Thy Brother's Wife

by Andrew M. Greeley

  Paul’s heart sank. He had been a fool to tell Chris about his longtime affair with Maggie. It seemed amusing to brag about it in those days. Damn Chris and her memory. Even worse, Maggie’s daughter, Nicole, had told his daughter Eileen that Maggie had left a note addressed to Congressman Cronin but that her father had taken it. So Shields probably knew about the affair. If Chris implicated Paul in Maggie’s suicide, his seat in Congress would be worthless. Daley wouldn’t even slate him in 1970.

  But there would be no way that Chris could know about the note. “Good hunting, Chris,” he said brazenly. “You just try to involve me in this tragedy.”

  “Believe me, lover boy, I intend to.”

  * * *

  Sean was surprised but delighted when his secretary told him that Congressman Cronin had come to see him, but the dull look in his brother’s eyes and the lifeless tone in his voice suggested that Paul was in trouble. “What’s wrong, Paul? Can I help?”

  “As a matter of fact, that’s what I wanted to talk about. I think you may be able to be a big help. You see—well, I don’t know quite how to put it. Maggie Shields had a crush on me for a long time; you remember the way she was back when she was a teenager. Well, whatever her problems, she got the idea that she was in love with me.… As God is my witness, Sean, there hadn’t been anything between us—it was all in her imagination—but she left a suicide note addressed to me. There’s a reporter in Washington … if she ever gets her hands on that note, if Tom Shields should be angry and give her the note.… You know what Daley thinks about that sort of thing.”

  “You want me to go to Tom Shields and ask him to destroy the note?” Sean asked.

  “You’ve always been close to Tom. He trusts you. You can explain that there never was anything between me and Maggie—”

  “Of course, I’ll try,” Sean said. He couldn’t refuse Paul, even though he knew that it might mean the end of his friendship with Tom Shields.

  * * *

  They were sitting in Tom Shields’s house early on a Wednesday afternoon. The first snow of the year had dusted the barren backyard of the house. Tom was thin, pale, haggard, still painfully mourning.

  “How did he know about the letter?” he asked Sean.

  “Apparently Nicole saw it on the bedstand.”

  “Damn, I thought she might have. I’ve been afraid to ask her.… Do you want to see it?”

  “If you want to show it to me, Tom,” he said gently.

  Tom Shields riffled a notebook on his desk and pulled out a piece of light blue feminine stationery. He jabbed it at Sean.

  Sean unfolded the note, read it quickly, and folded it up again. “Paul says that there was never anything between them, that it was all part of Maggie’s problem.”

  “Your brother was very much part of her problem.” Tom Shields was icy cold. “He’s lying, Sean. He’d been carrying on with her for years, God knows how many years. Maggie was a confused, unhappy, superficial woman, God rest her. I did everything I could, but none of it was good enough. Still, everything I tried to do was canceled out by that lousy bastard—” Tom’s voice turned into a sob.

  “I don’t know what to say, Tom. I’m broken up over Maggie’s death too.”

  “But not so broken up that you won’t try to take that note away from me to save your brother from scandal.… I suppose you know that a reporter has already called to interview me about Maggie and her relationship with Paul? And so you’ve come to save his hide?”

  “It’s up to you, Tom,” Sean said. He held out the folded paper.

  Tom threw a matchbook at Sean. “Burn the goddamn thing. Only don’t say another word to me as long as you live.”

  * * *

  Sean felt a momentary pang of compassion for his brother as Paul strode briskly across the lobby of the Illinois Athletic Club toward the couch where Sean was waiting for him. Paul shook hands with two men, smiled genially at another, and waved at two more men during the quick twenty-yard walk. Trim and fit in a perfectly fitting pinstriped suit, the Congressman displayed his quick wit and easy charm even though fear must have been gnawing at him.

  “Did you get it?” Paul’s voice cracked.

  “I did.”

  “Where is it? I can’t risk anyone making a copy.” Once the smile vanished, the pallor on Paul’s face was evident.

  “I burned it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. How long was your affair with Maggie going on? Since you came back from Korea?”

  “Not really. Like I told you, it was mostly in her mind. Poor Maggie was not very well. Come on, let’s have lunch.” Paul tried to recapture some of his usual nonchalance.

  Sean did not believe his brother. Paul was a pathetic liar. “I’ve got to get back to the office. There’s a lot of work to do.”

  Paul’s face registered his disappointment. “I was counting on it.”

  “Can’t be helped.”

  So many things had changed since they were boys. Paul had been the bigger and older and more successful son then. Now, for all his political success, he didn’t have the feel of a winner.

  Sean’s compassion turned to triumph. Then the triumph turned to guilt.

  * * *

  That night Sean sat in his room in the cathedral rectory, the old brown spiral notebook in front of him, the page empty. His pen was in his hand, but no words would come. Angrily, he put the pen aside. There was a knock at the door and Father Kane entered, one of the young priests on the cathedral staff.

  “Hi, Terry,” he said. Whatever the problem, he had to smile cheerfully at the other clergy lest they be afraid they were in trouble with him. “What is it?”

  “Nora Cronin called when you were on the phone about twenty minutes ago.” He extended a note to Sean. “I told her you were talking to the Apostolic Delegation, and she said I shouldn’t interrupt you.”

  One of the many disadvantages of being a bishop was that you had to put up with tedious calls from supercilious Italian junior staff members of the Delegate. “Thanks, Terry, I’ll call her right back.”

  Nora had been worried about Mickey. He didn’t seem to be bouncing back from the cold he had had several weeks before. She had taken him to the hospital for tests. Sean had been so shattered by the terrible meeting with Tom Shields that he had not thought to call her to find out how the little boy was doing.

  He dialed the number and a child’s voice said, “Congressman Cronin’s residence. This is Noreen Cronin speaking.”

  “Hi, Noreen, it’s Uncle Sean. Is your mother home?”

  “Oh, hi. Sure, Mom’s home. Just a minute, I’ll get her.”

  “Hello, Sean.” Nora sounded like a stranger.

  Sean knew that something was terribly, terribly wrong. “What’s the matter with him, Nora?”

  “He has leukemia.”

  * * *

  Mickey Cronin died just before Christmas of 1969. He was two and a half years old. He had been a happy, golden little boy until the very end, laughing, playing, enjoying life, teasing his mother and sisters, unperturbed by his stay in the hospital and the various treatments the doctors gave him in a futile attempt to save his life. Death came quickly on the nineteenth of December. A mild cold had turned into a sudden high fever. His mother rushed him to the hospital. Then, the next morning, while Nora and the three solemn little girls stood around the bed, the life on this earth of Michael Paul Cronin came to an end. The girls, the older two imitating their mother, were solemn and self-possessed. The weeping Noreen insisted that her mother and sisters pray for Mickey. By the time Bishop Cronin arrived, Noreen had stopped crying. “Oh, Uncle Sean,” she exclaimed enthusiastically, “Jesus and Mary came and took Mickey home to Heaven with them.”

  Congressman Cronin arrived only after the body of little Mickey had been taken to Donnellan’s funeral home. He had not understood from what his wife had told him the night before that Mickey’s condition was as critical as it turned out to be. And so, because of an importa
nt subcommittee meeting that he had to attend before the Christmas recess, he had taken a late plane.

  Nora rejected a wake. She wanted to have a simple funeral the next morning, for only the family. The wonderful little boy’s body must be quickly and discreetly put in the ground without any time for either grief or consolation. Paul agreed, and his tight-lipped brother offered no objections. But Mickey’s sisters would not hear of it. Their little brother was to be sent on a long journey to Heaven, and they wanted a spectacular farewell. So the funeral was delayed a day, and the classmates of each of the girls filed into the church just before the Mass of the Resurrection began.

  Most of the rest of St. Titus parish was there, and much of the Chicago political establishment. The poinsettias were already on the altar for Christmas, and young Eileen Cronin would not permit their removal. In fact, Eileen, not her mother, took charge of the funeral arrangements, even to the extent of selecting the reading for her uncle, the story of Jesus and Mary and Joseph fleeing into Egypt. The Mayor and Mrs. Daley knelt right behind the family. Michael Cronin wept through much of the Mass. Paul was stony-faced and grave through the entire service.

  Sean told them that they must no longer think of Mickey as a little boy, but now as a full-fledged man, whose power of knowledge and love were only slightly less than that of an angel. Mickey now knew more things than all the people in the church put together and loved more powerfully than any of them could possibly love in this life. There were few dry eyes in the church when the Bishop’s sermon was over. At the grave site, Noreen said to her uncle, “I always knew Mickey would be smarter than I am.”

  BOOK VII

  I am the way, the truth, and the light. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you know me, you know my father too. From this moment you know him and have seen him.

  —John 14:6–7

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  1970

  Sean Cronin tossed aside the Chicago Tribune sports section. Broadway Joe Namath was telling the world how he personally would wipe out the Baltimore Colts. Sean felt a strong affinity for Broadway Joe. Tell off the world so you won’t hear your own demons.

  He had an appointment with Nora. It was the first time she had ever called for an appointment. At the quiet family Christmas party she had been sad but dry-eyed. When he left, she said firmly, “There’s something I want to talk to you about after the first of the year.”

  She was waiting for him in Jimmy McGuire’s office. Nora and Jimmy were joking as they had for so many years. But she was pale and shaken, the memories of her lost child haunting her.

  “Come to see me or Jimmy?” Sean asked, rather more abruptly than he had intended.

  “Jimmy. He smiles and laughs and you don’t.”

  “Come on down to my office anyway.” She followed him down the twisting stairway.

  “Are you going to get to the lake at all?” Sean asked, fumbling with the materials to make coffee on the sideboard behind his desk. It was impossible for him to see Nora and not imagine her pain at losing her son—his son.

  “Forget the coffee, for the love of Heaven, Sean,” she said with unaccustomed brusqueness. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  Sean sat down as he was ordered. “Okay, Nora, let’s have it.”

  Her blue eyes filled with tears. “Sean, your mother is still alive.”

  * * *

  Sister Margarita was very deferential. Bishops did not often visit obscure nursing homes in Lake County. Moreover, her elaborate respect suggested that Bishop Cronin deserved special honor. The damn woman was probably a feminist beneath her formal mask and looked on him as a hero for his reckless, spur-of-the-moment endorsement of the ordination of women, Sean thought.

  “Your Excellency must understand,” she said soothingly, “that our patient is not lucid for more than a few moments at a time and that there is no continuity between lucid intervals. Sometimes she thinks Mrs. Cronin is her mother, and other times she thinks that she is her own daughter. It is all very sad, although fortunately there does not seem to be any mental pain.”

  “I understand,” Sean said automatically as they followed the nun to his mother’s room.

  He had steeled himself during the ride there in Nora’s Mercedes—she had refused to let him drive. Yet the first sight in over thirty-five years of the woman who had brought him into the world was like a savage blow to his chest. The soft face, the vague, kind eyes, the faded golden hair—he had seen them all many times in his dreams; age and suffering had changed her gentle beauty, not destroying it but ravaging it so that one could appreciate what she once must have been.

  She did not seem to realize Sean was in the room.

  “Connie Crawford,” she exclaimed to Nora. “I haven’t seen you in ages. Where have you been? When are you going to marry that nice Reilly boy?”

  “I brought another guest,” Nora said softly, gesturing with a hesitant hand toward Sean.

  Mary Eileen peered at Sean as though she were seeing him through a thick fog. “Terry.” She choked. “Terry … oh, my God, Terry … where have you been? They told me I’d never see you again … dear wonderful Terry … I knew you’d come back.”

  She embraced Sean and sobbed against his chest. “Who’s Terry?” he whispered to Nora.

  “I think he’s the priest she knew when she was sick. Your Roman collar must bring back his memory.… Maybe—maybe you look like him too.”

  “It will be all right now, Mary Eileen, everything will be all right now.” He tried to sound reassuring. “We’ll take care of you.” He stroked her long, carefully combed gold and silver hair until the sobbing stopped.

  She pulled back. “I’m fine, Father.” She was stiff and formal again. “It was good of you to come. I suppose you know Father O’Connor from New Albany. He’s a very good friend of mine.”

  “Terry O’Connor?” said Sean cautiously.

  “Of course. He’s such a marvelous priest. He has a deep devotion to the Mother of Sorrows. He was a wonderful help to me when I was sick. I believe I’ve already introduced you to my daughter, Jane Cronin. She’s named after her aunt, you know.” Mary Eileen giggled. “Although she’s much prettier than her aunt, don’t you think?”

  “As pretty as you are, Mary Eileen,” said Sean.

  “Don’t call me that.” She was briefly petulant. “Mary Eileen died a long time ago. She was so sick she tried to kill the baby.…” The anger passed like a brief spring shower. “Will you dance with me, Mike? It’s been so long since we danced together.”

  Sean Cronin held his mother in his arms as tears streamed down his face. He would be many different people for Mary Eileen in future visits, he knew, but he would never be her son.

  * * *

  Nora slipped the Mercedes into the no-parking zone in front of Holy Name Cathedral. The police would not give a ticket to a car with Bishop Cronin in it.

  “I think I’d better have the whole story, Nora,” he said, breaking a somber silence that had lasted since they left St. Helena’s.

  Nora told him everything, from the conversation with Ed Connaire at Jane’s funeral through her discovery of the check to the first visit to Mary Eileen and, finally, her decision to tell him when Mickey died. “I had no right to protect you. I’m sorry.”

  “Protect me from what?” His voice was thick with suppressed anger.

  “God, Sean, don’t talk to me that way. Protect you from anger toward your father, from guilt when that anger is over, from all the bitterness and frustration that is pent up inside you, from the self-destruction that’s waiting to explode.…”

  “Shouldn’t that have been my choice?” His voice was unnaturally quiet.

  “I had a choice to make too,” she said simply.

  “That miserable vile old man. He locked up his wife for thirty-five years because he was ashamed of a nervous breakdown he probably caused.”

  “That’s not fair, Sean. She was unstable. She would have been in a home for thi
rty-five years in any case.”

  “And the goddamn family reputation? Can’t let the rumor get around that the Cronin genes are defective.”

  “Sean,” she pleaded.

  “Who is my father, Nora?” His anger seemed momentarily spent. “I have found a mother. Have I lost a father?”

  “You’re Sean Cronin, and I’ll always love you.”

  “That doesn’t solve the problem, does it?”

  “Don’t tell Uncle Mike that you know about Mary.” It was the wrong time and the wrong way to say it, but she had to.

  He turned to her and examined her face as though she were a stranger. “Why the hell not?”

  “It will kill him.”

  “He deserves to be killed.”

  “My God, Sean, who are you to judge that? How can anyone—”

  “He deprived me of my mother for thirty-five years,” he shouted. “I can judge that!”

  “If you have any love for me, Sean, leave him alone.” She had played her last card, knowing in the moment she laid it down that it was not high enough.

  “You care that much about him?”

  “I care about him, yes. I care more about you. After you’ve had the satisfaction of hurting him, you’ll suffer more than he does. Don’t you have enough guilt already?” She clutched at his arm, as if to physically restrain him.

  Sean wrenched away from her. “You’re a whore, Nora. You’re as bad as he is.” He jumped out of the car and ran off down Wabash Avenue in the bitter cold January twilight, his black coat flapping in the harsh winter wind.

  * * *

  Sean towered over his father, his fists balled into knots.

  “Something wrong, Sean?” the old man asked. The perennial Christmas tree of Chicago’s famous Loop glowed through one window of Mike’s apartment, and the neat orderly lines of streetlights twinkled through another.

  “How did you and Jane do it, Dad? How many people did you bribe? How many cops and doctors and undertakers did you have to pay off?”

  Mike Cronin was shaken by every word spoken by his son. “It was easy,” he said, his voice weak. “There actually was an auto accident. You were in the car. It was the third time she had tried to … to kill you. Our doctor, Roy Shields, was a good friend—he thought it was the best way out. We crossed state lines to confuse the police and the undertakers, had a closed casket wake. Only Jane and Roy and the chauffeur and I knew.…”