting in my office, pretending to peek at the draft of my new story on the monitor.

  “How can you trust a system that sends a madman to one of the most important dioceses in the world?”

  “Your friend at the Delegation seemed like one of the good guys.”

  “I know, Rosemarie, I know. We can’t blame Edward for being suspicious.”

  He was certainly suspicious that night.

  “Okay, I go see him and tell him all the craziness in Chicago. He takes it all down and sends it off to Rome. First thing they do is send it to Cardinal O’Neill. He puts his spies on me. Nothing happens. They absolutely will not replace him. That sort of thing isn’t done.”

  “Then, Edward,” my husband said, “that’s their problem. You’ve done your part.”

  “I’ve already done my part,” he said stubbornly. “I’m still a Catholic and still a priest”—faint grin—“because my sister-in-law won’t let me quit. Okay. I don’t want to have to deal with the Vatican or the Delegate or anyone else who sent that bastard to us.”

  “They’re probably assembling a dossier,” Msgr. Packy said. “That’s what they do when complaints exceed a certain level. Sometimes they do replace cardinals when the complaints are about financial matters. They dumped Cardinal Lecaro of Bologna recently on those grounds.”

  “He was a good guy,” Father Ed said. “They never go after the bad guys.”

  “He was framed, Ed,” Msgr. Packy said. “Later they admitted they were wrong and apologized.”

  “A lot of good that did.”

  “I tell you what, Packy,”—my good husband put on his Chicago politician look—“you write a letter to the Delegate and tell him that you and Father O’Malley would like to have an appointment with him. Like Rosemarie said, he knows who you are. Then the two of you could fly down there. I might come along to wait in the hotel.”

  “Bring John Raven too,” I added.

  “That all right with you, Ed?” his pastor asked.

  “Sure,” Ed said easily. “With a monsignor around, I won’t lose my temper.”

  “I’ll write a neutral kind of letter. I won’t mention you guys. Just say we’d like to meet with him. Then the ball is in his court. Okay?”

  “Fine,” Ed agreed, though without much enthusiasm.

  “I’ll come too,” I said.

  “Depends on the baby,” Chuck reminded me.

  “Siobhan Marie won’t mind one plane ride. She’s really a very nice little girl.”

  Moire Meg had won me over to her expectation.

  When the lunch at the Delegation was finally arranged, I was only two weeks from my due date. Chuck ordered me to stay home. For just that once I let him have his way.

  “Maybe I should stay home,” he said dubiously.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You missed a couple of births before. April Rosemary and Moire Meg will be here and Peg is just down the street.”

  Rosemarie, I told myself, you’re an idiot.

  In truth I was scared, more than I had been at any time except for the first time. I realized what an enormous chance I had taken. The child seemed healthy enough, active, but not a nuisance. Everything seemed fine.

  Chuck called me from the hotel in late afternoon.

  “It apparently went well,” he reported. “The Delegate was cordial and sympathetic, not defensive at all. They made the three points about Cardinal O’Neill we had agreed on, misuse of funds, bizarre behavior, and odium populi, which I gather means hatred among the people.”

  “Not that we matter.”

  “He’s interested in a dossier from a number of priests, not many and not a representative body. Prudent an
d respected priests. He wants us to keep it secret. He’ll pass it on to Rome with his recommendations. He made no promises, except to say that he knew that the appropriate people were very interested in the situation in Chicago. Packy says they’ve set up a kind of a commission in Rome to review the situation. There’s no guarantee.”

  “Father Ed?”

  “The Delegate was very gracious to him, praised him for his courage and integrity … How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “No problems.”

  “None.”

  “Sure?”

  “Chucky! I’ve been through this five times. I know what it’s all about.”

  I didn’t mention the minor twitches of pain that usually indicated that the full labor process was maybe a week away.

  “I’ll fly home on the nine o’clock plane.”

  “That’s not necessary, Chucky.”

  “Hell it’s not.”

  He arrived home just as I was dressing to go over to Oak Park Hospital.

  “In the nick of time,” Moire Meg said.

  “You won’t be a couple of weeks late as you were when I was born,” April Rosemary added.

  “You have a long memory, young woman.”

  “I’m scared,” I told them all. “What if …”

  “She’ll be fine,” Chuck said confidently.

  Somehow I knew he was right. I was still scared.

  Siobhan Marie arrived two hours later, a tiny womanly Chucky with the bright red hair and the funny little face and the sweetest smile, though her big sister April Rosemary insisted that neonates that age haven’t figured out how to smile yet.

  “She’s totally gorgeous, Rosie,” my no longer youngest daughter informed me. “Are we ready for another redhead?”

  “We already have three!”

  “Three?” Chucky protested. “I can only count this one and Maria Rosa.”

  “What about yourself?”

  “I’m not a baby!”

  All three of us laughed at the new papa.

  April Rosemary, practicing her new vocation as a child photographer, hovered round us constantly. She snapped away with her father’s reckless disregard for the cost of film—the only extravagance in which my husband ever indulged.

  I caught her crying once as she reloaded the camera after we had returned home.

  “Something wrong, hon?”

  “I wish I were Siobhan Marie and was just starting my life … I know that’s silly, Mom. I’m just being silly.”