Second Spring Read online

  She picked up her pliant little sister and sang the Connemara lullaby.

  She arranged a “redhead shoot” with Maria Rosa, Chuck, Moire Meg, and Siobhan.

  “What do you think, Daddy?” she said.

  He was holding our daughter like he’d never had a babe in his arms before. Moire Meg was cooing over her. Maria Rosa was not sure she liked this stuff.

  “I’m not going to second-guess you … Until the shoot is over!”

  “You never second-guess me! … Maria Rosa, can I see that beautiful smile?”

  “Smile at the baby, Rosa,” Maria Elena begged.

  The little girl looked, somewhat disdainfully I thought, at her tiny aunt and murmured something that might have been translated as “bybe.” She decided to smile.

  Two or three excellent shots caught the fire in this crowd of unruly Celts. Chuck praised them extravagantly. Moire Meg dominated the picture, perhaps because of the three women in it she was old enough to be a matriarch. She rolled her eyes at me.

  “Scene stealer,” I said.

  “Little brat.”

  “Gorgeous young woman!”

  “Mo-THER!”

  I recovered quickly and was able to be sleek and presentable for April Rosemary’s wedding, at which Father Ed did officiate, the family priest again. The poor child was so nervous. She clung to Jamie Nettleton’s arm as though she would collapse if he let go. At the reception we secured my new daughter with Missus in one of the side rooms, where I nursed her when she claimed to be hungry. God had blessed me not only with a healthy baby but also one who believed that the night was for sleeping.

  Her grandmother spent some of the party time with Siobhan Marie, beaming proudly.

  “It’s wrong of me to say it, Rose,” she said, “but I do believe that this is the prettiest of all your babies and of all my grandchildren.”

  “Don’t say that to Peg or Jane.”

  “I won’t, but they’ll know it’s true.”

  When the music and the dancing began and the Boston guests joined in with loud if off-key gusto, April Rosemary seemed to relax and joined the celebration. I watched her anxiously.

  “She’ll be all right, Rosemarie,” a woman said behind me.

  Maggie Ward, who else.

  “She deserved a happier life than this one,” I argued.

  “Would she have found a better husband?”

  I didn’t answer. I don’t like those crooked lines of God arguments because you can’t prove them either way.

  “You’ve seen the latest redhead?” I asked her.

  “Show her to me.”

  Sneaky little witch that she is, I was sure she had but wanted me to display my new pride and joy.

  I picked the infant out of her crib and placed her in Maggie’s arms. Unfaithful child that she was, she nestled into the arms of this strange woman and fell promptly to sleep. Tiny tears slipped down Maggie’s cheeks. Perhaps she was remembering her first daughter, who had mysteriously died before she knew Jerry Keenan.

  “She wants to go home with me,” Maggie said, handing my daughter back to me.

  “A pregnancy at my age,” I said, because I felt the need to apologize, “is not the sanest thing I’ve ever done. I guess we lucked out.”

  “You always luck out, Rosemarie,” she said as if she were a priest imparting a blessing.

  April Rosemary became more anxious as the time drew near for her to leave with Jamie. She covered it well enough, but a mother can tell, right?

  I found her in the room where she was supposed to be changing to the blue suit in which she would travel. She sat on the couch, head buried in her hands. She looked so pretty in her lingerie. Lucky Jamie.

  I embraced her. She collapsed in my arms.

  “This is not going to work, Mom. It really isn’t.”

  “I felt the same way twenty-five years ago, hon. It’ll be just fine. Jamie is a strong, sensitive, loving man, just like your father.”

  “That’s what Dad tells me.” She giggled. “He says I’m lucky!”

  “He’s right, as always … At least when he agrees with me.”

  We both laughed.

  “I’m not afraid of lovemaking with Jamie …”

  “You’re afraid of married life.”

  “Terribly … Will you help me out of this thing?”

  “I was too.”

  “Really? I don’t believe it! You’ve been a wonderful wife.”

  So quickly do they forget the traumas of childhood.

  “You will too!”

  We got her into her suit and fixed her makeup and sent her out to her happy husband.

  There’s not much you can say in such circumstances. I did what I could.

  She had a bright smile on her face when she and Jamie climbed into the car and waved happily, at me especially I thought. Mothers always think that.

  There was a little tear in my husband’s eye as he waved.

  Meanwhile, our priest friends were busy collecting their evidence.

  “How can they ignore all the stuff you’ve collected?” I asked John Raven, after we officially welcomed Siobhan into the Church, a ceremony through which she slept contentedly.

  “They’re pretty good over there at denial. Their main fallback position will be that the simple laity would be shocked if the Cardinal is replaced. In fact, I’ve learned that they tried a couple of times earlier to remove him.”

  “They DID?”

  “They offered him a couple of jobs in Rome, impressive in name but without much power. He slithered out of them. The Pope could have insisted but did not.”

  “That’s a bad sign. We may have to go over there after we’ve sent the dossier.”

  “How do they know what the simple laity think?”

  “It’s a projection of their own fears.”

  “And an excuse for keeping power.”

  “You got it, Rosie.”

  Our problems with this Church to which we were irredeemably committed despite the Cardinal’s faults were not over.

  Sean O’Malley, the youngest and most charming of my three Irish cavalrymen, came home from college with a most untypical frown on his dark Irish face. He had not chosen St. John’s, where he could have played basketball like his brothers, or Notre Dame, to which his grades and test scores entitled him. Instead he went to a small but highly praised Catholic liberal arts college in Illinois.

  He cornered us in my office, deep in gloom.

  “Dad, can you be gay without knowing it?”

  I gasped, silently I hope.

  “My friends who are gay say they’ve known it since they were kids.”

  “This priest out at school told me that I was gay and was afraid to admit it!”

  I kept my big matriarchal mouth shut. Chuck was doing just fine.

  “As far as I have observed, you find girls attractive?”

  “You bet! But he said I was in denial.”

  “Is he a psychologist?”

  “No, he teaches New Testament and works in pastoral ministry.”

  “Ah, and what led him to advance this pastoral diagnosis?”

  “He made a pass at me and I shoved him away.”

  “A pass?”

  “He tried to, uh, grope me.”

  “After the pass how did he react?”

  “He tried again.”

  “And you?”

  “Slugged him, uh.” He smiled wryly. “I knocked him down.”

  “You reported this to the school authorities?”

  “The president called me to his office before I could figure out what to do. He said I was excommunicated for hitting a priest and expelled me from the school.”

  “Without due process?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean there was no formal hearing.”

  Seano shrugged.

  “He said I had no rights because I had excommunicated myself.”

  “Indeed … Your mother will tell you that I was summarily executed in a simila
r way at Notre Dame back in the late Medieval Era.”

  “Oh, she’s told us that often. She sounded real proud of you.”

  “That’s the way your mother is … She likes troublemakers.”

  He laughed.

  “We all know that, Dad!”

  “Your exams are finished?”

  “Just finished.”

  “So you have all your course credits?”

  “Father Peter said that he was impounding my credits because I struck a priest and was now defaming him with false charges.”

  “Indeed … There have been no other incidents between this priest … What’s his name?”

  “Father Maximus … He makes passes at guys all the time. They fend him off usually. Some parents have pulled their sons out of the school. It’s gone on for a long time.”

  “Where was the site of this interaction?”

  “In the sacristy after Mass.”

  How many sacrileges was that? Three at least.

  “As I remember, Sean, you have maintained a 4.0 average out there.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “I would propose—and I’m sure your mother agrees—that we take legal action to recover your credits. Do you object?”

  “No way.”

  “No way we should do it?”

  “No way you should not do it.”

  “Moreover, if Uncle Vince agrees, we will also sue them for sexual abuse and force them to clean up their act.”

  “Get rid of Father Maximus?”

  Would Sean be reluctant to push matters that far?

  He pondered the question.

  “’Scuse my language, Mom. Get rid of the bastard.”

  While Vince and Chucky were conniving with the state’s attorney where the school was located, our team of dossier collectors went back to the Apostolic Delegation.

  “I thought I knew everything about our mutual friend,” Packy told me before they left. “I didn’t know the half of it, not even a third of it.”

  I fretted all afternoon as I waited to hear from both Washington and from Chuck and Vince. I was in no mood to work on a story and I couldn’t play with Siobhan Marie because the little brat wanted to sleep after she was fed.

  Father Ed called first.

  “They serve good food at that place,” he began. “The men that work there are entitled to it.”

  That was the old Ed, beginning with an irrelevancy.

  “And the Archbishop said?”

  “He looked through everything very carefully. Then put the dossier on the desk—it’s really a big pile of stuff—and shook his head in dismay. He said something like ‘I have seen madness before but this material is not only beyond my experience but beyond my expectation. We knew some of it, naturally, but it was only, as you Americans say, the tip of the iceberg.’”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Packy asked him what he would do with the dossier. He seemed surprised at the question. ‘Naturally I will send it on to the Congregation for the Making of Bishops.’ And Packy—you know how pushy he can be—asked whether he would make a recommendation. Again the Archbishop was surprised. He said something like, ‘But of course I will recommend that a coadjutor will be appointed at once.’”

  “That’s a relief.”

  My daughter woke up and whimpered, which meant she wanted a new diaper. Dainty little brat.

  “Maybe. He warned us that his recommendation might not be followed. He said we might be invited to Rome to consult with the Congregation.”

  “And you said?”

  “I said I’d be glad to go … He was very nice to me. Praised my courage, which I don’t deserve.”

  “You do too … Will the other priests go with you?”

  “Sure … Do you think Chucky will go with us? Give us last-minute advice before we go into the Congregation?”

  “It will be hard to keep him away.”

  “Hey, great,” he said, as though he were surprised. “Be sure you tell him when he comes home.”

  “Count on it.”

  My daughter’s whimpers were growing a little more insistent. I cleaned her and powdered her and wrapped her gently in a new diaper. She sighed happily. She was not yet ready to eat, so I put her back in her office cradle—one in the office and one in our bedroom. She went back to her peaceful sleep.

  “Bless you child,” I said, kissing her tiny forehead, “for having such a precise schedule. You inherited that from himself, I’m sure.”

  Several days later we took Siobhan Marie for her first ride in the country. I was driving my new Benz because I’m the best driver in the family. Peg sat next to me playing with my daughter. If she could have more children, she would certainly try to match me, as we had matched each other all our lives.

  We had relegated our husbands to the backseat where they belonged. Chuck was spoiling for a fight with Father Peter, Vince eagerly awaiting a legal battle.

  Like most of Chuck’s friends, Vince is a big guy—a former linebacker with broad shoulders and thick arms. Peg had kept him in good condition like I had kept Chuck in good condition. He was wearing a blue three-piece suit and a white shirt with a bright red tie. A matching red handkerchief peeked out of his jacket. His cuff links were the colors of the Italian flag. Vince knew how to look like a Sicilian thug when he wanted to, and especially when he wanted to hint at an Outfit connection to scare someone. Peg, slender as ever, wore a demure light gray summer suit. She complained that she would have to stay in the car and tend to Siobhan while we went in to confront Father Peter.

  We entered the outer office of the president of the college at eleven o’clock, the precise time of our appointment. They kept us waiting a half hour, standard clergy practice I had been warned.

  Finally, a shrewish secretary reluctantly admitted us into the inner sanctum with a sneer of disapproval.

  Nun, I thought.

  If the priest who made the pass at Sean was Father Maximus, the president ought to have been Father Minimus. He was shorter than Chuck and weighed maybe three times as much. His oversize bald head glowed in the summer sun coming through the window into the Victorian presidential office. His tiny black eyes, set in a soft fleshy face, were mean. Kind of guy who a few years ago might have worked for the Inquisition. A sleazy-looking fellow of approximately the same build lurked behind him.

  Neither of them introduced themselves. Nor did they ask us to sit down.

  “I am,” Vince announced from his six-foot-three height, “Vincente di Paolo Antonelli. I have the honor of representing Dr. and Mrs. Charles Cronin O’Malley and Master Sean Michael O’Malley.”

  I stifled a giggle. Vince’s middle name was Paul. Where did the di Paolo come from? Heck, maybe it was his real name.

  The shyster interrupted.

  “There’s no question of readmitting that young man to the college. He is excommunicated for striking a priest. The case is closed.”

  “Your name, Counselor.”

  “Frye, Andrew Frye.”

  “And you’re Father Peter, the president of the college?”

  “Yes,” he sneered in a high-pitched voice. “We do not want that kind of young man in this college. He is excommunicated.”

  “The issue is not whether he will return to college here. The issue is whether we destroy your college before the day is over.”

  “He is excommunicated,” Andrew Frye insisted. “If you knew any canon law, you would know he is excommunicated.”

  “We are not ignorant peasants, Father,” Vince said softly. “I consulted with two canon lawyers at the Chicago Archdiocese. They assure me that if a person is defending himself, especially against sexual attack, there is no canonical penalty. I’m sure you know that.”

  “The police have cleared Father Maximus,” the president jeered. “They wished to arrest the young man but we advised against it.”

  “Just as they have cleared him six times previously,” Vince said, consulting a list. “This time without even talking to th
e victim.”

  The state’s attorney had told Vince that there had been plenty of proof in the six previous cases to bring an indictment, but that he had hesitated because of the intense Catholicism of the people in the country. “We’d never get a conviction. Priests can’t do anything wrong out here.”

  “The psychiatrists have cleared him too!”

  “Again, Father Peter,” Vince continued to be the man from the Near West Side (where the Outfit used to be), “I would remind you and the counselor that we are not ignorant peasants. Professional psychiatrists never clear anyone. They merely estimate the risks. This college knew about Father Maximus’s propensities and nonetheless reassigned him to work with young men. You’re responsible for his behavior and I mean legally responsible.”

  He still hadn’t asked us to sit down. Chuck guided me to a broken-down couch and then sat patiently next to me.

  “Go ahead and sue us!” Andrew Frye shouted. “You’ll never win.”

  “That isn’t the immediate issue,” Vince replied calmly. “Unless you give us a copy of Master O’Malley’s academic record … Let me see, his average is 4.0, is it not?”

  “That makes no difference.” Father Peter tightened his jaw, which made him look even more ugly.

  “And he was captain of the basketball team?”

  “We do not want that kind of scum in our college.”

  I saw my husband’s fists clench.

  Keep your temper, Chuck! Please!

  “And played the clarinet in your jazz band? And acted as head of the volunteer program here?”

  “Those facts are all irrelevant!” Frye shouted again.

  “Legally, perhaps, but hardly in terms of media reaction … Let me continue. Unless we receive a copy of his transcript now, we will call upon the state’s attorney to ask that he issue a warrant for the arrest of Father Maximus. We will of course not hesitate to reveal our charges to the media. The local press may be reluctant to report the facts of the case. We will, however, make them known to the Chicago media. Your school will be dead.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” Father Peter yelled at us.

  “Try me.”

  “Father Maximus has a serious spiritual problem. We are convinced, however, that he has pulled himself together. We must protect him from young men with homosexual tendencies.”