Dead Wrong

by William Kienzle

  “In the end, she rescued Mary Lou from the orphanage and—to keep her company—Brenda, who was not only born in the same hospital in the same month but was also not taken by her natural mother.

  “So,” Eileen continued, “it worked out as well as could be expected, I guess. But, I can tell you, it was the most traumatic time we ever had. For Maureen more than us, of course. Actually, she never recovered from it … she’s never really been the same. Haven’t you ever sensed that?”

  “Sure, of course I have,” Koesler said. “But I thought it was because she—I thought—had adopted two orphan girls. I had no idea … I would never have guessed.”

  “And now,” Oona said, “you know why Maureen doesn’t go to Communion any more.”

  Koesler needed only a few seconds to evaluate that.

  “No. No,” he repeated. “It doesn’t speak to that question at all. Once upon a time, some thirty years ago, Mo was involved with some guy. They may have been engaged for all we know. They may have been living in sin. Maybe not, for all we know.”

  “Maybe not!” Oona exclaimed. “My God, she had a baby. Haven’t you been listening? She had an illegitimate child!”

  “Calm down, Oona. The point is we can’t judge anybody else. We can say that something is a sinful action. But we can’t say that somebody committed a sin. We don’t know what sort of pressures others are subjected to.

  “But, okay. Okay, Oona, the fact that she stopped going to Communion sort of tells us that she felt she was unworthy. I guess it means that she may have felt guilty of serious sin.”

  “I don’t think anybody needs a theological degree to know that!” Oona said.

  “Okay, Oona. But I take it her boyfriend departed the scene about the time she discovered she was pregnant. Otherwise he would have helped her, and you wouldn’t have had to.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s right,” Eileen agreed. “As soon as she told him— and she told him just as soon as she herself knew, in June of 1960—he dropped her quick as a flash. He forgot all his promises pretty quick.”

  “We told her so,” Oona said.

  “I’ll bet you did,” Koesler said. “So, she was free of him at least since June of 1960. She never took up with him again, did she?”

  “No. Not to our knowledge,” Eileen amended.

  “And we would know,” Oona added.

  “So, all she would have had to do would be to go to confession. By the time she had her baby, she was no longer living in sin. Not by anybody’s measuring stick.”

  He was reminded once more of sterilization as opposed to any method of artificial birth control. One operation solves all those individual “sinful” actions. In some similar way, having Mary Lou solved Maureen’s problem of “living in sin.”

  Had the baby not happened, Maureen might have gone right on with the “sinful” life she acknowledged by abstaining from Holy Communion.

  It seemed a strange way of assessing sin and virtue.

  “Confession,” Koesler continued, “has been easily available to Maureen for a little better than thirty years. Don’t you think by this time she would have availed herself of it?”

  “We don’t know anything about that, dear,” Eileen said. “We just thought that she continued to feel unworthy. I mean, I’m sure the poor dear has been more hard on herself than she need be. But, you see, it wasn’t just having the affair or even having the illegitimate child. It also was the years she let her own daughter grow up in foster homes and, of course, the orphanage. I think she still feels guilty about that.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t,” Koesler said. “The past is over. No matter what we have done, when we’re truly sorry for it, the grace of God saves us.”

  “That’s what we hoped you’d say,” Eileen said. “This just seemed the perfect time to bring you into our secret. Mary Lou’s outburst at Oona’s birthday party just sort of brought things to a head. I’m glad you know.”

  “So,” Oona said, “what are you going to do about it?”

  Koesler rubbed his chin. “That’s a good question. My heart aches for Mo. She’s been through so much … so much more than I ever guessed. It still boggles my mind that you could keep this so completely a secret for so many years.”

  “You aren’t the only one who can keep a secret, you know,” Oona said.

  “The girls—Mary Lou and Brenda—do they know?”

  “Oh, yes,” Eileen said. “Maureen told us she told them both when she took the min.”

  “What a burden to lay on them,” Koesler said. “But … the past is done. It’s time to try to pick up the pieces. And, speaking of pieces, do either of you happen to know who Maureen’s beau was?”

  “Oh, yes,” Oona said. “Mr. High Muckety-Muck. Mr. God’s-Gift-to-Women … in his day, that is.”

  “Well, then,” Koesler said, “who was it?”

  “Nash,” Eileen said. “Charles Nash.”

  C H A P T E R

  13

  SON OF A GUN! That bastard! Charlie Nash was Mary Lou Monahan’s father!

  For a split second, Father Koesler felt as if he were the only person in the world who hadn’t known that. If Eileen or Oona said anything in the following few moments, Koesler didn’t hear it. He was completely lost in his turbulent thoughts.

  Charlie Nash, seemingly nearing the end of his life, calls Father Koesler to a dramatic meeting. Nash knows full well the significant relationships in this affair—Koesler is blood relative to Maureen, Eileen, and Oona Monahan. He and the sisters are first cousins. And, although these four are not popularly believed to be related to the two girls, either in consanguinity or affinity, they might just as well be. Mary Lou and Brenda were taken in by Maureen. From that moment on, they were treated as Maureen’s children and thus as cousins by Koesler, Eileen, and Oona.

  Did Nash know? Did he know that he was Mary Lou’s father?

  Koesler broke through his turmoil of thoughts. “Did Nash know that he was Mary Lou’s father?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” Oona assured. “Maureen told him what had happened as soon as she had her pregnancy confirmed by the doctor —in June of 1960.”

  “And?”

  “And,” Oona continued, “what would you expect? First he insults Maureen by claiming that somebody else must be the child’s father. Then, after he humiliates her, he leaves her—deserts her. For a time, she kept trying to call him. But he was never ‘in.’ Nor would he return her calls. The bastard!”

  “Oona!” Eileen put a hand to her mouth.

  “Well, that’s what he did. And that’s what he is. That’s how he treated the mother of his child.”

  “He never owned up to it? No child support? No aid of any kind to Mo?”

  “None.” Oona shook her head. “After a while all of us just gave up and tried to do as well as we could together.”

  “It wasn’t easy,” Eileen added by way of understatement.

  Koesler again retreated into his private thoughts.

  All these years. Thirty-three years! And no one had done anything about it.

  What a coincidence that Eileen and Oona should choose to let him in on the secret just after Nash had exhorted him to talk to Brenda. Pressure situations like this had a habit of coming to a boil willy-nilly. As had this purulent mess.

  Nash had told Koesler that the affair between his son and Brenda was a threat to Nash Enterprises. The scenario Nash painted had the relationship of Ted and Brenda revealed. The fear was that if it became public knowledge that Teddy was an adulterer, his facade as a Catholic above reproach would collapse. And when Teddy disintegrated, Nash Enterprises would not be far behind.

  So much for the charge made to Koesler by Charlie Nash. But was Nash Enterprises Charlie’s real concern? Maybe. However, in the face of the secret just revealed, Koesler doubted it. Undoubtedly there was fear that Ted could not bear up under the infamy that would come in the wake of exposure. But there had to be more to it than that.

  Ted was playing with dynamite.<
br />
  In the wings, just offstage, was Maureen—once Charlie’s paramour—and Mary Lou, the young woman who was their daughter. What, if anything, might prompt them to come onstage?

  Ted was playing with dynamite, all right. But the detonator was Charlie’s creation.

  Koesler was amazed when he considered the length of time Charlie Nash had been living with this bomb ticking away. Thirty-three years. And at any given moment during all these years Maureen and Mary Lou could have come out of the closet and revealed the truth.

  Now that, indeed, might have crippled Nash Enterprises.

  Koesler’s guess, right off the top, was that neither Maureen nor Mary Lou had any intention of going public with what would be one of the juicier scandals to titillate high society. How those talk shows would slaver over the story! Geraldo might be willing to give his mustache for a first-time telecast, if not an exclusive.

  Upon a little deeper reflection, Koesler plumbed his reasons for supposing Mo and Mary Lou would keep their secret. For one, Maureen had an intimate role in this melodrama. Should it become public, Maureen would perforce share the spotlight with Charlie. And so, of course, would Mary Lou. Koesler could easily understand why they would be most reluctant to expose their private lives to general scrutiny, to the morbid curiosity of the masses. The axiom that no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public was well taken.

  Also, he could find no reason why they might choose a revelation now—with an emphasis on the now.

  No, the time when Mo had really needed Charlie Nash’s help was when Mary Lou was growing up. Maureen, with what little financial help she could get from her sisters, had borne the total burden of raising her child—two children actually—from at least the preteen years into adulthood.

  In fact, the strapped financial condition in which this family consistently found itself was probably the reason Mo had been unable to support her daughter right from the first—from birth on. Now that he thought of it, it must have been an anguish akin to despair for Maureen to be forced to watch her child drift from one foster home to another and wind up in an orphanage.

  Koesler remembered wondering how Maureen could afford to take both Mary Lou and Brenda from St. Vincent’s. It had required great sacrifice on her part. What it had actually been was a mother’s refusal to be permanently parted from her daughter.

  But the statute of limitations on child support must have elapsed many long years ago. If Maureen and Mary Lou had not risked revealing their secret when a favorable judgment could have been a financial godsend, why would they rattle that skeleton now?

  Another question bothered Koesler. “A little while ago, you said both Mary Lou and Brenda knew that Maureen was Mary Lou’s real mother. Do they know who the father is?”

  The sisters looked at each other, communicating wordlessly.

  “We don’t really know that,” Eileen said finally. “There are things Maureen won’t talk about—even with us. She can be pretty close-mouthed when she wants to be.”

  “When she wants to be!” Koesler exclaimed. “This whole crazy family is a collection of champion secret keepers!

  “And,” he added, “I suppose we don’t know whether Ted Nash knows—what he knows—how much or how little he knows?”

  The sisters looked at each other again.

  “We have no idea,” Eileen said. “I guess that would depend on what, if anything, his father may have told him.”

  Apparently there was no way, at least at that moment, of ascertaining how much or how little or even if Teddy Nash knew. Based on his meeting with Ted and with his priest, Koesler’s opinion was that neither Ted nor Father Deutsch knew anything.

  Imagine, Koesler mused, having an affair with the—what?—pseudo-sister of one’s half sister. And not knowing what was going on!

  It put him in mind of the Watergate hearings leading toward a possible impeachment of Richard Nixon. He heard in his memory the soft, gravelly, southern voice of Howard Baker asking over and over, “What did the president know and when did he know it?”

  Who knew what, when, and from whom about this mess that had been dumped on him this afternoon suddenly and with no warning?

  The only one who could be expected to know the entire story was Maureen. And even she might not know how comprehensive Ted’s information might be. Was Charlie aware that Brenda and Mary Lou knew? Did the girls know who Mary Lou’s real father was? Even the sisters didn’t know the answer to that!

  The burning question was: What was going to happen next?

  “Well,” Koesler said, “let’s get back to the beginning. If I remember correctly,” he turned to Oona, “you were the one responsible for this meeting.”

  “It was simple enough,” Oona said, “I wanted you to talk to Maureen about confession and Communion. Far as I’m concerned, it’s long past time. I wanted you to do it ages ago. But …” The explanation trailed off, and Oona looked pointedly at Eileen.

  “All right,” Eileen said, “I agreed with Oona in everything except that I didn’t want to get you involved. Any number of priests could’ve done the job. But when it came to picking one, we never could agree on which one to ask. And we were afraid that the wrong one might only drive Maureen further away from the Church.”

  “Okay …” Koesler thought for a moment. “We’d better start putting this thing together piece by piece. It’s a pretty tangled mess trying to figure out who knows what, who has to be kept in the dark, and who ought to know more. And I agree the place to start is with Maureen. But that’s easier said than done.”

  “What’s hard!” Oona exclaimed. “You said it yourself: All she has to do is to go to confession. She committed her sin so long ago. God knows she’s suffered enough for it. God knows, all of us have! Far as I know, she hasn’t been excommunicated for having an illegitimate child. What does she need besides confession?”

  Koesler smiled. “No, there isn’t any extra penalty like excommunication for that. There never has been. But there’s more to this than we can know, I think.”

  “What!” Oona sounded exasperated.

  “In thirty years?” Koesler said. “In thirty years! Count the weeks that have passed in that time. Think of the opportunities she’s had to go to confession. She still goes to Mass, doesn’t she? She goes regularly, doesn’t she? In that, she’s given as good an example as she could to the girls … right?”

  Both sisters nodded.

  “Well, then,” he continued, “look at all the chances she’s had to confess. Look at all the opportunities she’s had. Most Catholic churches offer confession before specific Sunday Masses. Since the Vatican Council, most parishes offer communal penance services. With the communal service, Mo could’ve just melted into the crowd.

  “All in all, she’s had more opportunity than many might have. Still, there’s no indication she’s been to confession. If she had, she certainly would be going to Communion.”

  “So?” Oona wanted to know.

  “So,” Koesler rejoined, “it’s like taking the proverbial horse to water but not being able to make him drink. Just because we think this would be a real easy step for Mo to take doesn’t mean that Mo sees it that way.”

  “So,” Oona said again, “you’re the priest. What are we going to do?”

  Koesler thought for a minute. “I think,” he said finally, “what was said before still holds true. That being so, if I were to bring the matter up, I would alarm her. I can’t think of any way I could approach her and not drive her off. Over the years she must have built up defenses. And if I were to contact her, all those defenses would be activated on the spot.”

  “So,”—Oona wanted action—”what are we going to do?”

  “I think Eileen should get in touch with Mo,” Koesler said. “Tell her, in the most tactful way possible, that we’ve had this talk. That I know everything you know, and that I want to help. Tell her all she has to do is get in touch with me and we’ll talk it over.

  “I
t doesn’t necessarily mean she’s supposed to make her confession to me. If that prospect bothers her at all, I can and will set something up with another priest. And I can guarantee that this priest will be kind, patient, and nonjudgmental. All she has to do to get this healing started is to call me. It’s as simple as that. Try to make sure you get across how simple the procedure will be.

  “And, oh …” Koesler added, “maybe it would be good to tell her that I’ve seen Charles Nash. He’s a party to all this too, and I’d be surprised if he has much longer to live.”

  “You saw Charlie Nash!” Oona said. “You didn’t say anything about that! When did you see that bastard?”

  “Oona!” Eileen remained shocked at that perfectly legitimate Anglo-Saxon word.

  In Koesler’s judgment, there was no problem in sharing with his cousins the gist of his conversation with Charles Nash. Not only were the contents of that conversation clearly germane to what Koesler and the sisters were discussing, but there had been no evident intent on Nash’s part to protect what was said as falling under the category of either sacramental or professional secrecy.

  Koesler filled Eileen and Oona in on his meeting with Nash.

  When he finished, Oona said, “I don’t believe a word of it! He’s not worried about the affair between Brenda and his son becoming public. He’s scared over Maureen and Mary Lou. The rotter was the seducer of one and the father of the other. My guess is that the longer he waits for the second shoe to drop the more scared he gets.”

  “I agree just about completely,” Koesler said. “Although at the time he told me all this, I believed him—even if I couldn’t quite comprehend why he had to worry that much about Brenda and Ted’s relationship being pulled out of the closet. But after what you’ve just told me, I tend to agree with you, Oona. Thirty years is an awful long time to live under the sword of a most unpleasant revelation that you think is inevitable.

  “But for now, there’s no use getting into that with Mo. What we want to do is convince her that confession is just what the doctor ordered. In this case, Doctor Jesus. So, you make the call, Eileen, and I’ll take it from there. And, for now, I have just one favor to ask, Eileen.”