Thy Brother's Wife

by Andrew M. Greeley

  The rectory kitchen was a mess. Dirty dishes were piled up in the sink, and the cupboards and shelves were littered with empty cans and containers. “Georgetown or Hyannisport it is not,” said Sean, with a pale reflection of his once-magic smile.

  “You do the cooking, the housekeeping, and the janitoring, as well as the priesting?” Nora asked incredulously. “Here, give me that. I’ll make the coffee—and I’ll wash the coffee cups before we use them. I’m not going to bring some infectious Douglas Boulevard disease back to my kids.”

  A bit more light now appeared in Sean’s eyes. “Same old Nora. Move in and take charge. Yes, I do everything around here; that is, everything except teach at the school. The pastor comes for Mass on Sunday morning and then goes back to his mother’s house. Otherwise, it’s all mine.”

  “You can’t afford any help?” She searched for detergent to wash the dishes.

  “Every penny we have goes for heat and electricity, and food for the nuns, and salaries for the lay teachers. The chancery office”—he frowned—“is not going to provide any subsidy to a parish in which the assistant is a wealthy man. That is precisely what the late Cardinal told me. So we make do.”

  “Why keep the parish open then?” Nora asked, cleaning the coffee cups.

  “Because we educate four hundred kids a year and give them a lot better education than the public schools. Because we salvage a couple of dozen juvenile delinquents every year. Because there are a few hundred Catholics, most of them converts, who come to Mass here every Sunday. And because somebody has to visit the people of the neighborhood when they’re in the hospital or in jail.”

  Nora took a deep breath. “You became a priest, Sean, to do these things?”

  He slumped at the chipped porcelain-top kitchen counter with a weariness that tore at her heart. “I can’t imagine anything I could do that would be more priestly. Come on, after we’ve had the coffee, I’ll take you through our school.”

  The school was as decrepit as the rectory and the church. The corridors and the classrooms desperately needed a coat of paint. The windows were filthy. But inside the classrooms it was no different from the St. Titus grammar school that Nora Riley had attended fifteen years before. The faces of the students might be black, but the order, the discipline, the demanding presence of “S’ter,” and the vigorous pursuit of learning were all the same. The children stood respectfully when Sean entered the classroom, with the traditional “Good Morn-ing, Father” slow singsong. He introduced her as Nora, and they replied, “Good morn-ing, No-ra.”

  “Good morning, boys and girls,” said Nora, remembering the greeting.

  In the corridor after the tour of the classrooms, Sean leaned against the wall. “We have four hundred and twenty-nine kids in this school, Nora,” he said proudly. “All of them will go to high school, and two thirds of them will go to college, and I don’t think the Catholic Church has ever done a better thing.”

  “At the cost of your life?” she said hotly.

  “It’s a good cause to die in, Nora,” Sean said, his body sagging against the wall.

  * * *

  Nora had decided to plead with Uncle Mike to salvage St. Jadwiga and Sean. Mike greeted her at the door of his new office with an embrace.

  “You’re looking as beautiful as ever, Nora,” he said.

  Nora thought Uncle Mike looked older, weaker. There was a tremor in his hand and already, at one thirty in the afternoon, there was the smell of whiskey on his breath.

  “What brings you to Chicago?” he asked. Outside his window the Chicago skyline, a veritable museum of architectural splendor, was set sharply against the gray November sky. To the south were the railroad tracks, the drive, and a midget airfield on the island off the lake shore. No views like that in Washington.

  “We had a phone call from Maggie Shields,” Nora said. “Tom is worried about Sean. Paul is busy seeing that justice survives in the nation, so he sent me here to find out whether Maggie is exaggerating. She’s not. Sean is sick and tired and worn out, and he must have help.”

  “If he wants money, he can ask me,” Mike said. “I’ll give him whatever he needs to take care of that slum of his.”

  “You know he’ll never ask, Uncle Mike. He’s as stubborn as you are. And while the two of you are busy being stubborn, Sean’s ruining his health and probably his life.”

  “He’s wasting his time out there, the damned fool,” Mike said.

  “No, he’s not,” Nora flared at him. “He’s doing wonderful work, but he’s doing it all by himself and he’s done it for too long. You give money to dozens of charities. Why can’t you give some to your own son?”

  “I won’t give him a goddamn cent. He’s old enough to take care of himself and that’s final, young woman. I won’t hear another word about it.”

  Nora’s temper snapped. “You’re a hateful old man.” She picked up her coat, yanked open the door of the apartment, slammed it in his face as he hurried after her, and ducked into a waiting elevator just as the door opened. She wept as she rode down, as much for the look of pain on Michael Cronin’s face as for the plight of Father Sean Cronin.

  * * *

  Paul Cronin considered the “tools” he had obtained from a contact at the CIA: a tiny camera, keys, a small flashlight, gloves, tape to secure the door, a device for searching out alarm systems. He had visited George Sandler the day before. The lobbyist was a sleek little man with ferretlike eyes and nervous hands who had glanced anxiously at a file cabinet behind his desk when Paul warned that they might subpoena his records.

  “You don’t have enough evidence to warrant that, Mr. Cronin,” Sandler said cautiously.

  Paul didn’t want to frighten him into destroying the files before he had a chance to steal them. “You’re right, I guess—so far. We’re going to get the whole lot of you, though. There’s no reason for you to go to jail. We’d provide you with a new life and protection.”

  “For how long?” the other man asked bitterly. “I don’t trust Bob Kennedy any more than I trust Carmine da Silva.”

  “You should have thought of that,” Paul had replied, “before you got mixed up with his union.”

  Paul left after that exchange, confident that he could find his way around the office at night. Sandler thought he was safe. He would be surprised to find that, in the Kennedy administration, you fought fire with fire.

  * * *

  Access to the building was easy. The guard at the door was sound asleep. Paul didn’t have to pretend that he was a telephone repairman. He could let himself out the back door into the alley behind K Street when he was finished. He didn’t need the dark glasses and the cap which were part of his repairman’s disguise. He’d be careful just the same. No point in being recognized.

  The keys were not much help in opening the office door, especially since in the dim corridor light he couldn’t see distinctly. You would think the CIA would have better technology.

  Then he saw the light above the elevator door go on. My God, someone coming up.

  For the first time he thought of the consequences if he was caught. Terror gripped at his stomach. He wanted to run. The elevator light was like the flares above the Reservoir.

  At the last minute he saw a door that looked as if it might be a restroom. He ran down the corridor and pushed the door open. The door swung shut after him. Paul leaned against it, breathing heavily. He was so frightened that he broke out in a heavy sweat. What would happen if they found him? He gulped for air.

  After the panic came dizziness and, after the dizziness, nausea. Paul stumbled around the men’s room, found a urinal, and vomited into it. After he had emptied his dinner he felt better. He had to pull himself together and make his escape. Down the back stairs. Why the hell had he tried such a stupid trick anyway? Dumb recklessness.

  When he was sure he could walk steadily, he eased open the door. No sign of anyone, no sound.

  He slipped into the corridor, hesitated, and then, unexpectedly, tu
rned not toward the exit but back down the corridor to Sandler’s office.

  From then on, it was astonishingly easy. The first key he tried opened the door. He had no trouble finding the file case; the second key fit that lock. Then with the thin, powerful beam of the penlight splitting the darkness, he rapidly thumbed through the contents of the cabinet until he found the incriminating financial records. O’Hara had been sure they would be there.

  His heart pounding and his head light with excitement, Paul rapidly shot two rolls of film—thirty-two pictures in all. Enough to put several corrupt union leaders behind bars for a long time to come.

  In the alley afterward, Paul was triumphant. He had mastered his fear. He deserved a reward. Tomorrow night he would have it. No more fooling around with Chris Waverly. Even if he had to rape her.

  * * *

  Nora was shopping in Marshall Field’s, buying sheets, blankets, dishes, and even clothing for Sean. Paul would have to come to Chicago to see the new Archbishop. Sean should either be transferred from St. Jadwiga’s or the diocese must help him out financially. Paul was persuasive enough to be able to talk to the Archbishop, who was reportedly a decent and kindly man, into forgetting the past.

  She saw a familiar face on the escalator. “Jenny,” she exclaimed. “Jenny Warren!”

  Michael Cronin’s former companion was as pretty as she had been at Nora’s wedding, if perhaps a little more subdued.

  Jenny hesitated, as though she did not want to recognize Nora, but then, presumably against her better judgment, she waited at the bottom of the escalator. “Jenny Marsh now, Nora. It’s good to see you.”

  “Let’s have lunch and talk about old times.”

  Again Jenny hesitated. “I ought not to.… Will you swear that you won’t tell your Uncle Mike?”

  “Sure,” said Nora.

  Over lunch they exchanged histories of the past six years. Jenny had married the first cellist with the New York Philharmonic. Her husband was in Chicago for a concert. They were very happy. Both his children and both her children were married, and they lived a pleasant, peaceful life, organized around his music.

  “I really hoped back in 1956 that you’d be my stepmother,” said Nora, after an awkward lull in the conversation.

  Jenny’s pretty face became sad. She sipped her tea. “I thought I would be. Mike … he didn’t exactly promise, but he certainly led me to believe … of course. I should have known. He was so kind and so tender and so gentle to begin with, and such a marvelous lover. Well, I deceived myself about some things and pretended other things that weren’t so. And then he changed. At first I didn’t even notice it—maybe because I didn’t want to notice it.”

  “What was it like?” Nora asked gently.

  “He became cool and distant. Then one morning I was told by my landlord that the lease on my apartment had been canceled. I was literally out on the street.”

  “He dumped you without a word?”

  Jenny nodded her head. “Yes. I went to stay at my sister’s in New Jersey. Two weeks later a messenger delivered an envelope with fifty thousand-dollar bills.” Jenny began to cry. “As though that could blot out the pain!”

  For the first time in her life, Nora realized that she didn’t really know Michael Cronin. She wondered if anyone did.

  * * *

  Clad in jeans and a black sweat shirt, Nora was standing on a rickety stepladder, painting the walls of Sean’s study. Before she went back to Washington, she would fix up his room and the kitchen, stock the refrigerator and the shelves with food, and feed him a couple of solid meals.

  Outside, two lanky Negro teenagers were playing basketball in the chill November sunlight. Nora wondered why they weren’t in school. Were they delinquents of the sort that Sean seemed to attract to the rectory?

  She took a few minutes off from her painting and went to the head of the stairway leading down into the basement. Standing there, she could hear Sean instructing potential converts in the basement classroom.

  “It’s hard to believe that God loves you when you’re poor and hungry, when there isn’t enough heat in your apartment, and when you’re not sure whether you’ll have a job next week. You wonder how God lets things like that happen, when other people seem to be doing okay. You wonder if there even is a God. I can’t prove to you the existence of God. Nobody can prove that. All I can say is that whenever you experience love, you experience God. And God is as present on Douglas Boulevard as he is everywhere else in the world. He loves us, and some day he’s going to make everything right and we’re all going to be happy with him. In the meantime, you have to get ready for God by trying to love one another with all the power you have so that there may be more of God’s love in the world.”

  Nora fled back to her brush and her bucket of paint, tears streaming down her face. Who were she and Paul to decide that Sean shouldn’t be doing what he was doing, shouldn’t be talking to those poor people with so much love and affection and dedication in his voice?

  Still, as she painted the wall, she told herself that she and Paul loved Sean and that God could not possibly want them to stand by idly while he worked himself to death.

  “Why are you doing that?” Sean said, leaning against the doorway of his study. “I mean, we could probably hire somebody to do it.”

  She threw the wet paintbrush at him. “Because I love you, you damn fool. Do you think you’re the only one in the family that can make sacrifices for other human beings?”

  He showed the first bright Sean Cronin smile she had seen since she had come to St. Jadwiga’s as he picked up the brush, walked over to the ladder, and very gently put it back into the bucket. His face averted so that she couldn’t see it, he said, “Some of us are just born lucky, I guess. I’m lucky that I have you for a sister.”

  Later that afternoon she called Paul at his office. “Just a brief progress report. It’s worse than Maggie thought. I’m cleaning up the place where he lives and giving him a few good meals, but we’ve got to get him out of here. Mike won’t help.”

  “Damn!” Paul said.

  “I’ll stay in touch, but I think you’d better practice for an interview with the new Archbishop.”

  “Okay … I’ve got to run now. Oh, by the way, the kids are fine, but we all miss you.”

  “Do you really?” Nora asked the dead telephone.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  1962

  Sean Cronin looked at his face carefully in the mirror as he combed his long blond hair. He needed a haircut. He needed a new suit. He needed a rest, a long rest. No wonder Nora looked so anxious. I scare even myself. One vacation in six years.

  Two years before, Jimmy McGuire had dragged him off to Vail, insisting that Sean had an obligation to learn how to ski. The instructor assigned to him, Sandra Walker, was a woman in her mid-twenties with long honey-blond hair and a superb body. She was spontaneous, direct, and bubbling with laughter. She even was able to make fun of Sean’s initial awkwardness on skis without hurting his feelings. He did not tell her that he was a priest, and he watched with fear and pleasure the affection that grew in her lively gray eyes.

  Then, one day, a substitute instructor replaced her. Sean was disappointed but asked no questions. The next day Sandra was back, subdued and snappish. Again he asked no questions and, after his lesson, trudged halfway down the slope toward his ski lodge. Then he paused and walked back to the instructor’s office.

  Sandra was hunched over her desk, sobbing. As naturally as though she were his daughter, he put his arms around her and drew her head to his chest. The whole story poured out. High school sweethearts who rediscovered each other in San Francisco six months before. He a Navy pilot. At first, letters every week, then every day, neither of them quite ready to say the word marriage. Then news of a crash on a carrier.

  “Thanks for listening,” she said as she and Sean walked back into town. “You’re a nice shoulder to cry on.” A little bit of bubble was back.

  Sean did a lot of list
ening during the next week—on the ski slopes, in the dining room of the lodge, in the swimming pool. Sandra had crowded a lot of life into twenty-six years.

  Then she invited him to her apartment for dinner. Sean knew he should not accept, and yet he did. Wine, fondue, cool jazz on the phonograph. A textbook seduction scene.

  After dinner they sat in front of the blazing hearth. “Do you like me, Sean?”

  He gathered her into his arms and caressed her back. “You know that I do, Sandra. But you deserve better than a quick grab because you’re on the rebound from a tragedy.” He had wanted to accept the invitation in her voice, but something held him back.

  “You’ve been wonderful.… I might have killed myself.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. And whatever help I’ve been would be undone if I went to bed with you. So stay in my arms for a few minutes, and then we’ll say goodbye.”

  * * *

  Jimmy McGuire was waiting for him when Sean returned to the room at the lodge. A compulsive postcard writer, Jimmy did not even look up from the stack of cards on which he was working. “Did you go to bed with her?” he asked.

  “It would have been unfair to take advantage of her.”

  “And you’re the one who thinks you don’t have any faith.”

  Sean shook the memories from his mind. He could hear the sounds of Nora preparing dinner for him downstairs. The first woman to prepare dinner for him since Sandra Walker.

  * * *

  Sean studied Nora, seated across the dinner table. Even in a sweat shirt and jeans, she was beautiful. In addition to the beauty, there were now also poise and sophistication.

  “Is there something wrong with me, Sean?” she asked. “You’re staring.”

  “I was just thinking that with candlelight and wine you ought to be wearing black lace instead of a black sweat shirt.”

  Nora laughed. “That’s a terrible thing for a priest to say!”

  “Probably,” he conceded. “I do appreciate what you’re doing, though, Nora. And it’s all right for you to give me the lecture that you’ve very carefully prepared.”