Thy Brother's Wife

by Andrew M. Greeley

  She took his hand in hers. Her fingers began to caress his arm.

  “It’s nice to have you all alone,” she said, leaving no doubt as to her meaning. She leaned against him, available, inviting.

  He put one arm around her and felt the expansion and contraction of the back of her rib cage beneath his hand. “You’re a beautiful woman, Angèlica. You’ve been a bright spot in two rather dismal years. I hope you don’t mind if I say thanks, but no thanks.” He kissed her forehead lightly and rose unsteadily to his feet.

  Much to his surprise, she did not seem offended. “My Francésco will be so unhappy to have missed you tonight. I will absolutely insist that his fool work at the Vatican does not keep him from dinner the next time you come.” Her smile glittered briefly. “It has been a marvelous evening, caro mio. And I will miss you.” She hastily pecked his cheek.

  As he walked rather uncertainly across the dark and deserted Piazza Farnese, Sean wondered what would have happened to him if he had turned down an American woman who had made herself so vulnerable. Say, an Irish-American woman from Chicago. He would be on the floor, wounded and bleeding.

  It was only when he had returned to the Via Sardegna, however, that it occurred to him that he was probably neither the first nor the last priest to be caught in the Principessa Alessandrini’s web. The thought disappointed him.

  * * *

  In February, Sean sat in the tiny office on the second floor of the Chicago chancery, stiff and uncertain in his new role as Vice-Chancellor for Personnel. There was a foot of snow on the streets of Chicago and the temperature was well below zero. Across from him sat his classmate, Peter Flynn. Either Peter wanted to transfer from the affluent parish in Lake Forest to which he was assigned or he was about to leave the priesthood. Sean’s heart sank. Transfers he could handle easily. Defections from the priesthood shocked and horrified him.

  They talked a bit about the seminary, about Rome, and about Lake Forest. Then there was an anxious pause.

  Peter broke the silence. “I’m going to leave the priesthood and marry. There’s a woman in the parish. She’s a widow with four children. We love each other. If I could marry her and stay in the priesthood, I would. The life is too lonely. There is no one who will love me if I remain a priest, and Martha … well, Martha has made me want to live again.”

  “What about your promise to the Church?” Sean asked bluntly.

  “I want to keep my promise to the Church.” Peter had tears in his eyes. “The Church won’t let me. If I could be a married priest, I’d stay on in the priesthood.”

  “I don’t think you would, Peter.” Sean’s voice was cold. “You’ve had two of the best assignments in the archdiocese. Good people. Good pastors. Good fellow priests. You’re unhappy in the priesthood because of something deep inside yourself. Now this woman comes along and provides you with an excuse—”

  “Don’t call Martha ‘this woman,’” Flynn said.

  “You’re going to bed with her, I suppose?”

  “Is that a question I have to answer to apply for a dispensation?”

  “No, it’s a question you have to answer if you don’t want to be suspended from your parish at this moment for causing a scandal among the laity. Do you think you could carry on an illicit love affair with one of your parishioners and not shock the rest of the parish?” Sean had no evidence that there was scandal in the parish, but he was willing to wager that there was, and Flynn did not deny the charge.

  “You’re a vindictive bastard!”

  “Because I believe that priests should keep their promise and not screw the first available woman parishioner who comes along?”

  White and tense with anger, Peter Flynn rose from his chair. “Fuck your dispensation!”

  Sean stared at the open doorway through which Flynn had stormed. He had handled things even worse than he feared he would.

  He walked down the corridor to Jimmy McGuire’s office.

  “Congratulations,” said that cheerful cleric as Sean slipped into the chair across from him.

  “For what?”

  “The boss has just made us monsignors. His secretary tells me the documents have come through from Rome. You’ll look gorgeous in purple buttons, my boy. Your father will celebrate, and Nora’s eyes will widen with admiration.”

  “Leave Nora out of it,” said Sean.

  “What happened?”

  “Peter Flynn.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jimmy dropped a stack of files into a drawer of his desk. “I heard he was thinking of leaving. Chew him out?”

  “I made him so angry that he didn’t even apply for a dispensation.”

  Jimmy shrugged philosophically. “No point in chewing them out once they’ve made up their minds. In fact, no point in chewing them out, no matter what the circumstances.”

  “He seemed so damned self-righteous, so proud of himself because he’d been able to get a woman into bed with him.”

  “If you always doubted that you could, maybe that’s something to be proud about.”

  “I don’t know what’s going wrong with the world and the Church, Jimmy. Drugs, violence, student protests, barbaric music, kids sleeping around, priests saying Mass with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, nuns and priests shacking up during summer institutes, half-naked dancing on the altar during services … the world’s going crazy.”

  Jimmy sighed. “The world has always been crazy. Go easy on people like Peter. There, but for the grace of God, and that sort of thing.”

  “I’d never do anything like that,” Sean insisted. “Maybe I’m old-fashioned, Jimmy. When I make a commitment, I keep it.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  1965

  On a sticky, humid, partially overcast Thursday afternoon in late July, Paul Cronin walked impatiently back and forth in front of the broken-down South Shore railroad station in the downtown slums of Michigan City, Indiana. The escalating war in Vietnam seemed far away, as did the race riots in the nation’s big cities.

  Down the street, with considerable huffing and puffing, the battered old orange trolley train turned the corner and chugged to a weary stop in front of the station. Chris Waverly stepped off uneasily, her light green dress wilted and her blond hair rumpled. “So that’s what it was like fifty years ago!” she said. “I’m sorry about those articles I’ve written in favor of mass transportation. Give me the auto and the airplane any time. Hi, lover boy.” Her kiss was lingering and inviting. “See how much I’m willing to suffer just to spend a few hours with you?”

  Paul looked anxiously around to make sure that none of his neighbors were at the train stop. He had pleaded with Chris to rent a car, but she assured him that she would lose her way in the wilderness of northern Indiana. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come to Chicago. I didn’t know that you’d be in town, and Nora left me in charge of the girls.”

  “Have I complained? I’ve always wanted to see your summer hideaway.”

  On the lakeshore the haze was lifting and the overcast blowing away. The winds were changing as promised, and the humidity would be gone in a few hours. Paul pushed the accelerator of his Porsche hard, and the car swept down the drive at sixty-five miles an hour.

  “You’re going a bit fast, aren’t you?” Chris asked, clinging to his arm. “Slow down. I’ll keep. Besides, these dunes and lake of yours are kind of pretty.”

  Paul reduced the speed slightly. He loved the thrill of reckless driving just as he loved the thrill of a reckless love affair carried on while his wife was in Chicago. The excitement of the risk he was taking was almost as good as the excitement of making love to Chris again.

  At the Michianna Beach Inn, a few miles down the lake from his home, a room had been reserved for “Mr. and Mrs. Waverly.” Fortunately, Paul had never been at the sleek new luxury motel. The Oakland Beach Irish preferred their own homes and the old familiar restaurants.

  It was a bad day for Chris to show up with little notice. Nora had impulsively driven to Chicago to “do something
” about Mary’s persistent cough. It was both the housekeeper’s and the baby-sitter’s day off. Only at the last minute had Paul been able to draft the fifteen-year-old Hanrahan girl to watch the children. He felt rushed and anxious.

  Chris was in no mood to be hurried. Their lovemaking was leisurely and fulfilling.

  When Paul got up from the bed to get dressed, Chris said, “Sneaking around like this is exciting, isn’t it, Paul?” He could not resist the arms stretched out to him like a hungry child’s. Instantly he was back in her arms and back in bed once again.

  * * *

  With careful solemnity, Noreen Cronin began to negotiate the stairs from her house down to the beach, one step at a time, both feet securely on each step before she tried the next one. She kept her balance with her sand shovel, waving it in the air like a royal scepter.

  Noreen knew that she was not supposed to go to the beach by herself. She was being a bad girl. Yet today everyone was being bad. Even Marcie Hanrahan’s mother was bad. She had come along the beach shouting that Marcie had to go home and help with the supper, and she should “this very instant bring those little brats up to their father.”

  Noreen didn’t like being called a little brat. She didn’t like being left alone in the house with her sister Eileen, who was so busy with her friend Nicole that she wouldn’t play even one game with Noreen.

  If Eileen was being bad, then she could be bad too. Anyway, she had to finish her sand castle before Daddy came home. Daddy would like the castle.

  She continued her careful descent.

  * * *

  “It’s a nice area.” Chris was carefully arranging her makeup as Paul rushed her back to the South Shore depot. “I think I’m going to enjoy living here.”

  Paul was baffled by Chris’s assumption that he was going to divorce Nora and make her his wife. He had never given her any reason to think so. “Nora would never give up the house,” he said, trying to make a joke of it. “And even if she did, we wouldn’t dare live there.”

  “How terribly provincial, but then this is the provinces, isn’t it? I suppose you and I don’t belong in the provinces anyway.” She put away her compact and squeezed his leg. “But we do belong together, don’t we, Paul?”

  Paul groaned inwardly. Maybe they did belong together, but he could not possibly marry her.

  * * *

  When Paul returned home, Eileen and Nicole Shields were in the recreation room listening to records. “Everything okay? Where’s the baby-sitter?”

  “Her mother came and made her go home,” Eileen said, with manifest disinterest. “So we came up to the house.”

  “Smart girl.” Paul pecked at her approvingly. “The baby in her room?”

  “I suppose so.”

  Paul mixed himself a gin and tonic as a reward for the tensions that had accompanied the pleasures of the afternoon. Chris worried him. She had seemed a little bit too flaky today. She couldn’t really believe that he would give up his family for her.

  He went to his room and put on a swimsuit. A little dip in the lake would do very nicely. First he would make sure about Noreen.

  Gin and tonic in hand, he pushed open the door of Noreen’s room. She wasn’t there. He checked the rest of the house. No Noreen.

  He rushed back to the rec room. “Where is she? Where’s the baby?” he shouted at Eileen.

  “I have to go home now.” Nicole scurried quickly out the door and down the steps.

  Eileen’s face turned ashen. “Isn’t she in her room?”

  “You little fool. You’ve lost the baby!”

  “You lost her,” Eileen shouted back. “You went away when Mommy said you should watch us.”

  He slapped her and pushed her across the room. Then he raced out of the house.

  He cut a furious path through the sun worshipers on the beach. Everyone had seen Noreen. The lifeguard thought she had walked up the beach. Two mothers thought she had walked down the beach. Some teenagers swore that they had seen some men take her on a boat. A younger child was certain that Noreen was somewhere building sand castles near the house.

  Martin O’Riordan, an ancient Oakland Beach patriarch, announced pompously to the crowd that was gathering around Paul, “We’ll organize a search party to find her.”

  “You goddamn fool!” Paul yelled. He was becoming irrational. “If you’d been watching her in the first place, she wouldn’t be lost.” He turned and ran, paying little attention to the murmurs of astonishment that trailed after him.

  Halfway down the beach he lost his wind and sank into the sand, breathing heavily. Oh, God, please help me find her. Nora will never forgive me.

  Then he trudged slowly back to the house. Must get hold of yourself … call the police … get professional help … can’t crack up.…

  Three teenagers were sitting at the foot of the stairs to the Cronin house. They stood up as he approached them.

  “Hi, Mr. Cronin,” one of the boys said, a tall slender lad whose name Paul remembered was Bob.

  “Have you seen my baby?” he asked desperately.

  “Sure. We found her sleeping on the dunes. She said she wanted to come home, so Michelle carried her here.”

  “Where is she?” Paul exploded.

  “We brought her up to the house and Eileen put her to bed,” Michelle said.

  Paul dashed up the steps and into the house.

  “You could at least say thank you,” Michelle hollered after him, with all the Irishwoman’s rage at injustice. “We saved her.”

  * * *

  The next afternoon Paul was relaxing on the balcony with the Sunday papers, thanking all the saints in heaven that he had calmed down before Nora returned. Tom and Maggie had come for dinner the night before and not a word had been said about the disaster of the afternoon.

  Nora came up from the beach from her daily swim, a towel around her shoulders.

  “You made a real ass out of yourself yesterday, didn’t you?” she began without any preliminaries. “You hurt Eileen, ranted at your neighbors, insulted that old fool O’Riordan, and acted like an insensitive bastard in front of the teenagers who saved your daughter. Don’t look surprised. You should know you can’t keep anything secret in a resort community.”

  “It was all a misunderstanding.…” He searched desperately for an excuse.

  “It sure was. I want to know the name of the misunderstanding. Don’t bother lying to me. I can tell by the look on your face that you were with another woman.”

  Paul was intimidated by her deadly composed voice.

  “Well—er—now, Nora, it really isn’t a very important—I mean, that is—”

  “Who is she?” Nora demanded.

  To his amazement, Paul found himself blurting out the name. “Chris Waverly.” He reached for the empty beer can on the end table next to him and then put it down nervously. “It’s not an important relationship, Nora. I mean, it isn’t serious. You shouldn’t—”

  “Which one of us leaves?”

  “Which one of us leaves where?”

  “This house, this minute. Either you get out or I do.”

  Paul stood up awkwardly. “I guess I can move back to Glenwood Drive.” He hesitated.

  “Back to a hotel room in Chicago. I don’t want you in this house, and I don’t want you on Glenwood Drive either.”

  “Now, Nora, this isn’t the end of everything. I’m sure we can work it out. There’s no reason—”

  “Get out!” She lost her composure and began to scream at him. “Get out and stay out!”

  * * *

  There was a stack of problems on Sean Cronin’s desk that Monday morning. Two more applications for dispensations from the priesthood; three letters, two of them signed, accusing priests and nuns of fornication; a signed petition of complaint against the principal of a Catholic school in a northwestern suburb, claiming that she had ridiculed the doctrine of the Assumption to a group of children on August 15; and a complaint from a pastor that his curate was tellin
g people in the confessional that birth control was not a sin.

  Sean tore up the anonymous letter and threw it in the wastebasket. One of the priests who was accused of having a lover, he noted, was fifty-seven years old.

  “No fool like an old fool,” he muttered to himself. Then he felt ashamed of his snap judgment. Signed or not, a complaint was a form of character assassination that he ought not to believe until he had more evidence.

  The telephone on the desk next to him jangled. He picked it up and heard the unmistakable voice of his father: “What the hell is Nora doing throwing Paul out of the house? She won’t even speak to him. All she would say to me was that he can have his whores.”

  “I haven’t heard anything. But I think we can assume that if Nora’s thrown Paul out, he must have given her good reason.”

  “That’s not the point. The point is you should fix it up. They’ll both listen to you.” The phone line went dead. Sean eased his phone back on its cradle and it rang almost at once.

  “Cronin here,” he said, knowing full well that it was a Cronin on the other end of the line too: Paul Cronin, this time.

  * * *

  Sean saw his brother in the office in the cathedral rectory rather than in the chancery. If Paul felt any strain, he did not show it. Indeed, he spent ten minutes discussing the National League pennant race and the St. Louis Cardinals. Finally, almost as an afterthought, he said, “I suppose Nora has talked to you?”

  “No,” said Sean. “She has not.”

  “We have a problem. She knows that I’ve been seeing another woman. She’s thrown me out.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s one of those things that happens. You know what I mean. Not a big deal at all. A reporter from Washington.”

  Sean could hardly believe his brother would be so casual about his infidelity. “I presume it’s not a serious relationship?”

  “Just a passing thing. Nora’s a wonderful wife, but sometimes marriage and sex are just not the same thing.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do about it?” The dull, dark office with its heavy old furniture perfectly reflected Sean’s mood at the moment.